What is it?

Legislative digest (PDF)
Full legal text (PDF)

Why is this on the ballot?

This is a City Charter amendment. All charter amendments must be approved by a 50% + 1 majority.

Sponsor: Supervisor Myrna Melgar
Co-sponsors: Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen, Rafael Mandelman, Ahsha Safai, and Gordon Mar
Placed on the ballot by: Unanimously by Supervisors Shamann Walton, Rafael Mandelman, Ahsha Safai, Matt Haney, Gordon Mar, Myrna Melgar, Hillary Ronen, and Dean Preston
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Why vote no?

Prop B contains a couple good reforms, and one deal-breaker reform. Unfortunately, the power grab by the Board of Supervisors is too much for us to stomach.

What's Bad?

Prop B's deal-breaker reform gives the Board of Supervisors veto power over the Mayor's appointments to the Building Inspection Commission. Currently, the Mayor may directly appoint four members, and the Board of Supervisors may appoint three members. Prop B removes the Mayor's appointment powers and gives full authority to the Board of Supervisors – they can deny any of the Mayor's choices for purely political reasons.

This imbalance of power will cause the Building Inspection Commission to be a lap-dog for the Board of Supervisors. The Board has a terrible track record on housing issues, and this will only make it worse.

This change will be out-of-step with other Commissions that seek to balance power across the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors. The Building Inspection Commission needs this same balancing act to prevent one branch of government from taking full control.

What's Good?

Prop B does contains two good reforms, though:

1. Allows the Mayor to hire and fire the Director of the Department of Building Inspection (DBI), from a list of at least three qualified candidates provided by the Building Inspection Commission. (Under current law, the BIC chooses the Director directly)
2. Reforms the credential requirements of members of the BIC to allow members from other fields.

On the first point, GrowSF believes that the city's chief executive should have the power to hire and fire the heads of city departments. The Mayor is that chief executive and must hold their department Directors accountable. Every other city department has a Director that can be fired by the Mayor for doing a bad job, but not the Department of Building Inspection. This has allowed a culture of corruption and unaccountability to take hold.

On the second point, GrowSF first had some qualms about removing the requirement that all seats on the Building Inspection Commission (BIC) have certain credentials — for example, engineers and residential home builders are required to hold specific seats. But ultimately we believe that the regulated shouldn't be regulating themselves, and mandating that the BIC be composed entirely of people employed in the construction industry reeks of regulatory capture.

Still, there is a need for industry voices and experts in the field to weigh in on regulations, and this reform does provide that – only four of the seven seats have been opened up to all. Three seats remain reserved for credentialed experts.

Overall, though, we don't think the trade-offs are worth it for Prop B. Vote no.