Hi All! We did not discuss the ballot measures much yesterday, since I did not think they present much for the LPSF to oppose or support in this election cycle. This will be the first year in 3 years that we will not have an argument in the Voters Handbook. Please click on the link below and take a look at the measures. There are only 4 this time around--amazing for the statists in SF. They're slipping!
Measures B & C considering the development on 8 Washington Street are from opposing sides of the development to either open or close the waterfront--we wouldn't want to jump in the fray.
Measure D concerning prescription drug pricing for HIV drugs is a more interesting ballot measure. It requires SF government to enter into direct negotiation with drug manufacturers to lower the price of such drugs and to encourage state and national legislators to write legislation to reduce the prices by at least a third. As Libertarians I feel we should oppose such a measure because this is an area the government should stay out of, and we should not encourage more of the same kind of involvement that has led to the outrageous pricing in the first place. Not sure how they came up with the arbitrary one third, but just legislating lower prices is not going to work any better than price controls ever did in the 70's. There were mixed feelings on this measure from the other core members, and I agree that opposing lower prices for HIV folks would not do anything to improve our image in SF, so I'm content to leave this one alone (and hopefully just
oppose it on our website with a short statement of our reasoning along with the other ballot measures).
Measure A just popped up on the Department of Elections' website a few days ago. Not sure how they can get away with filing it so late when the deadline for ballot measures is clearly stated as July 8, but nevertheless it's there now and will be on the ballot. It's called the Retiree Health Care Trust Fund. It's not a clear cut issue to me. Part 1 calls for limiting disbursements from a trust fund for health care for city/county employees, which sounds good, but Part 2 allows for disbursements from the fund if health care costs exceed 10% of payroll costs, which sounds bad to me since health care costs are getting out of hand these days. Also the measure is a charter amendment proposed by Mark Farrell, probably the most fiscally conservative member of the Board, so that suggests the good intentions of the measure, if nothing else. At the dinner after the meeting yesterday, there was some discussion about this ballot measure that maybe we
should oppose it. Please read this measure and advise your thoughts on it. There is still time to write a ballot argument and get it in by Thursday, August 15. I won't be writing it because I'm conflicted on the measure, but if someone else has a good argument (and the majority of us agree), I will prepare the control sheets and we can go through the process again.
http://www.sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=2969 (if this link doesn't work, just go to the Department of Elections website, click on "Campaigns" on the left, and then "Local Ballot Measure Status" to get to the 4 measures.
Thanks!
Aubrey