After a year-long process to evaluate and propose changes to San Francisco’s web of city commissions, the Board of Supervisors may decide to ignore much of the recommendations.
The city has 152 commissions where residents can volunteer to help advise elected officials and city staff, shape policy decisions and provide oversight of government functions.
As part of Measure E, which voters approved in November 2024, the Commission Streamlining Task Force was established to evaluate the efficacy and necessity of each of the commissions and take actions accordingly, such as eliminating, consolidating, or modifying the functions of certain bodies.
The task force presented its final report at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting for a hearing.
“Decisions were nuanced and tailored to the needs of individual bodies after much deliberation and public input,” said Rachel Alonso, project director in the City Administrator’s Office, during the presentation.
The task force recommends that the city eliminate or consolidate more than 40% of its boards and committees, reducing the number of commissions to 87.
“Having a smaller universe of bodies can actually strengthen the commission system by allowing those that are kept to be more visible and robust venues for public participation,” Alonso said.
Recommendations grilled
Some recommendations that drew criticism from the public, who showed up to the meeting in droves, included moving several commissions from the City Charter into the administrative code, giving the mayor more power in commission appointments, and changing the Police Department’s employee discipline process.
“Commissions should be seen as an extension of the executive branch,” Alonso said. “Most commissions are not intended to serve as a check and balance over the mayor’s authority, although there are certainly exceptions.”
Supervisor Shamann Walton and Board President Rafael Mandelman also took issue with some of the recommendations.
“Proposing to change bodies that communities voted on that are in the charter, proposing to eliminate independent oversight of law enforcement bodies — all those things are just mind-boggling to me,” Walton said.
Several current and former members of the San Francisco Police Department, like Paul Chignell, spoke out against the recommendation to give the police chief unilateral power to discipline an employee without going through the Police Commission. Chignell is a legal defense administrator for the San Francisco Police Officers Association and a former SFPD captain.
“Handing sole power to the chief of police for administrative discipline, including termination of employment, would be a severe impediment to due process for police officers,” Chignell said during public comment. “The current system ensures accountability to discipline errant officers, fairness and civilian control.”
Dozens of city commissioners also showed up to speak out against the proposed changes to move several commissions, including the city’s Commission on the Status of Women and the San Francisco Arts Commission, from the charter to the administrative code.
“The Commission on the Status of Women must remain a governance commission in the charter with all of its current authority,” said Commission on the Status of Women member Sophia Andary. “Converting it to an advisory committee would strip its authority, weaken community voices and undermine its purpose.”
This ‘is not San Francisco’
Others raised concerns over the proposed changes in the commission structure, including allowing the mayor to hire and fire most department heads and giving the mayor the ability to change the appointment and removal processes of commissioners.
“It is in search of a solution that is consolidating power in the executive branch,” said resident Jason Wyman during public comment. “That is not San Francisco.”
Walton sharply criticized the lack of diversity of task force members, an issue he believed played a factor in the decisions.
“The task force was about as diverse as a stack of $1 bills,” Walton said. “Achieving efficiency at the expense of diversity, at the expense of community voice, at the expense of coordination, at the expense of respect for various incomes, that is not what anybody intended to be from this process.”
The task force comprised four women and one man, all of whom appeared to be white. Task force members included representatives from the offices of the controller, the city attorney, the city administrator, and the mayor. One member, chair Ed Harrington, was selected by the Board of Supervisors.
The task force’s recommendations were crafted into two pieces of legislation for the board to consider — an ordinance reflecting the proposed changes to the Administrative Code and a charter amendment. The charter amendment would have to go before voters.
“It is highly unlikely that I, or any other member of the Board of Supervisors will introduce that particular charter amendment, or that this board would send that particular charter amendment to the voters in November,” said Mandelman.
Mandelman has asked the City Attorney’s Office to begin working with the board on drafting a charter amendment that implements some of the task force’s “non-controversial” recommendations, he said.
“I don’t think we’re going to touch many of the live wires,” Mandelman said.