One San Francisco supervisor left an emotional hearing on housing legislation to attend his daughter’s birthday party.

Another all but stopped attending committee meetings after she entered the June 5 mayor’s race.

A third supervisor can’t remember why he missed a meeting in October, while a fourth skipped one in January because he didn’t feel like going.

Those are examples revealed in a Chronicle review of attendance records from Sept. 5 — the first day of the fall legislative session — through April 10. It showed that several supervisors frequently skip committee meetings, arrive late or leave early, sometimes missing significant votes.

These meetings provide one of the few forums where the public can comment on legislation that’s pending before the board. The city’s 11 supervisors are paid $121,606 a year in taxpayer funds to attend them each week, amend and vote on proposed laws, and introduce new ones.

But legislation has stagnated at the board this year, to the point that committee chairs occasionally cancel meetings, because there is no policy to discuss. And while most supervisors make most meetings, some supervisors don’t always show up.

That irritates some of the neighborhood activists who show up to committee meetings to lobby. And it has raised concerns about government accountability in a city with more than 800,000 people and no shortage of quality-of-life issues.

Residents who want to engage with their elected representatives are being let down, said Lori Brooke, president of the Cow Hollow Association.

“If we’re going to these meetings, we get babysitters,” she said. “We go down to City Hall. And then when these supervisors don’t show up, it’s very frustrating.”

Board of Supervisors President London Breed, who is running for mayor, deflected questions about supervisors’ absences during a recent interview with The Chronicle’s editorial board.

“I can’t control what other people do — I can only control what I do,” Breed said.

Breed appeared at all of the full board meetings during the period The Chronicle reviewed. Yet she missed stretches of five Government Audit and Oversight Committee meetings, either by arriving late, leaving early or ducking out in the middle. Breed appointed Supervisors Norman Yee and Sandra Lee Fewer to replace her at two of those meetings. The committee held 11 during the period The Chronicle scrutinized.

The supervisor with the worst attendance record is Malia Cohen, who is immersed in a statewide race for Board of Equalization.

Since Sept. 5, Cohen has missed eight meetings of the Budget and Finance Committee, subcommittee and federal select committee — the three that she chairs. There were 29 budget meetings in all. Supervisor Ahsha Safai filled in for Cohen at two of the meetings she missed.

Cohen was late to one more meeting and left another early. Additionally, she was absent for part of four Board of Supervisors meetings. One of Cohen’s legislative aides said she had a serious family health issue in January, which prompted some of her absences.

“Despite competing priorities, Supervisor Cohen has remained one of the top producing legislators on the Board of Supervisors,” her office said in a statement that cited her accomplishments — among them, an equity program to bring racial diversity to the city’s cannabis industry and a law to eliminate fines and fees in the criminal justice system.

Yee was a no-show to four Budget and Finance Committee meetings — he got Supervisor Hillary Ronen to take his place for one of them — and for most of one Rules Committee meeting, where Supervisor Jeff Sheehy filled in. He also skipped votes during two Budget and Finance and two Rules Committee meetings, and he left one Board of Supervisors meeting early.

“Sure, it looks like a lot,” said Yee, who blamed one absence on confusion because of a fire drill and another on an out-of-town meeting. He couldn’t recall his reason for missing a budget committee meeting Oct. 5.

Even so, Yee said he doesn’t think there’s a problem of lassitude on the board.

“Budget committee is every week,” he said. “And during budget season it’s two or three times a week. That’s a lot of meetings.”

When he was a supervisor, Mayor Mark Farrell missed a third of the Land Use and Transportation Committee’s 12 meetings last fall, while he was serving as chairman. He found substitutes for three of those meetings. Farrell was on vacation for two of them and missed the other one because he was traveling on a “sister city” expedition to Kiel, Germany. He said he missed a fourth because his mother had back surgery.

Supervisor Jane Kim had flawless attendance throughout the fall, but that changed after she entered the mayor’s race in January. She left a Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting early on Feb. 5, missing three votes. Kim skipped the next three meetings on Feb. 12, March 5 and March 12. Supervisor Aaron Peskin substituted for her Feb. 12.

Kim’s calendar for those three dates shows that she did not attend the meetings, but does not provide a reason. There is no requirement for supervisors to report why they were absent.

Supervisor Ahsha Safai left the March 12 Land Use meeting early to celebrate his daughter’s birthday, even as residents flooded in to comment on a board resolution condemning a state housing bill. Safai recruited Peskin, the resolution’s sponsor, to fill his seat.

Eighteen such substitutions took place during the period under review.

Such on-the-spot swaps erode public trust in government, especially at the municipal level, said Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy at Common Cause, a government accountability organization based in Washington, D.C.

“This is the government that’s closest to people’s lives,” Spaulding said, noting that supervisors deal with “the mechanics of communities — clean streets, public safety, providing services that people actually use.”

He added, “It doesn’t bode well when these elected leaders aren’t showing up to their jobs.”

Peskin had one Land Use and Transportation Committee absence since Sept. 5 — Sheehy replaced him — and two absences from the Government Audit and Oversight Committee; during one of those Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer took his place. He was absent from a full board meeting once last month when he was on vacation in Mexico.

Peskin has a low tolerance for his peers who don’t come to meetings, particularly if they appear to be campaigning.

“Using your office to run for another office is not what the people hired you to do,” he said.

The members of the Board of Supervisors also comprise the membership of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. Over the past year, Cohen and Sheehy both missed five Transportation Authority meetings. The board has held 23 meetings.

Sheehy said he skipped meetings to attend a funeral, meet with The Chronicle’s editorial board and to take care of his daughter. One time he just didn’t feel like going, he said.

As board president, Breed makes committee assignments and sets the attendance policy, allowing supervisors to substitute for one another “when the absent supervisor requests.”

A substitute is better than an empty chair, but it shouldn’t be a crutch, said Corey Smith, a pro-density housing activist and president of San Francisco’s United Democratic Club.

“They’re chosen for these committees for a reason,” Smith said, noting that supervisors typically get assigned to a specific committee for their expertise. For instance Farrell, who is a venture capitalist, chaired the Budget and Finance Committee from 2013 until last year, when Cohen replaced him.

San Francisco’s government didn’t always run this way, said former Supervisor Chris Daly, who was a member of the “Class of 2000,” a group of progressive neighborhood activists elected to the board at the turn of the century with a mission to take on Mayor Willie Brown.

“I think there was a culture on that board of attending meetings and doing the people’s business,” Daly said. “And we were notorious for having very long meetings.”

Quentin Kopp, who was a supervisor from 1972 to 1986, pointed out that in his era supervisors earned only $9,624 a year, but seldom missed their meetings.

“Supervisors generally had a profession to pursue in the mornings, and then if there were committee meetings in the afternoon, they would attend them,” Kopp said. “It was the exception to the rule to be absent.”

Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who Farrell appointed to be his successor in January, missed two Budget and Finance Committee meetings for a family vacation in Hawaii. But she paid extra to change her airline flight, so that she could attend the first full board meeting in April.

“I take this job very seriously,” she said.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @rachelswan