A local group has issued a new report saying San Francisco City Hall is failing to respond effectively.
The report comes as the city continues to struggle with an array of challenges, including a hollowed-out downtown, open-air drug markets, homeless encampments, and blight. Several reforms, including giving more power to the mayor, are suggested in the report compiled by Ken Miller, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California.
The mayor of San Francisco is already the most powerful mayoral offices in the state because it is the only place where the mayor runs both a city and county. But the mayor's power is still severely restrained.
"The mayor does not necessarily have line authority over the executive branch of city government; doesn't have the ability to, in many cases appoint or remove department heads or commission members," Miller said.
Commissions are another hot topic for the report's authors.
San Francisco currently has 130 commissions, far more than any other city in the state.
Kenishka Cheng, who heads up the group that sponsored the report, said many of San Francisco's commissions also overlap.
"There are probably three or four that are just 'children, youth, families.' There are a number of on homelessness," Cheng said. "There are a couple on land use, but they have some discrete functions. And what this allows for is an overwhelming amount of process. No member of the public knows who's on these commissions."
Some commissions are created by the Board of Supervisors and the mayor. Others are created by the voters through ballot measures.
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But the report found there is no mechanism to consolidate them or wind down older ones that have run their course.
Sharky Laguana, who sits on the newest of the city's commissions on homelessness, is in favor of seeing a smaller amount of commissions.
"My understanding is that we have 130 commissions, and more than 500 commissioners," Laguana said. "It's an awful lot of commissions. I think we probably would be well served to have fewer commissions than we currently have."
The new report also has recommendations on reforming the Board of Supervisors, and making it harder to put an issue on the ballot in San Francisco by saying voters are often overwhelmed by ballots that drag on for pages.
The sponsors of the report said they hope it will spark a conversation about new solutions for long-running city problems.
The mayor's office on Tuesday did not respond to requests for a comment on this story.
San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said he is very skeptical of the report's findings and adds "they have no idea what they're talking about."
