What Prop. A Would Do
This broad cleanup measure would make numerous changes to individual provisions in the San Francisco City Charter:
Streamline commissions and advisory bodies. The Streets and Sanitation Commission and the Public Works Commission would be eliminated. Several other commissions and advisory bodies would shift from the city charter to the administrative code, allowing the Board of Supervisors to amend their duties without voter approval. The duties or names of other appointed bodies would be amended but remain in the city charter.
Streamline procedural requirements for city departments. Detailed procedural requirements for many departments, including the Municipal Transportation Agency, the Public Utilities Commission, and the Controller’s Office, would be eliminated, simplified, or moved to the administrative code.
Allow the Board of Supervisors to amend certain voter-adopted ordinances. Voter-adopted ordinances can typically be amended only by a subsequent ballot measure. Proposition A would instead permit the Board of Supervisors to modify or eliminate any aspect of the Our City, Our Home Oversight Committee and the procedures governing official newspaper notice of certain government actions — changes voters adopted in prior years.1
Require a task force to review and recommend changes to appointed bodies and commissions every 10 years. The voter-adopted Commission Streamlining Task Force would be required to review and offer recommendations on city commissions and advisory bodies every 10 years.
The Backstory
In November 2024, voters passed Proposition E, requiring the city to create a commission streamlining task force charged with developing recommendations to change the city’s unwieldy, duplicative system of commissions, appointed boards, and advisory bodies created in the charter and code. This measure would adopt some of these recommendations.
The task force reviewed 152 boards, commissions, and advisory bodies, including 42 established in the charter and 110 created by ordinance or other authorities. It recommended reducing the total to 87 active bodies by retaining 86, consolidating two into one, eliminating 60 inactive or duplicative bodies, and taking no action on four others.2
The Board of Supervisors adopted most recommendations covering bodies created by legislative action in May 2026. That action eliminated dozens of inactive or duplicative advisory bodies and modified 15 others.
The task force recommended reducing the 42 bodies embedded in the charter to 24, generally preserving major governance commissions while moving many advisory and administrative bodies into the administrative code. This action requires approval of a voter-adopted charter amendment.
Prop. A would adopt some of the task force’s recommendations for these charter bodies. It would eliminate two charter commissions (Streets and Sanitation and Public Works) and shift two others (Human Services and Disability and Aging Services), as well as several advisory bodies, from the city charter to the administrative code.3 Duties for several charter commissions would modestly change. The measure would not adopt several more contentious Task Force recommendations.
Beyond these changes to charter commissions and advisory boards, the measure proposes “housekeeping” changes to other sections of the charter. As SPUR’s 2025 report Charter for Change describes, San Francisco’s charter contains departmental procedural detail well beyond the typical “constitutional standard” for city charters.4 That standard recommends that procedural detail for charter-established departments reside in code.5
Prop. A proposes minor and often technical changes to detailed operating requirements and procedures for 40 departments. These changes are generally modest, updating outdated language, removing non-operative clauses, shifting some requirements to the code, and modifying or eliminating other requirements. Examples:
- Reducing operational details defined in the charter that govern the operations of the Municipal Transportation Agency
- Removing detailed and specific audit requirements for the Controller’s Office while retaining the office’s broad charge and authority to conduct audits
- Removing non-operative language, outdated provisions, and other minor requirements for the Public Utilities Commission
- Eliminating, modifying, or shifting to code some overlapping and conflicting requirements that apply to all departments.
The measure would reconvene the Commission Streamlining Task every 10 years, thereby providing a formal, institutionalized process to periodically review the city’s commission and advisory board structure as new bodies are added and as needs and circumstances change.
The measure was sponsored by Board of Supervisors President Mandelman and was placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors through the legislative process. It requires a simple majority (50% plus one vote) to pass.
Equity Impacts
The measure primarily proposes administrative, technical, or minor changes to the city’s charter, so it would have few direct equity impacts.
By simplifying government operations, updating advisory bodies, and moving operational details out of the charter, it could modestly improve the city’s ability to adapt programs and services to meet the needs of San Francisco’s diverse communities.
Commissions and advisory bodies provide a public forum for communities to inform city policies, particularly for vulnerable communities that may lack access through other channels. While the measure makes only modest changes to the city’s broader commission and advisory body structure, it would eliminate several bodies, which may modestly reduce this access. Importantly, other public venues remain available in each service area.
Pros
- Taken together with changes already adopted by ordinance, Prop. A would make significant, needed reforms to the city’s unwieldy commission and advisory board structure.
- The measure would make modest but meaningful progress in updating outdated requirements throughout the city charter, improving operational efficiency.
- Shifting several departments and many procedures to the administrative code and allowing the Board of Supervisors to amend other voter-adopted laws would let elected policymakers change them as needs and priorities change.
Con
- The proposed changes to the city’s commission system do not implement many recommendations of the voter-adopted task force charged with proposing changes to that system.
