Rival plans for mental health reform make S.F. ballot
Since Mayor London Breed and Board of Supervisors cannot agree on how to address the city’s mental health, addiction and homeless crises, San Francisco voters may now be faced with dueling ballot measures in March that share the same goal: increase services for the city’s most vulnerable.
The supervisors and the mayor filed their respective ballot measures Tuesday, the deadline for the March 2020 election. Mental health reform remains a shared goal for both sides and the two ballot measures have much in common, but the issue is now tangled in politics.
Both sides spent much of the day accusing the other of hindering any chance at reconciliation, but there is still time for the city to avoid an expensive, nasty ballot fight. While the measures cannot be altered, they can both be removed by Nov. 27 if Breed and the supervisors can agree to handle the issue through legislation rather than at the ballot box.
Breed’s staff also introduced legislation at the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that mirrored her ballot measure, underscoring her preference not to involve voters in the issue.
The plans are similar in name and substance: Mental Health SF, was unveiled earlier this year by Supervisors Matt Haney and Hillary Ronen, while the mayor announced her own plan — UrgentCareSF — Tuesday. Both the supervisors and the mayor have a similar vision for how they would increase care and services in the city, though Ronen and Haney have called for systemic change at the health department while Breed has called for an overhaul that doesn’t “reinvent the wheel.”
“Can’t these people talk to each other?” Dr. Paul Linde, a former psychiatric emergency room doctor at San Francisco General Hospital, told the Chronicle Monday. “The plans are similar, and I don’t think one is better than the other. I’m frustrated that they can’t get together and hammer out some details.”
Both sides said they would rather not go to the ballot, as nearly everything they want to do can be done through legislation. But the two parties have said they’re willing go to the voters to preserve their own plan.
“I don’t think we should be going to the ballot. Period,” Breed told The Chronicle’s Editorial Board Tuesday. “But I will do what I need to do in order to make sure that this is done right.”
Mental Health SF, the measure created by Haney and Ronen, was borne out for frustration with the Department of Public Health, which they felt was too slow and incremental in responding to the city’s mental health crisis.
“There’s a fundamental vision of restructuring the system that they haven’t been willing to agree to,” Haney said. “The Department of Public Health has had opportunity after opportunity to be able to have a plan or a vision, and now we’re supposed to trust that they are going to get this done?”
Breed implored the supervisors to avoid the ballot and, instead, pass legislation to make the changes. If they go to the ballot, she said, the city could be on the hook for an extremely costly and overly ambitious endeavor. At first, the mayor was willing to talk with the supervisors to come up with a compromise. But she pulled out of those talks last month over some key differences.
“I want to accept the responsibility for something I created, not something that I don't believe in that someone else created,” Breed said. “But I'm happy to continue to talk (to the supervisors) and come to the table to hopefully get this thing off the ballot and in the board.”
Meanwhile, the supervisors said they offered to pull their measure — but the mayor’s office has refused to engage with them, and they only found out about recent developments through inquiries from The Chronicle.
“It feels like an immature game,” Ronen said.
Trisha Thadani and Dominic Fracassa are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com, dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani, @dominicfracassa