District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar is publicly calling out her colleagues for being too deferential to Mayor Daniel Lurie, going so far as to challenge what she calls the "myth that the mayor is doing really well." Her argument: the new crop of supervisors is still climbing a learning curve and defaulting to rubber-stamping the mayor's agenda rather than doing the hard, independent work of legislating.

She's not entirely wrong. A board that just nods along isn't a board — it's a rubber stamp. And San Francisco has had plenty of experience with both extremes: boards that obstructed everything for ideological sport and boards that waved through budgets nobody actually read. Neither version served taxpayers well.

But here's the thing Melgar might not want to hear: after years of a Board that seemed more interested in symbolic resolutions and progressive purity tests than actually fixing potholes and balancing budgets, a little deference to an executive who's at least trying to set a new tone isn't the worst thing in the world. The real test is whether these new supervisors develop independent judgment over time — or stay pliant forever.

Meanwhile, out in the Sunset, things are getting spicy. Four challengers to incumbent Supervisor Alan Wong have banded together — not to promote a unified platform, mind you, but to condemn a billionaire-backed PAC supporting Wong. It's an unusual alliance that tells you more about the state of district politics than any policy paper could. When your opponents' strongest unifying principle is you have rich friends, it's worth asking whether the criticism is substantive or just convenient.

The broader dynamics here reflect a city still sorting out its political identity post-Peskin era. As one local put it bluntly, any reform that prevents "a 17-year, on-again, off-again career" like the former Board president's is a reform worth considering. Though not everyone agrees — one SF resident pushed back, noting that term limits "sound good to the average voter but end up handing more power to lobbyists and bureaucrats" by draining institutional knowledge.

Both points have merit, which is exactly why this moment matters. San Francisco doesn't need a board of yes-men or a board of permanent obstructionists. It needs supervisors who can disagree with a mayor on the merits, ask hard questions about spending, and still get things done.

Is that too much to ask? In this city, historically, yes. But hope springs eternal.