WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.300 --> 00:00:22.340 On this week's episode: the Board of Supervisors puts data centers on hold for forty-five days, votes, on first reading, to cut the time to appeal an environmental review to the Board in half, and hears a proposal to keep human attendants at self-checkout. 2 00:00:25.579 --> 00:00:31.419 Eleven supervisors, forty-seven square miles. Here's your weekly debrief. 3 00:00:32.019 --> 00:00:38.713 Two centennials came up at City Hall this week, and both go back to 1926. 4 00:00:38.713 --> 00:00:39.383 Which ones? 5 00:00:39.383 --> 00:00:51.767 Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced a resolution marking a hundred years since the Board named the dahlia the city's official flower. Walton also spoke up for the San Francisco Flower Mart in its new home on Potrero Hill. 6 00:00:51.767 --> 00:00:52.771 And the second? 7 00:00:52.771 --> 00:01:07.833 McLaren Park. Supervisor Chyanne Chen introduced a resolution marking a hundred years since the Board's 1926 land acquisition policies that led to the park. Chen called it the city's second-largest park, serving the Excelsior, the Portola, and Visitation Valley. 8 00:01:07.833 --> 00:01:22.896 Tuesday also brought the Board's commendations. Among those honored were the San Francisco Lowrider Council, on its forty-fifth anniversary, and two police homicide investigators who used DNA evidence to solve the 1978 murder of a fifteen-year-old girl. 9 00:01:22.896 --> 00:01:30.259 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 10 00:01:33.498 --> 00:01:41.674 We start with data centers. On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors passed a forty-five-day moratorium on data centers across the whole city. 11 00:01:41.674 --> 00:01:44.058 So what does a moratorium actually do? 12 00:01:44.058 --> 00:02:06.882 It's a temporary zoning measure allowed under state law. While it's in place, the city stops approving data centers. As it was described from the dais, the pause gives the Board and the Planning Department time to study how data centers affect energy, water, air quality, land use, and communities. They'd also come up with a clearer definition of a data center, and then write permanent rules. 13 00:02:06.882 --> 00:02:08.245 When does it start? 14 00:02:08.245 --> 00:02:29.024 As soon as it's enacted. Because it's an urgency ordinance, state law required nine votes, and it passed on its first and only reading, without objection. Once the Board passes something, the Mayor has ten days to approve or veto it. The Board's Land Use and Transportation Committee had heard it on Monday, October fifth, and sent it on with amendments. 15 00:02:29.024 --> 00:02:30.387 And what comes next? 16 00:02:30.387 --> 00:02:56.276 The ordinance sets deadlines. The Planning Department has to report to the Clerk of the Board within twenty-five days, and a hearing on that report has to happen within thirty-five days of the ordinance taking effect. The pause lasts forty-five days, unless it's extended under state law or replaced by permanent rules. The co-sponsors thanked from the dais were District One Supervisor Connie Chan, District Nine Supervisor Jackie Fielder, and Supervisor Chen. 17 00:02:56.276 --> 00:02:58.661 Did anyone from the public weigh in? 18 00:02:58.661 --> 00:03:18.418 Two people spoke in support during general public comment. One pointed to poor air quality in neighborhoods including Bayview-Hunters Point, Potrero Hill, and Portola. The other, a caller, said the issue is complex and the city needs more time to think about it. The caller was told this item's public comment had already been taken at committee. 19 00:03:21.658 --> 00:03:29.947 Our second top story: the Board voted to streamline how San Francisco carries out the California Environmental Quality Act, the state law known as CEQA. 20 00:03:29.947 --> 00:03:33.594 What changes for a resident who wants to challenge a project? 21 00:03:33.594 --> 00:03:47.852 The deadline gets shorter. Right now you have thirty days to appeal a CEQA determination to the Board of Supervisors. Under this ordinance you'd have fifteen. So anyone who wants the Board to review a project's environmental analysis would have to file faster. 22 00:03:47.852 --> 00:03:49.510 What else is in it? 23 00:03:49.510 --> 00:04:03.104 Shadow analysis would no longer be its own category of environmental impact. The city would drop some of its own procedures for environmental documents that CEQA doesn't require. And recent changes in state law on CEQA timing would take effect locally. 24 00:04:03.104 --> 00:04:04.762 How did the vote go? 25 00:04:04.762 --> 00:04:14.378 A roll call was requested from the dais, and it passed ten to one. Supervisor Connie Chan voted no. That was the first reading, so it isn't final yet. 26 00:04:17.617 --> 00:04:25.072 Our last top story is a proposal, not a decision. Board President Rafael Mandelman introduced an ordinance about self-checkout lanes. 27 00:04:25.072 --> 00:04:27.202 Would it get rid of them? 28 00:04:27.202 --> 00:04:42.467 No. The sponsor made a point of saying it doesn't ban self-checkout. It would require one human attendant for every three self-checkout stations that are running. It would apply to grocery stores bigger than ten thousand square feet, and to drugstores. 29 00:04:42.467 --> 00:04:43.532 Why do it? 30 00:04:43.532 --> 00:05:04.122 The sponsor said the aim is to protect union jobs and keep people talking to people in neighborhood stores. The bill was also pitched as a way to cut retail theft. The sponsor cited a 2023 analysis by a checkout technology company that estimated losses at self-checkout were far higher than at staffed lanes. 