PREAMBLE
This preamble sets forth the purposes and values behind San Francisco's Charter, including promoting quality of life, civic participation, effective government, ethics, social harmony, and equal opportunity, and declares the Charter as the city's fundamental governing law.
San Francisco's people are creating this Charter—the city's main rulebook—to help make the city work better. They want to use California's home-rule powers, improve people's lives, get everyone involved in city decisions, make government work well, keep officials honest, bring people together, and make sure everyone has a fair chance. This Charter is the foundation for how the city runs.
- Complex:The preamble lists seven distinct purposes connected by semicolons, which can be hard to parse as a unified statement of intent.
AI-generated · claude-haiku-4-5 · informational only, not legal advice.
Official text
In order to obtain the full benefit of home rule granted by the Constitution of the State of California; to improve the quality of urban life; to encourage the participation of all persons and all sectors in the affairs of the City and County; to enable municipal government to meet the needs of the people effectively and efficiently; to provide for accountability and ethics in public service; to foster social harmony and cohesion; and to assure equality of opportunity for every resident:
We, the people of the City and County of San Francisco, ordain and establish this Charter as the fundamental law of the City and County.