{"id":205645,"date":"2026-03-05T14:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/205645\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T14:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:25:09","slug":"more-power-to-lurie-new-ballot-measure-could-give-sf-mayors-bigger-say-in-hiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/205645\/","title":{"rendered":"More power to Lurie? New ballot measure could give SF mayors bigger say in hiring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid a push to overhaul San Francisco\u2019s Kafkaesque city charter<\/a>, officials are considering granting even more power to the mayor.<\/p>\n

Sources say measures proposed for the November election that would overhaul the city\u2019s governing document are designed to increase mayoral authority and control. The changes would include granting the mayor the ability to hire many city department heads, including the police chief, an authority that is now shared with the Police Commission.<\/p>\n

The proposal follows a monthslong process (opens in new tab)<\/a> launched by Mayor Daniel Lurie and Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who assembled a task force to examine reforms<\/a> to the city\u2019s 500-plus-page governing document. The effort incorporated several recommendations from a November report (opens in new tab)<\/a> by the nonprofit think tank SPUR.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office declined to comment. Mandelman said many of the ideas have been discussed for years, and the timing is right to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should make [the changes] happen,\u201d Mandelman said. \u201cIt makes sense to do this in this cycle. This is the right year to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SPUR report laid out 10 recommendations, including shifting more\u00a0 hiring power to the mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe charter should be amended to allow the mayor to directly hire and remove executive-branch department heads,\u201d the report said. \u201cThis change would align accountability with public expectations, ensuring that voters can hold the mayor responsible for results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other proposed changes, sources say, would allow most commissioners to be removed<\/a> at will by their appointing authority \u2013 either the mayor or the Board of Supervisors. The measure would also restore \u201cdeputy mayors\u201d to oversee city departments, a structure eliminated by voters in the early 1990s (opens in new tab)<\/a>. It would give the mayor greater flexibility to reorganize city agencies, including potentially facilitating a merger of the Department of Building Inspection and the Planning Department.<\/p>\n

\"SeveralSupervisor Rafael Mandelman and Lurie are pushing to increase mayoral authority and control. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades\/The Standard<\/p>\n

Sources say that Lurie believes greater authority would bring greater accountability, and that he cannot fully deliver on his promise to revitalize San Francisco without stronger executive tools.<\/p>\n

Other proposals under discussion include changes to the city\u2019s contracting process<\/a> and raising the threshold for citizen-led initiatives (opens in new tab)<\/a> and Board of Supervisors proposals to qualify for the ballot. A separate effort is underway to reduce the number of city commissions.<\/p>\n

Failed effort in 2024<\/p>\n

This is not the first recent attempt to restructure City Hall\u2019s balance of power.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the now-defunct political group TogetherSF launched a similar campaign<\/a>. After multiple revisions to its proposal<\/a>, the group qualified Proposition D for the 2024 ballot. The measure focused on cutting commissions but also empowered the mayor to hire and fire department heads and remove certain appointees.<\/p>\n

Prop. D became entangled in a contentious mayoral race as Mark Farrell, a candidate and former supervisor, developed close ties<\/a> to the measure and to TogetherSF. Prop. D failed<\/a>, as did Farrell\u2019s quest for mayor, and TogetherSF disbanded shortly afterward, merging into Neighbors for a Better San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Jay Cheng, executive director of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, said the group strongly supports Lurie\u2019s charter reform effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s reminiscent of and reflective of our ideas at TogetherSF,\u201d Cheng said. \u201cWe\u2019re glad to see this moving forward as part of Lurie\u2019s charter reform measure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a critic of Prop. D who helped defeat the measure, said he supports increasing mayoral power but urged Lurie to engage in broader discussions before moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I support that recommendation, I think it would benefit from being done in consultation with existing commissions that often know more about their departments than a new mayor,\u201d Peskin said.<\/p>\n

A poll (opens in new tab)<\/a> obtained by The Standard found that voters largely support expanding mayoral authority. The survey, conducted in late January by David Binder Research among 600 likely November voters, found that 70% support giving the mayor more power to reorganize or combine departments to improve coordination and accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe high level of support for this policy reflects alignment between positive opinion of the mayor, lower opinion of the Board of Supervisors, and a desire to fix what\u2019s seen as a broken system, prone to corruption,\u201d the poll analysis states.<\/p>\n

Lurie and city leaders will decide how to place a measure on the ballot, either through approval by a majority of the Board of Supervisors or by gathering voter signatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid a push to overhaul San Francisco\u2019s Kafkaesque city charter, officials are considering granting even more power to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[6702,21545,636,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-205645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-board-of-supervisors","9":"tag-city-charter","10":"tag-daniel-lurie","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}