Marcy,
I suspect that "SF for Smart Reform" is basically just Adachi and whoever he's gotten to help him with this. I don't see an endorsements page or anything of that sort on the website, so my guess is that there are few if any other big names or established interest groups behind it.
I put "URGENT" on my message because in his response to my inviting him to come to our next meeting in June or a subsequent meeting (see below), Jeff Adachi wrote, "I can come in June, but by that time, we'll only have a few weeks to gather signatures. If you can help me get petitions out to your members by June 1st, that would be optimal, and perhaps I can come to the meeting afterwards."
I pretty much share your feelings about horse-trading. I'm willing to engage in it to a point, if it can secure an outcome more favorable to the freedom movement than would have been the case otherwise, and if it does not involve violating libertarian principles. For instance, there are many public policy changes we could support -- if we make a deal with a single-issue ally to put more focus on one of them, this would probably mean less focus on others. I don't have a problem in principle with making such deals, but I think great caution should always be exercised, because it is a slippery slope.
Good question about Prop. D, and without a lot of study I can't give you an authoritative answer, but my quick take on it is that while they are both relatively mild reforms, Adachi's is quite a bit better. That's because his appears to apply to current employees, while the most important provisions of Prop. D apply only to new hires. It doesn't immediately appear to me that one measure passing would hurt the other, and so the best scenario would be if both of them pass (unless you are cynically hoping for no mild reforms in order to increase the likelihood of bigger reforms later as the situation gets worse). Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time right now myself to do research or what-not. I'm trying to leave tomorrow to drive to St. Louis for the national convention.
My recommendation -- although again unfortunately I will not be here to help with it -- would be to get back to Adachi immediately and let him know that although we have reservations (here you could discuss concerns that his measure tiptoes around the challenges, etc.), we are potentially willing to do a mailing to our members recommending the initiative and sending them forms to fill out and/or circulate, and that we would also like Adachi to pledge to seek to give the Libertarian Party of San Francisco a more active role in shaping public policy, mentioning the ideas I suggest for this below, or other reasonable alternatives you all may come up with. All the suggestions I offered for how he could help us are things he could do personally -- he would not need the cooperation of a bunch of other officials to do any of them:
-appointing one or more of our members to a city commission or other government body
-sitting down with us on a regular basis, or sending members of his office to do so, in order to give us an inside view of the PD's operations and efforts and solicit our input on those operations/efforts
-making us part of the team that hammers out wording for any future initiatives he might put forth
-giving us a strong statement of public recognition urging other progressives to work with us as allies
We could also potentially ask him for money to cover the cost of a mailing to our members. He might well be willing to do that -- his words were "help me get petitions out to your members by June 1st." When we can get others to cover the cost of our mailings, that is a real win for us, because even if the mailing is centered around their agenda, it gives us an opportunity to be in touch with our members and show them that we are active.
Whatever you and the other officers decide, I would ask that you give Jeff some kind of response letting him know where we're at, the sooner the better. If the response is that we won't do anything until our June meeting (not my recommendation, but it's your call), I hope you will (a) apologize and explain our position, (b) let him know that if we had been involved at an earlier stage of the process in writing the measure, we probably could have provided more support, (c) we are nevertheless very interested in hearing from him at our meeting and figuring out how we can work together to pursue our mutual goals.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))