Ex-commissioners fear City Hall will pack watchdog group with loyalists 60%
By Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler28% Hannah Wiley39% Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez39%
7/20/2026, 12:55:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 31% saturation with 459 hits. Analysis detected 2,733 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,481 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 56.5% and a BS Rank of 60% (7,554 of 18,586 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 59.40% of the article peer group.
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Former members of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force are crying foul over what they believe is an effort to fill the group with appointees who are sympathetic to City Hall interests.
The task force is one of the more obscure governing bodies, acting as a watchdog to ensure that city departments and officials comply with San Francisco’s public records law, which is among the most permissive in the state.
It lacks enforcement power and can issue only symbolic violations — but it can push City Hall to cough up stalled records requests and spur news headlines about breaches of the city’s sunshine laws.
The body hasn’t met since June because of new rules governing commissions that prevent termed-out members from continuing in their seats until they are reappointed.
That has resulted in a failure to reach a quorum.
Supervisor Shamann Walton, who chairs the Rules Committee, which votes on some of the appointments to the task force, said a hearing on the Sunshine Task Force’s new appointees has not been scheduled because he is “keeping the window open to allow more interested individuals to apply.”
He added that the committee has “expressed interest in considering new individuals for this body, since most of the incumbents have sat for numerous terms.”
Former Chair Matthew Yankee, who had served on the task force since 2018, said he believes supervisors “would prefer to seat candidates who more closely align with their current position on open government” and specifically called out Board President Rafael Mandelman’s legislation, passed this week, which some criticized for reducing reporting requirements.
“I think the evidence shows that it’s a more restrictive view on what should be considered open,” said Yankee.
Asked about the task force, Mandelman, a member of the Rules Committee, said: “It’s important that there be people on there who understand the burden that particularly repeat [public records] users can place on departments and the functioning of city government.”
He added, “I’m here to see pragmatic people on there.
The sunshine laws definitely get misused and move into the realm of harassment.
We need folks on the task force who are sensitive to that.”
Saul Sugarman, a member of the task force since 2023 and editor in chief of The Bold Italic, wrote a July 11 article titled “San Francisco turned off its public records watchdog right when it was watching the mayor,” citing The Standard’s reporting on Mayor Daniel Lurie’s PG&E texts and another case involving the mayor’s October call with President Donald Trump.
“It makes them look bad when they don’t follow the process, and reporters pick up on it and write about it,” Sugarman told Power Play.
New applicants to the task force include educator Amerika Nachele Sanchez; UC Merced professor Christopher Ojeda; former elections commissioner Cynthia Dai; local Democratic Party member Joseph Sangirardi; investor Kartik Sathappan; former Mandelman campaign staffer MacKenzie Ewing; and former Lurie aide Andrea Gallardo Lopez.
(Those interested can send an application and Form 700 to bos-appointments@sfgov.org.)
Some former members, including Yankee and Sugarman, have also submitted their applications.
Whoever fills the vacant seats could have a major impact on how public records disputes are resolved for years to come.
In addition to ruling on cases, the task force recommends changes to the city’s public records laws.
— Gabriel Greschler Got tips?
Send to us at powerplay@sfstandard.com.
THE AI GUY : State Sen.
Scott Wiener has spent several years in Sacramento pushing legislation to crack down on artificial intelligence companies — earning him intense pushback from the industry.
He seems to have made amends with Silicon Valley.
Wiener’s congressional campaign has raised a flood of cash from workers at some of the tech industry’s biggest companies, including Google, Meta, and Apple.
That includes more than $300,000 from OpenAI and Anthropic employees, many of whom are researchers and software engineers, according to his latest Federal Election Commission filings.
The donations highlight not just the industry’s general preference for moderate, business-friendly Democrats but also its split over AI regulation, with a sizable faction supporting stronger guardrails.
Wiener’s spokesperson Joe Arellano said his record of authoring California’s “landmark AI safety bill” and work on housing and affordability “is likely driving some of these donations.”
