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Fixing Redevelopment

THE SAN FRANCISCO Redevelopment Agency has long had a bad reputation for lacking community accountability. For most of the past 50 years, arrogant SFRA bureaucrats, answering only to an insulated mayoral commission, have demolished low-income housing, cut sweetheart deals with developers, and left a trail of wreckage across the city. So Sup. Chris Daly's suggestion that the Board of Supervisors needs more authority over the agency is long overdue.

Daly has floated the idea of abolishing the Redevelopment Commission and putting the agency under the direct control of the supervisors (which is how the cities of Berkeley and Oakland operate). But even Daly acknowledges that the agency may be too big and complex for the supervisors to take on entirely, and he's open to discussing other options. The board and the mayor could split commission appointments, or a board majority could reject the mayor's nominations. Alternately, the supervisors could have policy oversight on all major redevelopment decisions. Brown's latest move (threatening to fire a commissioner who dared call for increased accountability; see page 13) demonstrates that Redevelopment is still a mess, and the supervisors need to aggressively start moving to clean it up.