Supervisor Wiener's April 2012 Newsletter

April 2012 Newsletter

Office Phone: 415-554-6968

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My Policy Work

Restaurant Simplification Legislation Passed

When I ran for office, I pledged to help our City's small businesses. At times, San Francisco's regulatory system, though well-intentioned, stifles innovation and growth for our neighborhood businesses. Last Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed my legislation to simplify and streamline the permitting process for restaurants, cafes, bakeries, and other food and drink establishments. The legislation, which received broad support, reduces the number of classifications of restaurants from 13 to 3. It eliminates silly rules like allowing some restaurants to serve ice cream in cups but not cones, allowing cold bagels but not toasted, and allowing a restaurant to have 10 seats but not 11. Our system unintentionally stifled flexibility and innovation among our food and drink establishments. This reform legislation achieves simplification while keeping in place key neighborhood controls around formula retail, size restrictions, and other laws intended to protect neighborhood character. This is a big win for our food and drink sector and for consumers.

Budget Town Hall Meeting with Mayor Lee

Earlier this month, I held a budget town hall meeting at Horace Mann Middle School with Mayor Lee and Supervisor David Campos. This forum provided an opportunity for the Mayor's Budget Office to present the current budget picture and to hear from the community about our priorities. I serve on the Budget Committee, and receiving this kind of feedback is valuable. We have major budget challenges this year, including an expected $7 million cut in federal funding for HIV services. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that we are able to provide the services on which San Franciscans depend. Coverage here.

Middle Income Housing: Keeping Our City Diverse

One of my top priorities in office has been finding ways for San Francisco to produce more housing affordable to our middle class. We produce a significant amount of high-end housing and a decent amount (thought not enough) low income housing. However, we produce very little income for middle income people. In February, I held a hearing on the subject, and I've been an active participant in the current effort to address our housing policies and funding mechanisms. KQED recently reported on this important issue and on my work.

Historic Preservation: Upcoming Legislation

For the past year, I've been working on ensuring a balanced approach to historic preservation in San Francisco - protecting the best about our past while acknowledging that change is sometimes a good thing. At times, San Francisco focuses so intensely on preserving things that happen to be old that we lose sight of the need to make careful choices about what to preserve and what to change.

I recently introduced legislation to ensure that as we create historic districts, we do so in an inclusive way, one that respects the views of those living in the proposed district. The legislation also will help avoid gentrification of historic districts by ensuring that people with economic hardships are able to maintain their homes even if they cannot afford the full historic treatment. It will also ensure that the standards we apply to historic preservation in San Francisco reflect our City's unique urban setting. The legislation will be heard in committee soon and has already received the unanimous support of the Planning Commission.

Scott and Leader Pelosi look on as a section of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is raised.

High-Speed Rail: Regional Consensus for the Bay Area

High Speed Rail is key to California's future. Our roads and airports will not be able to handle our anticipated population growth, and if we don't create an effective statewide rail system, our transportation system as a whole will suffer, as will our economy and quality of life. As a Commissioner on the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), I've fought hard to ensure that high-speed rail happens in the Bay Area and that the train comes all the way to the Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco. I recently participated in the negotiation of a regional memorandum of understanding, which was approved by the MTC and by the High Speed Rail Authority. This MOU, which prioritizes electrification of CalTrain's tracks and also commits to extend the system to downtown San Francisco and San Jose, is a great first step and show of regional solidarity on this important issue. For additional coverage, click here for an article in the examiner, and here for an article in the Chronicle.

Muni Sustainability: We Can't Afford Free Muni for Youth

The Municipal Transportation Agency, Muni's parent agency, recently debated a proposal to provide free Muni for all youth, of all income levels and at all times. The MTA correctly declined to adopt a proposal to extend fare waivers to all youth, regardless of income, and instead limited the program to low income youth. Last week,while the debate was ongoing, I authored an op ed in the Chronicle on the subject.

Planning for the Needs of LGBT Seniors

Yesterday, I introduced legislation, with my co-authors Supervisors Campos and Olague, to require the City to plan for the needs of our growing LGBT seniors. The number of LGBT seniors in San Francisco is growing. We currently have more than 25,000 LGBT seniors, and that number is expected to double in the next 18 years. We need to plan for the growth of our LGBT senior population to ensure that these seniors can remain in the city and have access to key services. While LGBT seniors experience many of the challenges that all seniors face, including access to housing, architectural barriers, transportation access, and so forth, they also face unique challenges, including a higher likelihood of not having offspring to help them, health care challenges (particularly for those living with HIV), and discrimination in senior facilities that, at times, has caused seniors who are out to go back into the closet or be separated from their partners. This legislation will put us on the path of understanding the needs of this growing community and taking action to address those needs.

