November election in San Francisco

You will be horrified to learn that City voters are offered a menu of A through O propositions to make choices on. I'm being polite when I say this seems excessive.

I can tell you what I did. My research was not exhaustive -- nor, I suspect will hardly anyone else's be.

Prop A. Money for maintenance and upgrades to aging school buildings. YES

Prop B. Money for necessary improvements to San Francisco General Hospital, Laguna Honda and community health projects and parks. YES

Prop. C. Creates an Office of The Inspector General in the Controller’s Office. Since the current mayoral administration has been notably corrupt, this is an attempt at a corrective. We need something. Two of the incumbent mayor's senior staff are already in prison, and likely there will be more. Will a new Inspector General help? Maybe. Something in addition to federal prosecutions seems necessary. YES

Prop. D. Gives the mayor additional powers over the City's maze of commissions and boards. Our governance is a mess, but centralizing these things in the mayor's office seems more likely to hide their workings than to help. NO

Prop. E. Creates a task force to study the maze of commissions and boards. Seems more likely than Prop. D to utilize community input, but I find it hard to be enthusiastic.YES (I guess.)

Prop. F. San Francisco has a cop shortage. To try to incentivize senior police officers to stay on the job past their retirement date, this would give them their retirement pay plus their continued regular salaries. Seems like a heck of a boondoggle to me. It was a boondoggle when the Secret Service tried the same thing. NO

Prop. G. Rent subsidies for very, very, very low income seniors already in "affordable housing". What are we going to do? -- put 'em out to sea on an iceberg? YES

Prop. H. Earlier retirement (age 55) with full benefits for firefighters. The politics of the firefighters unions are a plague on the City, but I can go for this one. It's a tough job, keeping us from burning up. YES

Prop. I. Include per diem nurses and 911 operators in the regular city pension and benefit system. YES

Prop. J. Gives the mayor and the superintendent of schools more power to oversee the spending of the Children’s Fund. Can't figure out what this one does and the ballot pamphlet contains no arguments. Some of the more progressive Supes have signed on. YES (I guess.)

Prop. K. Close the Great Highway, making it functionally a park. I realize this is going to piss off the people who live adjacent, but many of us from the rest of the city already use it for open space to walk on and reach the beach. Besides, it is going to be overrun by flooding and sand as the climate warms and the ocean rises. Might as well get some pleasure out of it in the meantime. YES

Prop. L. Tax on Uber, Lyft, and Waymo to fund the Muni public transit system. Makes sense. YES

Prop. M. Rejigger business taxes so big companies (yes, PG&E) pay more and small businesses less. YES

Prop. N. Create a fund, from private donations, to help cops, sheriffs, nurses, paramedics, and 911 dispatchers pay their student loans. The City has trouble hiring ... YES

Prop. O. Makes San Francisco a sanctuary city for reproductive freedom, including barring cops for sharing any information about reproductive health choices made by anyone in this jurisdiction. Of course. YES

• • •

I shared my reactions to the California State ballot measures here.