Mayor Daniel Lurie and Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman proposed three November ballot measures Thursday to reform San Francisco\u2019s charter, a document that sets the rules for how the city works.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The propositions, if approved by voters, would expand the power of the city\u2019s executive branch, including the powers of the mayor and city administrator. They would take power from city oversight commissions and the legislative branch, the Board of Supervisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The current system, Lurie and Mandelman wrote in a letter<\/a> to the city controller, \u201clocks in bureaucracy, diffuses accountability, and protects the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n Lurie and Mandelman wrote that voters find it \u201cdifficult\u201d to know \u201cwho is accountable when services fall short.\u201d Giving more power to the mayor, they continued, would create more \u201caccountability.\u201d<\/p>\n The initiatives will each need to gather about 51,000 signatures, or 10 percent of the city\u2019s registered voters, to make it onto the ballot. They will each require a simple majority of votes to pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n The measures closely resemble recommendations laid out in the think tank SPUR\u2019s report<\/a> from November 2025. At the time, the report was widely viewed as a prelude to a future ballot proposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n Starting in January, a 31-person working group assembled by the mayor and Mandelman called the Charter Reform Working Group<\/a> were invited to give their input on the mayor and Mandelman\u2019s proposals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those proposals have now been drafted. Here is a summary of each of the measures.<\/p>\n Mayoral power<\/p>\n This measure<\/a> shifts power from city commissions to the mayor.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the proposition does:<\/p>\n Gives sole power to the mayor to fire and hire most department heads. Currently, some commissions have some say over hiring, by providing a list to the mayor from which he must choose a new department head, for instance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Changes commissioners to at-will employment, which means they can be removed by the official who appointed them for any reason. Currently, if an official wants to remove a commissioner, they need to provide a specific, legitimate reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gives the mayor more power to reorganize departments.\u00a0<\/p>\n Removes prohibitions on employing deputy mayors<\/a>, who can oversee department heads. Currently, the mayor is technically the direct report for nearly 50 department heads.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ballot Access<\/p>\n This measure<\/a> will make it more difficult to put measures onto the ballot for city elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the proposition does:<\/p>\n Requires a majority of the Board of Supervisors to support a measure for it to qualify for the ballot. Currently, it only takes four supervisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Removes the ability of the mayor to put measures directly on the ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n Requires proponents of a measure to gather signatures from 8 percent of registered voters (about 40,000 at the moment) before a measure can be placed on the ballot. Currently, the requirement is 2 percent.<\/p>\n City administrator power and contracting<\/p>\n This measure<\/a> expands the power of the city administrator, especially over the city\u2019s contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the proposition does:<\/p>\n Allows the city administrator to make rules for contracting that apply across departments.\u00a0<\/p>\n Extends the city administrator\u2019s term from five years to 10 years.<\/p>\n Gives the city administrator the authority to propose laws around contracting, though the mayor or Board of Supervisors can veto or vote down.<\/p>\n Raises the threshold for which contracts need to be voted on by the Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n Puts the city administrator in charge of the city\u2019s technology and capital projects<\/p>\n All of these resemble the proposal that Lurie and Mandelman brought to the working group in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n One idea that was in Lurie and Mandelman\u2019s original proposal that seems to have been discarded was a plan to limit the amount of city money in baselines \u2014\u00a0measures, passed by voters, that dedicate portions of the city\u2019s budget to specific causes such as libraries, parks, and schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n At last tally, baselines accounted for about $2.2 billion of the city\u2019s budget<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mandelman has said that while he supported limiting baselines, it\u2019s too much to tackle right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the working group meetings<\/a>, some expressed skepticism that Lurie and Mandelman\u2019s proposals would appeal to voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think voters are going to be very concerned with what will appear to be a consolidation of power and possible corruption come November,\u201d said Kim Tavaglione, the executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, at one meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n In February, the mayor hinted<\/a> that he would pursue a proposition to limit future ballot measures after expressing displeasure at the CEO Tax<\/a>, a tax measure sponsored by labor groups that made it to the ballot that is now competing with a tax from San Francisco\u2019s business leaders.<\/p>\n Other working group members openly approved of Lurie\u2019s plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe do need stronger executive authority,\u201d said Steven Buss Bacio, the co-founder of the political pressure group GrowSF<\/a>. \u201cThe correct balance of power is that if voters don\u2019t like that executive, they vote them out in the next election.\u201d<\/p>\n As Mandelman sees it, the changes give the mayor power that \u201calign with people\u2019s expectations of our mayor.\u201d \u201cWe are a strong mayor city, and people expect the mayor to be the CEO, but we have a charter that doesn\u2019t really allow for that,\u201d he said, adding that he still thinks there are checks on the mayor\u2019s power.<\/p>\n More measures are likely to join the ballot through the Board of Supervisors, which has its own goals regarding streamlining. The board is currently considering recommendations from a task force deciding whether some of the city\u2019s commissions<\/a> should be cut, restructured, or stripped of some authority<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n