October 2, 2002

THE 11 MEMBERS of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors face a crucial test this week as they consider Mayor Willie Brown's second-round nominees for the San Francisco Planning Commission and the Board of Appeals. Rumors are flying that several supervisors just want to get this process over with and will accept all of the nominees.

If that occurs, the supervisors will set themselves up for continued pummeling from Brown and his pro-development allies – who have already announced they intend to repeal district elections. Why would the supervisors undercut those who elected them on a campaign of balanced growth? Have the supervisors forgotten that they were elected on the long coattails of the November 2000 Proposition L campaign for "community planning"?

Rolling over on such a defining issue would aid their enemies and punish their friends – a stance not usually associated with long-term political success.

At issue is the meaning of the March vote on Proposition D, amending the City Charter. It profoundly changed the balance of power on the city's single most important political issue: land-use and development policy. It increased the power of the people and the Board of Supervisors in appointment of planning and Board of Appeals commissioners.

Prop. D won 57 percent of the vote. It won in 8 of the 11 supervisorial districts. Every community of color in the city – Chinatown, the Mission District, Bayview-Hunters Point, Ingleside, Excelsior, the Western Addition, and Richmond – supported it. Communities whose needs and voices on development issues have long been ignored made themselves very clear in supporting Prop. D.

Prop. D's change was not, as the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner (opponents of the measure) reported, over who nominates commissioners. (The president of the Board of Supervisors nominates three planning commissioners and two Board of Appeals members.) It's about who approves nominees of both the Board president and the mayor.

The amended City Charter now reads:

"Each nomination of the Mayor and the President ... shall be the subject of a public hearing [and] ... is subject to the approval by the Board of Supervisors" [emphasis added].

That's a profound change. Development policy is no longer up to a single person. It is to be debated in public. The people have a say.

The district supervisors, who represent each of the city's neighborhoods and communities, have a vote. Any supervisor who argues that the mayor has "a right" to his slate of nominees either can't read or is out to subvert the will of the people.

We desperately need commissioners who will help us resolve difficult problems, such as how to build more affordable housing while providing decent jobs for our residents and maintaining neighborhood livability. We need people who want to unite the city rather than pit communities against one another. The current nominees do not have those qualifications.

It's not about Tom and Willie, or Gavin and Jake, or Tony and Matt, or Leland and Aaron. It's about the future of all San Franciscans. San Francisco voters gave themselves a voice and, through their district supervisors, a vote on development policy.

The mayor arrogantly says San Franciscans were "ass-backwards" in electing the supervisors who put Prop. D on the ballot. That's no surprise: The voters took power away from him. They knew what they were doing.

Board members could roll over for the mayor's slate of old hacks and new know-nothings and get out of a momentary political hot spot. But that would so undermine the board's credibility that when the hounds of development hell came to run them out, no one but their aides would be left to defend them.

To the supervisors: Let the Rules Committee hear these nominees, then send them on to the board without recommendation. You don't have to, and you should not, approve all four Planning Commission nominees. If one more commissioner is confirmed there will be a quorum, and the commission can start meeting again.

Don't play the mayor's game. Make him come back with qualified, nonpolarizing nominees.

Keep the faith with the voters.