Supervisor wants board to focus on S.F.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors for decades has weighed in on regional, state and federal issues, whether that’s through strongly worded resolutions urging action on a particular issue or giving city-sponsored support to specific bills and policies.
But Supervisor Joel Engardio now wants the board to focus on city issues only and avoid taking action or stating positions on nonmunicipal issues unless there’s agreement.
In a resolution, Engardio is asking his colleagues to support making it board policy to only pass resolutions about non-city issues when there is “clear consensus,” and as long as it steers clear of contentious issues.
The board decided Tuesday to push back a decision on the resolution, which gives Engardio time to draft language that will be more amenable to other members. So far Supervisors Myrna Melgar, Matt Dorsey and Aaron Peskin are cosponsors of the bill.
Engardio told the Chronicle in an interview that his resolution was intended to deal with the more than 70% of voters who, according to a recent Chronicle poll, disapprove of the job performance of the supervisors.
“This is an attempt to tell the residents that we are going to prioritize municipal affairs because there’s so much that we have to fix, ” Engardio told the Chronicle. “When there’s things outside our control — state or international or national — we can weigh in, but we don’t want to weigh in at the expense of the time needed to focus on the local issues.”
Engardio’s call for a policy change comes months after a highly publicized vote on one of the most controversial resolutions to come before the board in recent years.
Though it’s not specifically mentioned in the 1½-page resolution, Engardio’s proposed board policy change is a clear reaction to a resolution passed by the board in December that called for a cease-fire in Gaza and an end to the IsraelHamas conflict.
Engardio voted in favor of that resolution.
San Francisco joined more than 60 cities across the country in calling for a humanitarian cease-fire in the war, but the debate paralyzed the board for hours.
From 2 p.m. Jan. 9 until well past midnight, proPalestinian demonstrators formed snaking lines through City Hall to pressure the board to pass the resolution.
Authored by Supervisor Dean Preston, the resolution called for a humanitarian cease-fire and condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israelis and the subsequent killing — at the time — of more than 20,000 Palestinians by Israel in the ensuing months.
The resolution — which was controversial in part because of Jewish groups’ opposition to it as well as comments made by pro-Palestinian demonstrators — was ultimately passed on a 8-3 vote, with Supervisors Rafael Mandelman, Catherine Stefani and Dorsey dissenting.
That might have been the end of the story, but Mayor London Breed chose not to sign the cease-fire resolution in what critics called a highly inflammatory move. Breed said in a scathing letter that debate on the resolution had made the city “angrier, more divided and less safe.” Critics argued the letter was filled with anti-Arab, Islamophobic tropes and stereotypes, and the mayor even falsely claimed a Mission supervisor candidate was Jewish.
When the board considers nonmunicipal actions that are contentious, Engardio wrote, “it can be difficult for the Board to reach a simple majority on either side of the non-municipal issues,” which results in the city “spending committee time and resources debating an issue outside its direct control.”
Preston told the Chronicle in an interview the city weighs in on issues outside its control all the time, and warned that Engardio’s resolution doesn’t “change anything.”
“We do this all the time,” Preston said. “I did a resolution to encourage … state transit funding. Someone could have said at that time that the Board of Supervisors doesn’t make the decision on state budgets, so why weigh in? But I think it was important to do so.”
Preston also pointed to Engardio’s resolution last year to support a ballot measure encouraging San Francisco schools to once again offer algebra at the eighth-grade level, which the board had no control over.
And he pointed to resolutions by Stefani calling for action on gun control, which the board has little power over.
Preston added that he would question anyone who says the cease-fire resolution wasn’t city business, as the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis personally affected many of his constituents.
The Tenderloin, which is part of Preston’s district, has one of the highest proportions of Arab residents in the city.
“This resolution serves predictably as clickbait for two narratives that are out there,” Preston said. “One is the vilification of the board … as obstructing progress on matters that are frankly 100% within the control of the mayor. And it’s also clickbait for the narrative that introducing, considering and passing a resolution that at its core was about defending lives … is, by its nature, controversial.”
Engardio said he wants the city to focus and give opinion on the “issues we have control over.”
“Voters disapprove of the job we’re doing, which tells me that we need to roll up our sleeves more and focus more on the actual issues in San Francisco, because otherwise people would be happier at the job we’re doing,” he said.
“Can we walk and chew gum at the same time? Of course. … It’s just asking us to be mindful of what should be the priority.”