Patronage or problem solving?
San Fran debates its proliferation of iffy commissions
Matthew Fleming | July 18, 2024
History of SF’s myriad commissions
The first 21 commissions were founded in 1898 with the city and county charter, but the list has ballooned to 115 today for the city of around 800,000 residents – which is approximately double the number of commissions its peers have, according to the report.
In fact, San Francisco has nearly as many commissions as Los Angeles County (151 commissions), which has more than 10 times the residents. In its list of commissions, the grand jury counted all kinds of bodies: commissions, advisory boards, committees and more. Commission was the catchall term.
Are they mainly about patronage?
The grand jury concluded many commissions’ “benefits do not appear to outweigh their costs,” though it took an overall positive view of the work of commissions. “Our investigation uncovered many essential commissions that run effectively and are integral parts of San Francisco government,” read the report.
A new report out of San Francisco, called “Commission Impossible,” suggests that many public commissions – groups presumably formed to provide oversight and address key citywide issues – are often redundant, filled with vacancies, ineffective and a waste of resources. It’s even become a campaign issue in the upcoming mayoral election.
The San Francisco Civil Grand Jury reviewed the city’s sprawling list of commissions to determine “how well these bodies serve San Francisco.” But one of the first things it found was that there wasn’t even a list of commissions to review.
“The jury’s challenges began with determining how many commissions San Francisco currently has,” according to the report. “We discovered there is no centralized list of commissions, and there is no department or agency that is responsible for overseeing their effectiveness.” It was downhill from there.
However, critics say commissions can often be a way for politicians to look like they’re doing something without actually doing something, while promoting patronage by packing commissions with their supporters.
“Government boards and commissions have become completely meaningless and are just another virtue-signaling and grandstanding tool for politicians,” said Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego councilman. “When politicians don’t want to take real action on an issue, they create a commission to just study things – and to give titles to their political supporters.”
Surprisingly costly in staff time
The jury found that supporting these commissions can be costly, requiring meeting space, legal support and dedicated staff. In fact, the jury found that supporting commissions could take as much as 10% of a city/county staffer’s time.
Beyond that, as many as 15% of the 1,200 commission seats were unfilled, meaning quorums were often unachievable, wasting staff time and delaying actual business. In 2023, nearly 20% of the commission meetings were canceled.
Many of the commissions are common among municipalities: planning commission, board of appeals, fire commission and police commission. As the grand jury argues, these commissions can be useful to help streamline city council and county board efforts, and can provide valuable oversight and provide opportunities for citizen engagement.
Building a permanent bureaucracy
As evidenced by the sprawling list, these commissions can create their own constituencies and rarely go away. The jury found that 75% of the commissions have no sunset date, even though the Board of Supervisors’ Rules of Order call for a sunset clause not to exceed three years each.
The grand jury highlighted the expiration clause for the South of Market Community Planning Advisory Committee, which has a sunset date of 2035 (starting in 2019). The Graffitti Advisory Board has been in effect since 1993, minus a one-year hiatus.
The grand jury found no formal evaluation process for commissions, though studies cited showed “measuring performance is critical to improving performance.”
A commission to oversee commissions?
To rehab the commission system, the jury offered several recommendations, including hard sunset dates, a modest reduction in the number of commissions, the creation of a list of commissions, more reporting, clarity in naming conventions and more. The grand jury also called for a commission to oversee commissions, acknowledging how funny that sounds.
“The rich irony of recommending a new commission to reduce the number of commissions is not lost on us,” read the report. “However we believe such a body is vital in order to optimize and streamline the city’s Byzantine commission system.”
Ballot initiative and other ideas
Independent of the report, an effort to reform the commission process seems headed for the November ballot. A group called TogetherSF is pushing a ballot initiative that would reform the commission process in the city and cut the number of commissions to 65.
“There is no rhyme or reason on what powers commissions have,” TogetherSF Action Founder and CEO Kanishka Cheng told KQED. “It’s become its own complicated bureaucracy that was intended to be a way to have transparency and oversight and has really fallen short in that effort.”
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who is running for mayor against one of the backers of the TogetherSF measure, also pitched a proposal for reforming the commissions’ process that starts with creating a task force. It has been panned by TogetherSF.
“Supervisor Peskin has done more than maybe any other elected official to break San Francisco’s government – he can’t be the one to fix it,” TogetherSF wrote in an online petition. “His charter amendment … actually adds more bureaucracy, creating a completely unprecedented committee with a mandate to make new laws about commissions.”
However it plays out, no one seems surprised that San Francisco has layers of inefficient government and isn’t quite sure what to do about it.
Matt Fleming is opinion columnist for the Southern California News Group and CEO of Sower Strategies, a digital marketing and public affairs firm.
