Planning play

Supes approve Brown's pro-development Planning Commission nominees, but mayor yanks list

By Savannah Blackwell

Mayor Willie Brown must loathe San Francisco voters.

He seemed to make that clear at a business forum Sept. 11 when he referred to them as "ass-backward" for electing a cast of progressive supervisors who have opposed his pro-development and pro-corporate agenda.

Twelve days later he was at it again, submitting to the Board of Supervisors a list of candidates for the city's Planning Commission and Board of Appeals. The list in no way reflects the spirit of March 2002's Proposition D, which gave the Board of Supervisors the ability to nominate its own candidates and to veto the mayor's nominations by a majority vote.

Prop. D was aimed at stopping the mayor from allowing development and commercial interests to dominate the two panels.

Brown's latest seven-person list (the mayor withdrew his first roster in July when supervisors intimated they'd sink some of the nominations) was declared unacceptable by progressive and neighborhood activists because of the candidates' backgrounds. Indeed, the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Democratic Club and the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition held a protest against the nominations Oct. 3.

Even so, all but one of the nominees managed to get the support of the board's majority Oct. 7. (Brown then withdrew his list for Planning Commission anyway.)

You might be surprised at the candidates who did get the supes' approval. Planning commissioner nominee Michael Antonini, for example, is a Republican who didn't even support Prop. D and who told the supervisors it was just as important for the city to build "more large, detached-style homes to attract high-up business leaders" as it was to build affordable housing.

Environmental commissioner Shelley Bradford Bell got six votes to join the Planning Commission even though she has called the supervisors' Election Commission racist for firing Department of Elections director Tammy Haygood.

And Kathleen Harrington, past president of the pro-big business Golden Gate Restaurant Association, raised tens of thousands of dollars in soft money for the mayor's 1999 reelection and the campaigns of his picks for supervisor in 2000. She got six votes to join the Board of Appeals.

Most of the supes rode an antideveloper and anti-property owner platform to victory in 2000. Some activists told us they were especially disappointed with Sup. Sophie Maxwell for providing the swing vote on two candidates and for supporting every nominee. Sups. Mark Leno and Gerardo Sandoval voted against only one nominee: Jeffrey Chen. Jake McGoldrick was the only supe who gave the entire list the thumbs-down.

"It seems we have a soft middle on the board that is either afraid or unwilling to take a stand," Daly, who voted for three nominees, told us. "[Many of the nominees] have tight connections with the Brown machine and developers. They are not going to be with the neighborhoods or the poor, working class."

Still, six out of seven wasn't good enough for the mayor. Some supervisors say he's putting his anger over his curbed power above the need to seat the Planning Commission (which hasn't met since July). After the supes' vote, Brown dumped all four of his Planning Commission nominations, though only Chen was not approved. (It should come as no surprise that Chen didn't get support from a majority of the supes. He's the president of the San Francisco Neighbors Association, a Chinese American property-owners' group that has bitterly opposed any efforts to protect tenants from eviction.)

Brown's press secretary, P.J. Johnston, claimed the supervisors were unreasonably trying to dominate the commission. But Brown would have had three appointees to the supervisors' three, if he had allowed the swearing-in of those the supes approved on Oct. 7.

Brown did decide to swear in his three nominees to the Board of Appeals. All got the supes' approval.

E-mail Savannah Blackwell at savannah@sfbg.com.