67 San Francisco fire officials keep telling City Hall:
We’re next.
The Pacific Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, January 2025.
AP Photo/Ethan Swope
San Francisco Mayors Gavin Newsom, Ed Lee, London Breed, and Daniel Lurie have all refused to act on their warnings.
Most of the city of San Francisco is not protected by the City’s Auxiliary Water Supply System, a high-pressure water network that can pump an unlimited supply of seawater from the Pacific Ocean.
So 67 San Francisco fire officials are telling you, today:
Prop A only allows City Hall to build out San Francisco’s drinking-water system for upzoning.
The 74-story Waterline building in Austin, Texas, in August 2025.
Photo: Wikipedia/Rchopper9
Now let’s ask Mayor Daniel Lurie:
Why are you telling San Francisco that our drinking-water system will protect us during a fire disaster?
Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Lahaina, Maui, and Santa Rosa can tell you:
It won’t.
A Christmas tree burns inside a residence in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, January 7, 2025.
AP Photo/Ethan Swope
Vote NO On Prop A
And make sure San Francisco has Equal Fire Protection for All.
The Marina District on fire in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake, October 17, 1989. Assistant Fire Chief Frank Blackburn (1933–2025) is credited with saving the city of San Francisco with his Portable Water Supply System, which he personally designed and deployed. Photo: Contra Costa Times/Bob Pepping
Since 2010, Assistant Fire Chief Frank Blackburn (1933–2025), 67 active and retired fire officials, and a 2019 San Francisco Civil Grand Jury have told City Hall that San Francisco is at extreme risk for a major earthquake and fires 10 times worse than in 1906 and 1989.
Blackburn and the Grand Jury have presented fire-tested, cost-effective solutions that are guaranteed to prevent a serious disaster while keeping all of San Francisco’s residents safe.
San Francisco Mayors Gavin Newsom, Ed Lee, London Breed, and Daniel Lurie—and the City officials who have been personally briefed on the situation—have all refused to act on Blackburn’s and the Grand Jury’s advice.
Today, multiple independent reviews of the City’s 2026 Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response (ESER) bond have verified that the bond provides no true solutions to San Francisco’s extreme earthquake and fire risk.
This ESER bond only provides a financial opportunity for the City of San Francisco to build out San Francisco’s drinking-water system and other city construction projects.
Political Contributions
In support of Proposition A
$1.7 million as of May 2026
TOP FIVE CONTRIBUTORS AS OF 5/10/26Christian Larsen $520,000
California Alliance for Jobs - Rebuild California Committee $150,000
Steven Huffman $100,000
Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition Issues PAC $100,000
Members' Voice of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California $100,000
Analysis
Seismologist Joe Litehiser
Joe Litehiser, Seismologist, Retired
Proposition A: Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response (ESER) Bond
The first sentence describing this bond in the Voter Information Pamphlet states in relevant part, “To improve fire, ….response …to ensure firefighters can access enough water to fight fires from a major disaster or emergency…”
If by “ensure” we are to believe that passage of this bond will guarantee the SFFD will have this access, then this bond does no such thing.
Because of the complexity of the plans anticipated by this bond to construct and expand an Earthquake Firefighting Water System (EFWS) to parts of the Richmond and Sunset Districts it is possible that completion of the work under the funding of this bond will not even substantially improve access to enough emergency water in the crucial earliest hours after the next major earthquake.
Compared to the original intention of the first ESER bond (in 2010) and the Civil Grand Jury Report (of 2019) to build a stand-alone, self-contained non-potable water Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS) for all the City, like that put into service in the northern part of City by 1913, the passage of Proposition A may actually set back this process – technically, financially, and programmatically.
And, finally, if you live in any of the many neighborhoods not even considered by this bond I guarantee you that it will add almost nothing directly for your protection from conflagration like that in southern California in January of last year.
