Open-container drinking may be coming to Chestnut Street, but that’s only the first of a packed week at City Hall. Supervisors and city commissions will weigh everything from a public bank and a crackdown on drug use in supportive housing to an audit of the financially troubled California Academy of Sciences, new police body camera rules and the latest step in San Francisco’s long-running effort to wrest its electric grid from PG&E.
Monday’s Rules Committee meeting features a vote on Supervisor Stephen Sherrill’s bill to authorize yet another entertainment zone, this time covering Chestnut Street. It will join the 30 or so neighborhood areas already designated where open container laws will be relaxed during certain events like street fairs and night markets, boosting neighborhood businesses.
The committee will also vet several commission appointments, including coffee entrepreneur Rich Lee, banker Vanessa Hartigan and longshoremen’s leader Willie Adams to the Port Commission. All these items will be forwarded to the full board for deciding votes on Tuesday.
San Francisco’s Health Commission will also meet on Monday. At the top of the agenda will be a presentation on security services provided to Department of Public Health (DPH) sites in the wake of a fatal stabbing incident at San Francisco General Hospital late last year and the resulting citywide safety assessment and $23 million budgeted on safety augmentation throughout the DPH system.
Another item up for consideration before the full Board of Supervisors Tuesday is a charter amendment for November’s ballot to establish a public bank. Primary sponsor and District 9 member Jackie Fielder has returned to the board to shepherd her pet project through.
While the plan garnered the recommendation of the board’s Rules Committee earlier this month, and most supervisors voted to continue the item last week, District 4 member Alan Wong voted against it, telling colleagues, “We are making hard choices about which services to fund and which programs to scale back. We’re asking our city department and partners to absorb cuts. In a moment like this, asking voters to commit San Francisco to potentially running a financial institution, is asking for trust the city has not yet earned.”
On Wednesday the Budget and Finance Committee will vote on a motion directing the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst to carry out a performance audit of the California Academy of Sciences. That institution has been afflicted with financial and management troubles in recent years, including a cash deficit approaching $8 million due to sagging attendance and high fixed operating costs, layoffs, leadership turnover, and allegations of financial mismanagement. District 1 member Connie Chan proposed a freeze on city funding to the academy earlier this month. The full board will likely vote on the funding freeze on July 21.
Meanwhile the Police Commission also meets Wednesday, On their agenda is a vote to approve significant changes to the Police Department’s body camera policy, including expanding areas where Bomb Squad personnel can turn off cameras for safety purposes, removal of a “privacy/dignity deactivation” exception, reducing the footage retention period to two years and expanding the scope of the policy at San Francisco International Airport.
Thursday’s Public Safety Committee features a vote on District 6 member Matt Dorsey’s bill to prevent the city from funding future site-based permanent supportive housing sites unless they prohibit illicit drug use on-site.
Originally set for a vote by the full board in May, it was sent back to committee to address concerns over eviction protections and other issues from the San Francisco and Marin Medical Society. Dorsey and the society had reportedly agreed in principle on changes by last month. The bill is on Thursday’s agenda as a committee report for the whole board to vote on next week.
Also on Thursday, the Planning Commission is set to certify the Environmental Impact Report on city plans to acquire electrical transmission and distribution assets of Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. Predictably, the utility is resisting the plan, which is locked in an ongoing valuation proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission.
