The Weekly Digest (October 15, 2023)

Written By Bill Jackson

Happy Sunday, Brionies!

If you’re a regular reader of our Weekly Digest, you probably have a sense of what we here at the Briones Society are all about. For a deeper dive, check out our recently revamped website to learn more about us and the issues we care about. Our motto is “Opportunity for Everyone,” and we hope you’ll join our coalition of voters who want to see real change in San Francisco.

Here’s what you need to know about San Francisco politics this week and beyond:


City Hall

  • Monday, October 16 at 1:30pm: Regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee (agenda and call-in instructions here)

    • Item 7 – Ordinance amending the Planning Code to remove various constraints to building new housing. Monday will mark this committee’s third attempt to consider this measure, which is sponsored by Mayor London Breed and moderate Supervisors Matt Dorsey and Joel Engardio. During the last attempt, Supervisor Peskin likened the process of code review to cleaning out an old pantry stocked with too many expired cans: “It makes sense to go through and see whether that can of peas is outdated and needs to be thrown out. You need to look at every can.” Doing a can-by-can review sounds a wee bit time-consuming, given that the city is under a state mandate to build 82,000 new homes by 2030.  

  • Tuesday, October 17 at 2pm: Regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors (agenda and call-in instructions here)

    • Item 13 – Ordinance amending Police Department salaries. This ordinance would remove two assistant chief positions and replace them with four police officers. We note with approval that this move would save $2.5-4 million in pension costs down the line.

    • Item 31 – Ordinance prohibiting armed guards from drawing or exhibiting firearms, other than a holster, to protect property. 

    • Item 33 – Resolution urging the Department of Public Health (“DPH”) to create a program to provide resources and education for victims of gun violence regarding “their rights to file lawsuits against gun manufacturers.” We thought that’s what plaintiffs’ attorneys are for.

    • Item 39 – Motion appointing Maxine Anderson to a term on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force. The appointment of Anderson, a Director for the League of Women Voters, does not seem particularly controversial, but the criteria for membership on this volunteer task force is interesting. Finding eleven people who tick all of the boxes sounds more complicated than devising the NFL schedule.

    • Item 44 – Resolution amending a grant between the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (“HSH”) and Episcopal Community Services for 464 units of “Housing First” permanent supportive housing. This amendment would extend the grant by 16 months and increase funding by $20,898,789, for a new “not to exceed” amount of $47,159,399.

    • Item 45 – Resolution authorizing the Mayor and HSH to solicit donations from various private entities and organizations to support the expansion of temporary shelter. Notwithstanding its $636 million annual budget, HSH needs more money. Perhaps this has something to do with the staggering cost of “Housing First” permanent supportive housing, per Item 44, above.

    • Item 46 - Motion amending the Rules of Order to discontinue remote public comment by members of the public at meetings of the Board and its committees. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Call to Action

  • The San Francisco District Attorney invites you to register your security camera with its office. The goal of the program is to deter crime and promote public safety throughout the community. If you’re so inclined, you can register your camera here. Fear not - they won’t have direct access to your camera. This just allows the DA’s office to contact you as part of investigating criminal activity, should the need arise.

Happenings around town

What we’re not reading

  • Dean Preston’s X-Formerly-Known-as-Twitter feed. The District 5 Supervisor has taken his Twitter account private and moved over to social media competitor, Bluesky. By ditching Twitter, Preston can play dumb about posts by his political club, the Democratic Socialists of America (“DSA”), who called for the eradication of Israel (“from the river to the sea”) and claimed that the “violent oppression [of Palestine] inevitably leads to resistance.” By “resistance,” the DSA apparently refers to the massacre, torture, and rape of hundreds of innocent civilians. Rather than denounce the DSA for its anti-Semitism, as some have done, Preston took his talents to the invite-only social network. Many were not impressed with the move, and some claim that private posting by a public figure violates the First Amendment. We will miss Preston’s Twitter antics, as he reliably has the worst possible take on any local issue. That said, our blood pressure may benefit.

What we’re reading

  • Then again, this story made the ol’ BP spike back up again. It can be a nightmare to renovate your home in San Francisco, even if the Planning Department approves your plans. That’s because a single neighbor who thinks your planned update is “too bulky” can bring renovation to a screeching halt and bury you in red tape. Such was the case for Hiten Madhani, who had to scrap his plan to make space for his aging parents in his Bernal Heights home after spending five years and $70,000 but failing to obtain the necessary permits.

  • In another example of bureaucracy at its most maddening, SFMTA has been ticketing cars that have been reported stolen – 411 of them between May and September – mainly for parking violations. Why doesn’t the SFMTA notify an owner that his or her car has been found? Within hours of the story breaking, Mayor Breed sprung into action to demand SFMTA do just that. Of course, it isn’t likely to happen in the 45 days Breed gave the department to work it out, because laws governing the use of license plate readers require signoff from multiple committees and the Board of Supervisors, many of whom take issue with the technology. In an act that, in its simplicity, should make City Hall’s collective head spin, the Chronicle reporters who broke the story skipped lunch and put together a website where people can check if their stolen car has been ticketed. SFMTA, take note. You’ve got this.

  • SFUSD teachers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike this week, joining the union representing the district’s 900 custodians, food workers, and secretaries, who voted to authorize a strike last week. This doesn’t mean that a walkout is imminent, as several more hurdles would need to be cleared before a legal strike could happen. However, the union has an ace up its sleeve that could make a strike happen sooner: they could allege unfair labor practices. The idea isn’t preposterous, given that the district can’t seem to pay its teachers.

  • Ever industrious, Bay Area perps are bundling their crimes into a package deal: ram raiding, which occurs when someone steals a car, and then uses it to ram through the front of a business in order to steal merchandise.

  • Fed up with the doom loop narrative, San Francisco has hired a PR firm to pump up our image. One of the firm’s pitches was, “you don’t become one of the most forward-looking cities in the world without ruffling a few feathers.” We suppose record-breaking overdose deaths, property crime, and rampant homelessness = “ruffled feathers.” Nailed it!

Quick Hits

Palate Cleanser

Bill Jackson
Previous

The Weekly Digest (October 22, 2023)
Next

The Weekly Digest (October 8, 2023)