Send the City a message – This bond’s approach to improved protection against an uncontrollable firestorm (a conflagration) after the next major earthquake is flawed.
There are better ways to do this. They are known.
Go back to the pre-2020 drawing board and send a bond measure to the voters whose sole focus is improved firefighting capability like that provided to the northern part of the City by the AWSS.
The people of the western and southern neighborhoods of the City, as well as our Firefighters, and ultimately all of San Francisco deserve nothing less.
Joe Litehiser
Ingleside District, District 11
May 12, 2026
Analysis
Civic group Connected SF
ConnectedSF: Vote NO on Prop A
Proposition A: Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response (ESER) General Obligation Bond, up to $535 million
Fiscal Impact
Authorizes $535M in new city debt that property owners will repay through tax increases for decades ($3.40 per $100K assessed value annually at first, then at a higher peak later in the repayment cycle). It also authorizes landlords to pass on 50% of the resulting property tax increase to tenants in covered (rent-controlled) units.
How it landed on the ballot: San Francisco agencies, primarily public safety departments, like Fire, Police, Emergency Management, identified capital needs, Mayor Lurie approved the request, and the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to put it on the June ballot.
Bottom Line
This important ESER bond needs to be pulled and rewritten with a sole focus on a fully built-out Emergency Firefighting Water System (EFWS) serving the western and southern neighborhoods of the city and seismic rebuilds for firehouses.
The $200M (40%) allocated to MUNI for rebuilding the Potrero Bus Yard must be pulled out. Then it needs to be put back on the ballot in November.
Otherwise, this is just another MUNI bond and should be sold as such.
WHY NO ON PROP A?
Since 2010, San Francisco voters have approved three prior Emergency Firefighting and Earthquake Safety general obligation bonds intended to strengthen San Francisco’s disaster readiness.
The first, the 2010 ESER Bond, authorized approximately $412 million. Its stated focus was seismic upgrades to fire stations, improvements to the Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS), and initial planning for an Emergency Firefighting Water System (EFWS) to expand water access beyond downtown.
Funding primarily went toward fire station retrofits and enhancements to the existing high-pressure system serving the northeast quadrant of the city.
Not one pipe was laid in the 60% of the unprotected parts of the city for EFWS.
The second, the 2014 ESER Bond, authorized about $400 million. Allocations included additional fire station seismic work, street cistern construction, and early-phase EFWS design.
While planning and limited components moved forward, a citywide EFWS buildout was still not completed.
The third, the 2020 ESER Bond, authorized roughly $628.5 million. That measure included funding for fire station rebuilds, continued AWSS improvements, and further EFWS planning and segment work in the western neighborhoods.
Despite repeated commitments across all three bonds, a fully realized, citywide EFWS network, particularly serving outer neighborhoods vulnerable to post-earthquake fires, has not been delivered at scale.
So, to recap, since the first ESER authorization in 2010, no comprehensive, continuous EFWS pipeline network serving the west side has been completed, despite voters voting for that very line item.
This ESER bond measure totals approximately $535 million and continues the tradition of using an important infrastructure bond for post-earthquake readiness to fund projects other than the stated purpose of the bond; in this case, to help MUNI rebuild a bus yard.
We will take a hard pass on this and hope it returns in a purer form on the November ballot. Those of us who live on the westside and in the southern parts of the city are counting on our government to build a functional EFWS.
This should have happened in 2010, and while it’s not an emergency now, it never is until it is.
Don’t be fooled again. Vote NO on this measure, and let’s demand its rewrite and reappearance in November.
ConnectedSF
May 2026
Source: https://www.connectedsf.com/prop-a-earthquake-safety-emergency-response-eser-general-obligation-bond
San Francisco, April 18, 1906. A Chinese girl in the middle of Clay Street above Dupont (now Grant Avenue), watching the post-earthquake fires advancing toward Chinatown from the Embarcadero.
Photo: Chinese Historical Society of America, Library of Congress/Arnold Genthe