What is it?

Proposition A is a $535M bond (estimated $933M total repayment over 26 years) to upgrade earthquake safety and emergency response facilities across San Francisco. Bonds in San Francisco are paid via existing property taxes and do not raise taxes.

Fund allocations

• Emergency Firefighting Water System: Up to $130M — seismic upgrades and expansion of the high-pressure water system, including cisterns, pipes, and tunnels
• Fire stations: Up to $100M — retrofit or replace neighborhood fire stations
• Police stations: Up to $72M — retrofit or replace neighborhood police stations
• Potrero Yard (Muni): Up to $200M — replace the 110-year-old bus facility with a seismically safe one that can keep Muni running after a major earthquake
• Other public safety facilities: Up to $33M — repairs and retrofits, subject to approval by the Capital Planning Committee

The Mayor and Board of Supervisors may revise these allocations.

Read the full annotated legal text →

Why vote Yes?

Bonds are an excellent way to pay for infrastructure projects: we get to build today and pay it off later with inflated dollars. And, bonds in San Francisco are designed to not raise taxes - we only pass new ones as old ones get paid back. On average, the cost to homeowners is about $7.45 per $100,000 of assessed value (so about $80 per year for a home assessed at $700,000).

The Potrero Yard bus facility is 110 years old and seismically unsafe. Fire stations across the city are in need of retrofits to withstand a major earthquake. And the Westside's firefighting water system still lags behind the rest of the city. This bond will fund critical upgrades to all of these facilities.

San Francisco sits on top of major earthquake faults, and much of the city's west side still lacks a dedicated high-pressure firefighting water system. If a major earthquake hits, firefighters in the Sunset and Richmond won't have reliable water to fight the fires that follow. Prop A directly addresses this with $130M for the Emergency Firefighting Water System — expanding pipes, cisterns, and tunnels to neighborhoods that are currently unprotected.

That isn't to say that the Westside lacks any firefighting water infrastructure, though. In fact, the firefighting infrastructure out there is about on par with most other cities. But San Francisco is still traumatized by the 1906 earthquake and fire, leading policymakers to want to overbuild our fire fighting systems. This desire was bolstered by the Pacific Palisades fire, where the hydrants lost pressure, leaving firefighters unable to effectively combat the blaze. The same thing will happen to the Westside if there's a similar conflagration to fight.

Seasoned SF voters may say "I swear I've voted for this before..." and they'd be right. In fact, San Francisco voters have approved three previous ESER bonds since 2010 — $412M in 2010, $400M in 2014, and $628.5M in 2020. While those bonds delivered real results (25 fire stations renovated, new stations built, and approximately 30 cisterns constructed), the Westside improvements from the 2020 bond didn't happen. Post-COVID inflation nearly tripled construction costs from roughly $15M per mile to $42M per mile, leaving large portions of the Richmond and Outer Sunset "unfunded." That's a real failure, and Westside residents have every right to be frustrated and skeptical.

Prop A is how we fix it. The $130M EFWS allocation in this bond picks up exactly where the 2020 bond fell short, with cost estimates that reflect today's construction reality — not pre-pandemic wishful thinking. The bond also funds $100M for fire station retrofits, $72M for police stations, and $200M to replace the 110-year-old Potrero Yard so Muni can keep running after a major quake. A citizens' oversight committee will audit spending annually.

The next major earthquake isn't waiting for us to get our act together. Vote Yes on Prop A to finish the Westside fire safety system and make sure our first responders have what they need when the big one hits.