WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:24.390 On this week's episode: the Board of Supervisors gives final approval to changes in the city's environmental review rules. Supervisor Jackie Fielder proposes money for immigrant legal help and a new name for Cesar Chavez Street. And two new protections for renters move ahead. 2 00:00:27.734 --> 00:00:33.574 Eleven supervisors, forty-seven square miles. Here's your weekly debrief. 3 00:00:34.174 --> 00:00:45.134 Tuesday's Board meeting marked a couple of hundredth birthdays. The supervisors declared Tuesday, October twentieth, McLaren Park Day, honoring a hundred years of the park. 4 00:00:45.134 --> 00:01:02.684 And a second resolution marked a hundred years of the dahlia as San Francisco's official flower. Supervisor Shamann Walton pulled that one aside so he could speak on it. He thanked the Dahlia Society of California for donating the flower arrangements in the chamber, which were grown at the park nursery. 5 00:01:02.684 --> 00:01:17.159 Both passed. The afternoon's honors also went to the Tsunami Swim Club, which has spent forty years bringing LGBTQI-plus swimmers together. This year the club placed fourth overall at the Gay Games in Valencia, Spain. 6 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:29.849 And to Castro Community on Patrol, a volunteer safety patrol that turned twenty this year. Board President Rafael Mandelman presented that one, and said its volunteers have given nearly twelve thousand hours. 7 00:01:29.849 --> 00:01:36.094 This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes. 8 00:01:39.437 --> 00:01:52.802 Our top story this week: a final vote on how the city handles environmental review. Two weeks ago we told you the Board passed it on first reading, ten to one. On Tuesday it came back for final passage. 9 00:01:52.802 --> 00:01:56.722 This is CEQA, right? The California Environmental Quality Act? 10 00:01:56.722 --> 00:02:25.392 Right. This ordinance changes the city's own local procedures under that state law. As the clerk read it, it includes four changes. It drops shadow analysis as a specific type of environmental impact. It cuts the time to appeal a CEQA decision to the Board from thirty days to fifteen. It removes some procedures for environmental documents that CEQA doesn't require. And it puts recent changes in state law into effect on when CEQA compliance happens. 11 00:02:25.392 --> 00:02:27.792 So why should a resident care? 12 00:02:27.792 --> 00:02:36.157 Because it changes the rules for appealing a project's environmental review to the Board. A fifteen-day window gives you half as long to file an appeal. 13 00:02:36.157 --> 00:02:37.277 And the vote? 14 00:02:37.277 --> 00:02:56.597 Supervisors Myrna Melgar and Chyanne Chen were excused, so nine members voted. It passed eight to one. Supervisor Connie Chan of District 1 voted no, as she did two weeks ago. It was the only split vote of the meeting. The ordinance now goes to the Mayor, who has ten days to sign or veto it. 15 00:03:00.181 --> 00:03:07.461 Next, two proposals from Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who represents District 9: the Mission, Bernal Heights and the Portola. 16 00:03:07.461 --> 00:03:10.181 Let's start with the money. 17 00:03:10.181 --> 00:03:29.551 Fielder introduced a supplemental appropriation of one million, seven hundred sixty-five thousand dollars for immigrant legal services. That includes the Rapid Response Network, and habeas petitions for people held in ICE detention. Fielder cited at least two ICE sightings the day before, including a violent detention in South of Market. 18 00:03:29.551 --> 00:03:31.791 Does it have the votes behind it? 19 00:03:31.791 --> 00:03:58.711 Fielder said every other supervisor has signed on as a co-sponsor. Fielder also thanked Board President Rafael Mandelman for agreeing to waive the thirty-day waiting period. Earlier in the meeting, during his monthly appearance, Mayor Daniel Lurie called federal immigration enforcement targeting San Franciscans upsetting, and said he supports the funding. In public comment, one speaker backed the habeas money. Another described a long backlog for legal representation for people facing ICE. 20 00:03:58.711 --> 00:03:59.991 And the street? 21 00:03:59.991 --> 00:04:23.626 Fielder introduced a resolution of intention to rename Cesar Chavez Street to Las Campesinas, after a process run by a renaming working group. The working group's statement, which Fielder read at the meeting, explained that the name means women farm workers, and is meant to honor women who work the fields. Part of its reasoning was allegations of sexual abuse and assault against young women and girls. 22 00:04:23.626 --> 00:04:26.101 What about the people who live on that street? 