If you follow local politics, you may have heard about:
- That time Mayor Daniel Lurie took a phone call with Donald Trump, and then Lurie's office said they had no public records of that conversation.
- Or when former mayor London Breed's office said she didn't have any text messages regarding city business, because she regularly deletes them.
- Or when we lost power and the War Memorial Opera House came back on before everyone else, allegedly, because the mayor's daughter had a ballet recital. (Again, allegedly.)
In the background of this is the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, a city commission empaneled since the 1990s to discuss local public records, and to find violations. I served on this panel from 2023 until June of this year, when my role was abruptly cut off along with eight other co-members.
Part of this was normal: our term limits expired, which in the past meant we’d go on serving until reappointments took place. But new rules have called for our exit papers and for the Sunshine Task Force to stop meeting. Out of 11 total members, the two remaining active ones are not enough people to legally convene and to make rulings.
The buzzy "gotcha" setback of this is that we won't know soon know if, indeed, the mayor had the lights flipped on early so his daughter could pirouette. But we also hear many other cases at the Sunshine Task Force. Petitioners regularly come in with questions for our city’s police and fire departments. They want to know about traffic cams. And they scrutinize the goings-on at our major public museums. (Among many other complaints: you can hear our oft-tedious meetings in full from this audio archive.)
What happened
For most of the task force's history, a member whose term ran out simply kept serving until the Board of Supervisors got around to reappointing them. But in May, the Board passed an ordinance as part of its long-running effort to streamline the city's overgrown commission system. Tucked inside is a line saying members of city boards and commissions have to vacate their seats 60 days after their terms end if they haven't been reappointed, even when the reappointment paperwork is already sitting in the queue.
That 60-day cutoff used to apply only to the 40-odd commissions written directly into the City Charter. The new law extends it to everyone else, the 70-plus boards and commissions that had always been allowed to hold over. Ours was one of them.
It's easy to point fingers, but the lag in reappointment feels totally routine to me. When my seat expired two years ago in April, it took until October to be reappointed. It's just that now, because of this new system, we actually can't meet. And look at the timing. As the Public Press pointed out already:
In January, the Task Force found that Mayor Lurie's office had violated the city's transparency law over those withheld Trump-call records, and we sent the case to the Ethics Commission. On July 10, Ethics handed it back, saying it needed more from the task force before it could decide whether the violation was willful. There was no "us" left to hand it back to.
Sylvie Sturm
The bigger picture
Right now my political news feed is much more abuzz with alleged assault crimes and Trans March drama. Nestled in there are major budget discussions. Conversely, the Sunshine Task Force will often sit in a City Hall room to an audience of no one, while people call in to argue their matters.
Unglamorous bodies like ours keep an eye on everything from bond spending to the bike network, to what gets built in your neighborhood. Many of them run on volunteers who serve past their expired terms, just like us. So now you have a slow-motion pileup: when the Board falls behind on reappointments, and it regularly does, whole commissions can now simply switch off.
"Sunshine matters are supposed to be handled timely," said Matthew Yankee, the most recent chair of the Task Force, in a phone call with me this afternoon. "If the Board doesn't take some kind of action soon, they're going to be part of that problem."
We shared many of our own theories about the situation, but they are just theories. He agreed it's normal for reappointments fall behind schedule, but that "this is the first time the schedule mattered."
Looking ahead
Sunshine members get appointed in two layers. First through the city's Rules Committee and then the full Board of Supervisors. I reached out directly to Rules Committee member—and president of the Supes—Rafael Mandelman last night, and have not heard back.
Right now our body is one among many San Francisco commissions whose policies are being reviewed and revised. Of all the theories I entertained recently, it seems possible the Supervisors could want to suspend our work until those changes pushed through a November ballot. Many Sunshine seats carry prerequisites to occupy them—mine, for example, is reserved for a member of the press or electronic media—and the proposed changes would give the Supes more flexibility on who got selected.
But it is just a theory. I do honestly feel the Supervisors have other matters on their plate than this. But I hope it gets resolved soon. The Sunshine Task Force is a small but important part of San Francisco.
Saul Sugarman is editor-in-chief and owner of The Bold Italic.
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