It’s not just rank-and-file tech workers who want to see Wiener beat Supervisor Connie Chan.
Industry titans like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Y Combinator’s Garry Tan, Rippling cofounder Parker Conrad, Yelp cofounder Jeremy Stoppelman, and crypto pioneer Chris Larsen have donated a combined tens of thousands of dollars to Wiener’s campaign in the three years since he launched his committee.
Stoppelman, Larsen, and Tan have also contributed to the political action committee backing Wiener’s bid, which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from tech executives and investors.
It’s easy to see why some of these execs are backing Wiener.
Stoppelman, for example, is a major YIMBY who regularly contributes to pro-transit and housing candidates.
Conrad is a routine donor to moderate Democrats, including San Jose Mayor and failed gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahan.
Anthropic, which has billed itself as an ethical AI company, supported Wiener’s AI bill.
Other donors are more contentious figures in San Francisco politics.
Tan’s social media use, including a disturbing 2024 post targeting Chan and other progressives, has consistently raised eyebrows.
Tan opposed Wiener’s initial AI regulation legislation, though the two have since teamed up on a bill to combat Big Tech’s anti-competitive behavior.
In a March social media post, Tan said he was supporting Wiener because “he’s delivered on the hard stuff: YIMBY, standing up to dysfunction, and fighting for an SF that works.”
Other big donors have embraced Trump and other GOP figures.
Altman, who was once critical of Trump, has partnered with the White House on AI and tech policies.
And while Larsen is a prolific Democratic donor, his crypto firm Ripple — previously ensnared in a legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission — donated roughly $5 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Larsen also gave more than $39,000 to California GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and has been at the forefront of the tech sector’s controversial effort to push progressive candidates and policies out of City Hall.
Arellano said Wiener’s work on AI safety, net neutrality, and data privacy laws means “he speaks with everyone, including the city’s tech leaders.
“In Congress, he will continue to focus on passing strong laws that protect the public, while maintaining San Francisco’s status as the innovation capital of the world.”
But the amount of tech money flowing into Wiener’s campaign account has also intensified the perception that he’s in Silicon Valley’s pocket.
Chan spokesperson Julie Edwards said Wiener’s tech support is evidence that he is the “preferred candidate of the ultra wealthy, AI, crypto and big corporations.”
“He carries their water in Sacramento and he’ll do the same in DC.
They are banking on buying a seat in Congress but working families know they can count on Connie Chan.”
— Hannah Wiley
HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE: It’s not only Wiener’s AI romance that’s delivering him a cash advantage in the race.
His statewide profile is helping draw in the money too.
A breakdown of the most recent federal election filings, from May 14 through June 30, shows that Wiener has a wider swath of campaign donations streaming in from across California.
Roughly 38% of his donors are Californians who live outside San Francisco, versus 24% for Chan.
Both had a roughly equal number of donors from out of the state, raking in tens of thousands from Washington, D.C., fundraisers.
When it comes to the hometown love, though, Chan leads Wiener.
In the most recent filing period, she pocketed 549 donations to his 413.
Wiener led Chan ever so slightly in total dollars raised from San Francisco donors — $225,909 to $220,305.
The totals: Wiener led this fundraising period decisively: $571,000 to Chan’s $441,000.
There are several caveats.
Chan has been fundraising since late 2025; Wiener started in 2023, when he opened an exploratory committee.
And the filing period contains unusual activity: Rep.
Nancy Pelosi’s May 18 endorsement spiked Chan’s fundraising for a spell, while Wiener raised $127,000 after a video went viral of a protester berating him over his positions on Gazal.
The data we parsed includes only donations over $200, which are subject to legally required reporting.
And one addendum to the cash AI workers have been throwing at Wiener: Besides software engineers, his top individual contributors’ listed professions, in order of number of donations, are attorneys, consultants, retirees, CEOs, executive directors, and investors.
Chan’s top contributors are attorneys, retirees, executive directors, apartment managers, teachers, engineers, caregivers, consultants, and physicians.
— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez
Analysis
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