How San Francisco took a committee chair, refused a reappointment, and ended a seat — six weeks apart — and called the whole thing an automatic expiration.
On May 19, 2026 I was removed as Chair of the Power Subcommittee — the body charged with reviewing grid reliability. The committee's own June 9 agenda confirms it: the chair is now Cal Law of District 1; I am listed below him, a plain member of the district that actually contains Treasure Island.
On June 29, an ordinance effective that day was invoked to end the seat. A law that did not exist in May cannot explain a removal in May. The ordinance is the cover for the second act — not the cause of the first.
"I am in receipt of your application and will provide updates via emails."
— BOS-Appointments to Barklee Sanders, January 5, 2024"I don't have any pending applications for PUC CAC for D6." "Nobody has reached out expressing interest either?"
— Internal City staff, May 20–21, 2026 — the day after the chair was takenI applied in January 2024, before my term expired. The Clerk confirmed receipt. The one missing step — a nomination letter only the District 6 Supervisor could send — was never sent. Two and a half years of silence, then a record that said I had never applied at all.
$ request decision-rationale --chair-removal --items 4-7 CITY (Board of Supervisors), Jun 22 2026: "Responsive ... for Items 1-3. We do not have records responsive for Items 4-7." $ verify against parallel custodian SFPUC (NextRequest 26-5363), Jun 22 2026: holds "approximately 15-30 records ... concerning the ... Power Subcommittee Chair role" "the 63rd request ... since March 5, 2025" "April 11, 2025 ... rule of reason letter" >> one office: no record of the decision. >> another office: 15-30 records on the chair. >> the decision-records are not absent from the City. they are absent from the office that was asked.
In 2023 a former SFPUC General Manager was convicted of steering contracts in violation of Administrative Code Chapters 6 and 21. In 2026 the Board introduced §99.5 — exempting a class of SFPUC transactions from those same chapters, with Treasure Island as the textbook use case. I opposed it, in writing, by name. Weeks later the gavel was gone.
It would have reappointed the member fighting for reliable power. It would have kept him in the chair of the reliability subcommittee. It would have used his record to fund the fix. San Francisco did the opposite — and committed $1.234 billion to Hetch Hetchy Power while calling itself, on this grid, "a contractor, not a public utility provider." A government's priorities are revealed by who it empowers and who it removes.
The State has never asked the question. The City ended the seat of the person who kept asking it. So on June 29 I filed one more records request — 26-5837, for the citywide count of every hold-over removed under the same ordinance. If the list is long, I was one of many. If it is short, "neutral and citywide" answers to a different name.