CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY DENNIS J. HERRERA BURK E. DELVENTHAL City Attorney Deputy City Attorney DIRECT DIAL: (415) 554-4650 E-MAIL:
[email protected] OPINION NO. 2014-01 TO: HONORABLE EDWIN LEE, Mayor ANGELA CALVILLO, Clerk of the Board of Supervisors FROM: BURK E. DELVENTHAL, Chief, Government Division JANA CLARK, Deputy City Attorney DATE: August 18, 2014 RE: Summary of Legal Requirements for Appointment of Members to Boards and Commissions and Certain Other Entities, Removal and Other Related Matters, Appointment and Removal of Department Heads Under those Boards and Commissions, and Mayoral Voting Seats on Certain Boards and Commissions and Other Entities In this memorandum, we provide a summary of the legal requirements regarding the various boards, commissions and other entities to which the Mayor, or the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors (sometimes referred to below as the "Board"), or the President of the Board of Supervisors, have appointing authority. This memorandum updates and supersedes our earlier memorandum Opinion No. 2010-01, dated February 12, 2010. We do not generally address here the Mayor's authority to appoint members to purely advisory entities created by ordinance or state or federal law or the Mayor's authority to sit on such bodies. We have included a few bodies that are primarily advisory in light of appointment questions that have arisen. Nor do we address other advisory bodies to which only the Board of Supervisors or City officials other than the Mayor make appointments. For information on other types of appointments, see the Board of Supervisors’ "Annual Listing of Active Boards, Commissions, Committees, and Task Forces and Requirement of Membership" as posted on the Board of Supervisors website in compliance with The Maddy Act, California Government Code §54972 (http://www.sfbos.org/index.aspx?page=3045).