Now its latest of repeated calls for city government “charter reform” over the decades returns this week with a cry for its more cherished wish, to effectively kill the ability of community and advocacy organizations to put proposed city legislation before the voters for their direct approval by ballot initiative.

As uniquely publicized this week on the front page of  the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle, long the house organ of San Francisco’s elite SPUR would increase the required number of voter signatures needed to submit any initiative ballot measure from the current 2% of recent voters to a range between “8% and 20%.”  Today about 12,000 valid signatures are required by the City Charter, so this would increase that minimum to between 48,000 and 120,000! Since currently paid signature collectors charge about $15 each it’s now possible to qualify a proposal with less than $200,000, an amount within reach of some community and civic organizations, or with volunteer collected signatures, as many have done. But SPUR’s proposed 4x or 10x greater number of required signatures would then need $800,000 or up to $2 Million to collect.

Of course $2 million is No Problem for the City’s billionaires or Downtown groups, or even Mayor Lurie who just spent $20 million to win the Mayor’s office last November. But SPUR’s proposal would make sure no community-driven measure ever again got on to a San Francisco ballot for the voters to decide – just the proposals of the City’ Elite. No doubt SPUR also wishes it could magically erase the winning community-driven initiatives of the last 40 years it opposed on behalf of its wealthy clientele.