SPUR Voter Guide Purpose and Process
The goal of the SPUR Voter Guide is to offer objective analysis and advise voters on which measures will deliver real solutions.
For this election, SPUR analyzed measures related to our policy areas on the California, San Francisco, San José, and Oakland ballots. We only took positions on measures that were on the ballot by August 1, 2024; consequently, some smaller school districts in Santa Clara County that serve portions of the City of San José were not included in our analysis.
All ballot measures are researched and analyzed by SPUR staff.
For California measures, a committee of the SPUR Board of Directors made up primarily of board members reviews staff research, hears arguments from proponents and opponents of the relevant measures, debates the merits of each measure, and provides recommendations to the SPUR Board for a vote.
For city measures, subcommittees made up primarily of members of SPUR’s city advisory boards in San Francisco, San José, and Oakland form the ballot analysis committees. Each committee reviews staff research, hears arguments on both sides of the relevant measures, debates the merits of each, and provides recommendations to the relevant SPUR city advisory board for a vote. The endorsements from each city advisory board are then affirmed by the SPUR Board of Directors with a vote of 50% of the members. The SPUR Board can overturn the recommendations of the city advisory boards with a 60% vote.
The SPUR Board of Directors voted to adopt positions on the relevant measures on August 14, 2024, and September 4, 2024.
Acknowledgments
California Ballot Analysis Committee: Jay Bradshaw, Ed Harrington, Don Falk, Bob Gamble, Ariane Hogan, Dawn Kamalanathan, Gregg Miller, Carl Shannon, Shakirah Simley, Molly Turner
San Francisco Ballot Analysis Committee: Chris Brown, Genevieve Cadwalader, Jim Chappell, Kelly Dearman Tamsen Drew, Don Falk, Dawn Kamalanathan, Ed Harrington, Guillermo Rodriguez
San José Ballot Analysis Committee: Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Kathy Duong, Jim Lightbody, Camille Llanes-Fontanilla, Ria Hutabarat Lo, Jasneet Sharma, Kelly Snider, Leah Toeniskoetter, Ben Tripousis, Geri Wong
Oakland Ballot Analysis Committee: Kim-Mai Cutler, Lynette Dias, Carolyn Johnson, Jay Murphy, Ari Takata-Vasquez, Chek Tang, Amy Tharpe, Molly Turner, Lauren Wilson
SPUR Staff: Sarah Atkinson, Jade Boufford, Sam Fishman, Annie Fryman, Michael Lane, Erika McLitus, Nicole Neditch, Sujata Srivastava, Laura Tolkoff, Crystal Yang
Editors: Melissa Edeburn, Valerie Sinzdak, Ren Steen
Paid for by the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association. Financial disclosures available at sfethics.org