23 00:04:26.101 --> 00:04:36.861 Fielder said there's a list of frequently asked questions on the process, and residents will get help with changing their addresses. Both proposals were only introduced. Neither was voted on Tuesday. 24 00:04:40.205 --> 00:04:45.885 Our third story is for renters. The Board passed two tenant measures on first reading. 25 00:04:45.885 --> 00:04:47.325 What's the first one? 26 00:04:47.325 --> 00:05:07.860 Online listings and leases for rentals would have to clearly show the total estimated monthly cost. That's the rent plus any required fees and charges. Tenants who didn't get proper disclosure could end their lease early without a penalty. And landlords would be limited in evicting tenants, or charging late penalties, over fees they didn't disclose. 27 00:05:07.860 --> 00:05:09.025 And the second? 28 00:05:09.025 --> 00:05:27.090 It limits evictions over unpaid rent below a set threshold. As the clerk read it, that threshold is tied to the local fair market rent for a unit of the same size, a figure set by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The clerk's reading of the exact cutoff was hard to follow, so we're not giving one. 29 00:05:27.090 --> 00:05:28.930 So it's not law yet. 30 00:05:28.930 --> 00:05:33.245 Not yet. Both passed, and both come back for a second vote at a later meeting. 31 00:05:36.668 --> 00:05:39.788 Now some shorter items from Tuesday's meeting. 32 00:05:39.788 --> 00:06:09.038 No questions had been submitted for Mayor Lurie's appearance, so he made remarks instead. He said fatal overdoses are down almost forty percent since 2023. He said unsheltered homelessness is at a fifteen-year low, and that more than seventeen thousand people are now in treatment. He also acknowledged that only fourteen percent of patients who start medication treatment stay on it continuously for six months. He said the city is expanding long-acting buprenorphine and follow-up care. 33 00:06:09.038 --> 00:06:32.428 Amended contracts with six city employee unions passed on first reading. Among them are SEIU Local ten twenty-one and IFPTE Local twenty-one. As read, the contracts run through June of 2031 and set base wage increases for the four fiscal years starting in 2027. They also bar the city from laying off permanent civil service employees through June of 2029. 34 00:06:32.428 --> 00:06:42.588 Small hardware stores would get a credit against the city's gross receipts tax for tax years 2026 through 2035. That ordinance also passed on first reading. 35 00:06:42.588 --> 00:07:18.663 Supervisors introduced several new proposals. Supervisor Bilal Mahmood of District 5 proposed easing the formula retail rules for grocery stores and pharmacies. Mahmood said current rules can require a conditional use permit for grocers or pharmacies with more than eleven locations worldwide, which he said can add six to nine months to the permitting process. Mahmood is also co-sponsoring Mayor Lurie's ordinances for Freedom West 2.0 in the Fillmore. That project includes nearly twenty-four hundred homes, among them replacement units for the shareholders of the existing three-hundred-eighty-two-home cooperative. 36 00:07:18.663 --> 00:07:51.478 Supervisor Danny Sauter of District 3 asked for legislation to expand the program that turns empty commercial space into housing. Sauter said four projects using it are creating nearly five hundred homes. And Board President Rafael Mandelman asked for a committee update on traffic enforcement on November sixteenth. Mandelman noted that traffic citations fell from nearly a hundred thirty thousand in 2014 to about four thousand in 2022. They've climbed since, and they're up forty-one percent this year over the same point last year. 37 00:07:51.478 --> 00:08:04.753 Mandelman also asked that the full Board adjourn the meeting in memory of a retired Police Department deputy chief and her daughter, who were killed October eleventh. She was the first woman on the department's SWAT team, and later the first woman to command it. 38 00:08:04.753 --> 00:08:29.708 About eleven people spoke in public comment. Four who identified with the group Stop AI urged the Board to act against advanced AI development, calling it a public safety threat. Several raised complaints about policing. And a District 8 homeowner asked the Board to bring the Public Utilities Commission before an oversight committee. His complaint is a damaged sewer main in a city-recorded easement behind his home. 39 00:08:33.372 --> 00:08:40.332 If you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on this episode's page to tell us, and we read corrections on air. 40 00:08:40.332 --> 00:08:44.012 That's the news from City Hall. See you after the next meeting.