31 00:05:04.122 --> 00:05:05.897 Who else is behind it? 32 00:05:05.897 --> 00:05:17.257 The early co-sponsors are District Two Supervisor Stephen Sherrill and Supervisors Chen, Walton, and Fielder. The sponsor also thanked the grocery workers' union, UFCW Local Five. Nothing was voted on Tuesday. 33 00:05:20.496 --> 00:05:23.631 Next, some shorter items from both meetings this week. 34 00:05:23.631 --> 00:05:48.363 Last week we told you the Board had given first-round approval to the amended Potrero Power Station development agreement. On Tuesday it got final passage on the consent agenda, eleven to zero. The same vote gave final passage to the new Office of Food Security Coordination, the Sylvester House landmark amendment, the airport health care spending rules, and the zero-dollar settlement of a lawsuit brought by Airlines for America. 35 00:05:48.363 --> 00:06:13.444 Last week the Board also put off for one week an ordinance that would remove some disclosure and reporting rules for candidates running for the Retirement Board, the Health Service Board, and the Retiree Health Care Trust Fund Board. This week a supervisor said parts of it are worth doing, but that it isn't ready to pass. On Board President Rafael Mandelman's motion, the Board sent it back to committee without objection. 36 00:06:13.444 --> 00:06:42.009 The Board also urged the U.S. Census Bureau to reconsider proposed changes to the 2030 Census. Those changes would leave noncitizens out of the count, stop collecting data on race and ethnicity, and rule out collecting information on sexual orientation. Amendments from the dais took out a specific dollar figure for lost federal funding, and changed the text to say the rule contravenes the Constitution as a whole, not only the Fourteenth Amendment. The resolution was adopted without objection. 37 00:06:42.009 --> 00:07:15.450 There were two more introductions. Supervisor Danny Sauter would rename the city's watch list for people who break building rules. It would become the Compliance Oversight Program. More kinds of Planning Code violations could count toward getting listed, and the lookback window would grow from eighteen months to forty-eight. Supervisor Matt Dorsey introduced a Sober Spaces program. Recreation and Park and Police Department community rooms would be open every day of the year, free of charge, to abstinence-based recovery groups. A new fund would pay for meeting space and for grants to sober nonprofits. 38 00:07:15.450 --> 00:07:58.644 At Thursday's Planning Commission, the Planning Director gave an update on merging the Planning Department with the Department of Building Inspection. The goal is one permitting process for residents and small businesses. In March, the Permit Center moved into the Planning Department, and the two departments' technology teams combined. Finance, human resources, and other administrative services followed this summer. Building Inspection still runs its own permit intake, plan review, code enforcement, and inspections on its own. The target is one new department by July 2027. The Director said the merger isn't about cutting staff, and that a fee study aims to keep permit fees the same or lower them. A joint budget is expected this winter, and legislation probably next spring. 39 00:07:58.644 --> 00:08:25.467 The commission voted six to zero to certify the final environmental impact report for modernizing the marine sand plant at Pier 92, in the northeast Bayview. The site is in a state-designated environmental justice community. To control dust, the project adds covered conveyors and a sixty-three-foot warehouse over the sand stockpile. Staff explained that certifying the report doesn't approve the project. Construction would take up to seven months in 2027. 40 00:08:25.467 --> 00:08:51.593 Commissioners also approved a chain gym, Alloy Personal Training, for a vacant storefront at 701 Taraval Street. The vote was seven to zero, with the conditions staff recommended. The approval came after a debate about a lit sign, a mural on the storefront, and what the business would give back to the neighborhood. Staff said the gym would raise the share of chain storefronts within three hundred feet from four percent to eight. 41 00:08:51.593 --> 00:09:17.370 And there was no vote on a revised plan for a forty-five-story tower at 395 Third Street, at Harrison. The developer described 501 homes, ten percent of them affordable and on site. The developer said moving the parking above ground saves about thirty million dollars and six months. Under the state's streamlining law, SB 423, the department reviews the project without a commission vote. 42 00:09:17.370 --> 00:09:35.136 Finally, Supervisor Sherrill honored a colleague from the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System board who died suddenly. She was a financial executive and a longtime city commissioner. She had served on the SFMTA board, and most recently as the retirement board's interim president. The Board adjourned its meeting in her memory. 43 00:09:38.375 --> 00:09:48.282 That's our week. The Planning Department and the Permit Center will be closed Monday for Indigenous Peoples' Day, and the Board of Supervisors won't meet next Tuesday, October thirteenth. 44 00:09:48.282 --> 00:09:55.455 If you hear a mistake, use the link on this episode's page to tell us. We read corrections on the air. 45 00:09:55.455 --> 00:09:59.135 That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.