San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s three proposals, Propositions D, E and F, were placed on the ballot through a signature campaign that cost $4.5 million. The broader campaign, backed by the mayor’s allies, has raised nearly $14 million. Lurie did not seek approval from the Board of Supervisors before advancing the measures.

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee instead brought a single charter amendment to City Council. The council was split 4-4, and Lee cast the deciding vote to send Measure EE to voters. The campaign supporting it has raised $37,000 this year.

The two processes also differed in public engagement. Oakland’s charter working group held 14 meetings from October through December, drawing more than 750 attendees, and gathered 433 responses to a resident survey. Two additional public meetings followed in February. Lee introduced her ballot measure in May, months after the group released its recommendations.

San Francisco’s 31-member working group held four sessions from December through March, alongside six smaller meetings convened by the mayor’s office. The group included three labor representatives and was described in the report as mostly pro-business and moderate. Lurie announced his measures the day after the working group’s final session, about six weeks before the city published a formal summary of the group’s input.

Christin Evans, a progressive small-business advocate who observed the San Francisco sessions, called them “superficial,” saying participants were not asked to review draft measures line by line and that the public was not meaningfully involved. Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who helped organize the working group and co-introduced the measures, said the sessions helped determine which proposed changes were workable. He also said public comment and letters gave the mayor feedback to consider.

A spokesperson for Lurie said the city invited public comment multiple times and that the proposals were developed with a working group in partnership with Mandelman, Controller Greg Wagner and City Administrator Carmen Chu. The spokesperson said voters had supported Lurie’s city accountability agenda in 2024 and would have a chance to approve the reforms in November. Lee did not respond to a request for comment.

If approved, San Francisco’s Proposition D would make it more difficult for residents to qualify measures for the ballot while removing the mayor’s ability to place measures there unilaterally. Proposition E would give the city administrator authority to reform contracting procedures. Proposition F would give the mayor sole hiring and firing authority over certain department heads.

Oakland’s Measure EE would give the mayor authority to appoint more department heads and veto City Council budget decisions. It would also remove the mayor’s tie-breaking vote on legislation. Council members would gain the ability to communicate directly with city staff and call staff to testify; the council could override a mayoral veto of legislation with a two-thirds vote.

The Oakland working group had eight members, compared with San Francisco’s 31. Three people served on both: Fred Blackwell, chief executive of the San Francisco Foundation; Zach Goldman of SEIU Local 1021; and Ben Rosenfield, San Francisco’s former city controller and a senior adviser at SPUR, an urbanist think tank. They did not respond to requests for comment about the differing processes. SPUR also declined to comment.

Mandelman said Lurie and his advisers were not confident they could get the changes they wanted through the Board of Supervisors. He said the working-group process helped identify what could be advanced that year and what needed further analysis. The competing approaches leave voters to weigh not only the proposed changes to city government, but also how each set of reforms was developed and placed before them.