Scott, Supervisor Campos and advocates for LGBT seniors announcing introduction of the LGBT senior task force legislation.

Community Updates

Pedestrian Fatality at Castro and Market

On March 29th, Sut Chi Hui, a small business owner in Chinatown, was hit and killed by a bicycle while crossing Castro Street at Market. This tragic accident should never have happened, and my prayers go out to Mr. Hui's family and community. On April 10th, at my request and the request of Supervisor David Chiu, the Board adjourned in Mr. Hui's memory. This incident, yet again, reminds us that our traffic laws need to be enforced consistently with respect to all uses of our roads. Bicyclists, like motorists and pedestrians, must follow the Rules of the Road, and the police need to enforce when there are violations. Many cyclists do obey the law, but many do not. We also need to make sure that cyclists, like motorists and pedestrians, are educated about proper road behavior. And, of course, we need to remain very focused on physical changes to our roads and intersections to minimize accidents. We have made progress on these physical changes, but we have a long way to go. I commented on this problem at the Board of Supervisors.

Improving pedestrian safety will remain a top priority for me as Supervisor. Improvements along Duboce and Church Streets are already occurring, and upgrades at various Upper Market intersections will happen as developments move forward and development fees are used to make physical changes. The streets bond that I helped pass last fall will provide resources as well. I'm also very focused on 24th Street in Noe Valley, the Bosworth/Diamond intersection in Glen Park, and Diamond Heights Boulevard by the Safeway. Working together as a community, we can make our streets much safer.

Redistricting Complete: Great News for District 8

As you may know, based on the 2010 census, San Francisco has been going through a redistricting process for our 11 Supervisorial districts. The process finished this past Saturday. From the beginning, I made clear that I wanted to keep all parts of District 8 intact, even those areas that didn't vote for me. District 8 is such a unique blend of neighborhoods and political perspectives that, in my view, it needs to stay together. The Redistricting Task Force -- which is to be commended for its diligent, responsive, and thoughtful work -- completed its process on Saturday and issued a final map. You can find the map here. District 8 is almost totally intact. The district lost a few blocks of the Lower Haight and a tiny piece of Glen Park while gaining more of Valencia Street, the area between San Jose Avenue and Mission Street south of Randall -- known as "Glen Bernal" or "College Hill" -- and a portion of Mission Terrace. Although I'm disappointed to lose the few blocks that were moved to other districts, I'm thrilled that the district was largely maintained intact and that I'll be representing some terrific new areas. I look forward to working with all of my constituents, new and returning!

Final draft of the Board of Supervisors 2012 district lines (click the link above for a more detailed map).

Neighborhood Traffic Calming

The SFMTA's neighborhood traffic calming program is not currently accepting new applications until Spring 2013 while they reshape their citywide approach for traffic calming. While the program has delivered great benefits for neighborhoods throughout the City, the time is right to evaluate how well it works for residents and make changes to ensure that the process is clear, equitable, and easy to understand. In light of this, on February 28th the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Board of Commissioners agreed to fund an overall evaluation of the current traffic calming program. Consistent with this decision by the SFCTA Board, the SFMTA Livable Streets Subdivision is not accepting traffic calming applications for the duration of program's restructuring. In the future, the criteria for evaluating, accepting, and prioritizing the applications is likely to change, thus they are asking potential applicants to wait until the City has completed its update to the traffic calming program before resubmitting a request for traffic calming. The new strategy for the traffic calming program should be finalized and approved by the SFMTA Board of Directors and the Board of Supervisors by Spring 2013, after which they will accept applications.

If you would like more information about the changes to the traffic calming program, or would like to be informed about the planning process to develop the new traffic calming criteria, please contact the project manager, Miriam Sorell, at: Miriam.Sorell@sfmta.com, or by phone at 415-701-4770.

If however, you have specific questions regarding your existing traffic calming application, please contact Jeffrey Banks by email at Jeffrey.Banks@sfmta.com, or by phone at 415-701-5331.