By Lisa Awbrey, HANC Board

The Phoenix Project is co-hosting a series of political Town Hall events alongside the SF People’s Budget Coalition and Real Reform SF ahead of the November 3, 2026 election. The panel discussions are titled “SF Charter Reform and Protecting the Future of San Francisco Democracy.” These sessions detail how upcoming ballot measures could reshape San Francisco’s city charter and government power dynamics.

The mission of The Phoenix Project is to uncover the dark money trail of a network of political pressure groups, secretly funded by a handful of conservative tech and real estate billionaires, who are spending millions to move San Francisco to the extreme right.  We wrote about The Phoenix Project in our April, 2025 issue of the HANC Voice (https://www.hanc-sf.org/24-home/907-shedding-light-on-displacement-gentrification-astroturf-groups-and-billionaires).  You can read more about the current work of The Phoenix Project on the blog on its website:  https://www.phoenixprojectnow.com/phoenix-review.

The Peoples Budget Coalition is a citywide coalition of nonprofit organizations, unions, community groups, and advocates working together to shape San Francisco’s budget.  We heard presentations from the People’s Budget Coalition at our June, 2025 (https://www.hanc-sf.org/24-home/925-june-meeting-recap-the-budget) and June, 2026 (https://www.hanc-sf.org/24-home/990-june-meeting-recap-coalition-working-to-fight-lurie-s-austerity-budget) meetings.  You can learn more about the People’s Budget Coalition at its website, https://peoplesbudgetcoalition.org/.

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Please join us on Thursday, October 8 at 7:00 pm.  This will be a hybrid meeting. Real Reform, Phoenix Project, and Peoples Budget will present an analysis of the money playing into Charter reform and a deep dive into the legislation

Join us in person at downstairs at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street (between Cole and Shrader) or join us online.   This is not a library sponsored event.

To join the meeting online, copy this link:
https://zoom.us/j/97001985280?pwd=Nkx2UVFPSTRVWGVXUVZEbFRkb0xwQT09

Or, with the Zoom app:

Meeting ID: 970 0198 5280
Passcode: 333544

Zoom also provides telephone numbers. These are not toll-free numbers. Check with your phone company before you incur charges.

The closest number is:
        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 970 0198 5280
Passcode: 333544

Additional numbers can be found at: https://zoom.us/u/acJ3FRWOWk

HANC, as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, cannot endorse candidates.  We can endorse or oppose ballot measures, and have endorsed the following ballot measures:

Local San Francisco (and Regional) Measures:

California State Measures

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But the Underlying Legal Question Isn't Settled

By Bruce Wolfe, HANC Board and current SOTF Member (for ID purposes only)

SF Admin Code Ch. 67 Art 1 Sec 67.1
The Board of Supervisors and the People of the City and County of San Francisco find and declare:
(a)   Government's duty is to serve the public, reaching its decisions in full view of the public.
(b)   Elected officials, commissions, boards, councils and other agencies of the City and County exist to conduct the people's business. The people do not cede to these entities the right to decide what the people should know about the operations of local government.
(c)   Although California has a long tradition of laws designed to protect the public's access to the workings of government, every generation of governmental leaders includes officials who feel more comfortable conducting public business away from the scrutiny of those who elect and employ them. New approaches to government constantly offer public officials additional ways to hide the making of public policy from the public. As government evolves, so must the laws designed to ensure that the process remains visible.
(d)   The right of the people to know what their government and those acting on behalf of their government are doing is fundamental to democracy, and with very few exceptions, that right supersedes any other policy interest government officials may use to prevent public access to information. Only in rare and unusual circumstances does the public benefit from allowing the business of government to be conducted in secret, and those circumstances should be carefully and narrowly defined to prevent public officials from abusing their authority.
(e)   Public officials who attempt to conduct the public's business in secret should be held accountable for their actions. Only a strong Open Government and Sunshine Ordinance, enforced by a strong Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, can protect the public's interest in open government.
(f)   The people of San Francisco enact these amendments to assure that the people of the City remain in control of the government they have created.

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By Lisa Awbrey, HANC Board

At HANC’s September 10th meeting, state and local measures of critical importance for affordable housing that are on the November ballot were discussed.

A stellar panel presented on the local ballot measures Propositions C, I and J, and on State Propositions 1 and 43. Executive Director Quintin Mecke of the Council of Community Housing Organizations/CCHO, writer, activist and official Prop I proponent Scott Feeney and former D5 Supervisor and tenant rights and affordable housing champion Dean Preston presented.

Calvin Welch introduced the topic.  Market-rate housing is affordable by less than 20% of San Franciscans (as owners) or by less than 35% of San Franciscans (as renters).  Over the past decades, incomes have grown less than the costs to produce housing.  The attempt to control housing costs by removing public impediments—affordability requirements, density requirements, minimum bedroom size, environmental consequences—which we have done over the last six years, should have resulted in a dramatic increase in housing production.  But Planning Department records show that there has instead been a decrease in annual housing production since 2019.  Affordable housing can only be produced with a development subsidy.  There are measures on the November ballot to provide subsidies to produce affordable housing.

Dean Preston spoke about how the November ballot, with San Francisco Propositions C, I, and B, and State Proposition 1, could provide hundreds of millions of dollars for housing affordability.  Dean gave some history of how when he first became supervisor, he spoke with MOHCD about community land trusts, co-op housing, and city-owned housing.  The response was (paraphrasing) “we don’t have the money for that, but we can build deeply affordable units for $250,000 each.” 

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Nominations for the HANC Board are open through the election at our November Meeting. All current HANC members are eligible to nominate other members. Those who have been members for at least three months are eligible to serve. If you would like to serve, or would like to nomi­nate someone, you can do so at our October meeting, or before the vote at the November meeting. The term is from Decem­ber, 2026 through November, 2027. The current HANC Board has made the following recommendations for officers and Board members for the upcoming term:

President:                                 Nate Horrell

Vice President:                        James Sword

Recording Secretary:             Lisa Awbrey

Corresponding Secretary:     Jim Rhoads

Treasurer:                                 Bruce Wolfe

Nominating Chair:                  Alice Mosley

Membership Chair:                Karen Fishkin

Housing & Land Use Chair: Calvin Welch

Members At Large:

                                                  Kelley Cutler

                                                  Norman Degelman

                                                  Christin Evans

                                                  Richard Ivanhoe

                                                  Danielle McVay

                                                  David Woo

Book Review by Jim Rhoads, HANC Board

Former HANC board member and dedicated environmentalist, Greg Gaar spent the 1970’s and 1980’s documenting the San Francisco street and cultural life that included some of the political turmoil of that time as well. The stark reality of these black and white photographs is astounding. They are personal and raw or in some cases tender. In full disclosure, I have known Greg for almost 40 years. I did not know about these photographs until I saw them in his book.

Greg returned to San Francisco in 1971 after serving four years in the Navy. He took photography courses at City College. It was at this time he had first exposure to printing photographs in the dark room. He was hooked. He graduated to a mobile 35mm Nikon F from the City College’s bulky 4x5 view camera he had been using. This gave him freedom to begin photography.

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