Why Does SF Continue to Fine Victims of Graffiti; (SF Board of Supervisors Weekly Meeting Recap: May 13th)

Should have been done Thursday but then I started playing Batman: Arkham Knight

Attendance: President Mandelman, Excused Absence

Watch the meeting here: https://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/player/clip/49850?view_id=10&redirect=true

Meeting minutes: https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=M&ID=1306210&GUID=0EBA306F-84D8-4993-8A60-AA451F701E9A

The Big Picture:

I’m still trying to figure out exactly what this blog is and who it’s meant for. I know that if my primary goal is gaining eyeballs, then I should probably cap these posts at 700 words, but I figure anytime I spend typing away on a Google Doc instead of hand-feeding my soul to Twitter is probably beneficial. That said, this week’s board meeting was lean enough that I’ll try a (marginally) shorter recap this week. Items of note in this meeting included a brief update from the Mayor, a handful of new pieces of housing legislation from Supervisor Melgar, and a hearing to confirm graffiti abatement fines.

Mayor Lurie says: Hey!:

We started off the afternoon with a Charter-mandated visit from the Mayor. Lurie has proven skilled at communicating his administration’s reforms through short clips on social media. He talks in a polished yet straightforward manner that leans into classic cliches and his lack of charisma, a strategy that effectively positions the Mayor as consistently unassuming. While it’s proven effective political messaging, it’s not the most popcorn-friendly in the setting of a board meeting. Mayor Breed was sometimes known for her contentious relationship with the Peskin board, but Lurie has no interest in pursuing fireworks with the board, and he’s too fresh for the board to pick on.

Instead, the consistent theme of Lurie’s comments was that “the mayor and the board can work side by side to address the city's greatest challenges.” Those challenges ranged from the budget crisis, behavioral health reform, and the public safety crisis. To that latter point, Lurie highlighted his recent joint announcement with the board’s urbanist members of their “Rebuild The Ranks Plan,” which would institute a number of reforms aimed at increasing police staffing; these include streamlining hiring, incentivizing non-SF officers to move here, and reforming the police academy.

Only Supervisor Melgar offered a question to the Mayor. Acknowledging that SF’s Vision Zero Traffic Safety Plan had “not really yielded the results that we intended” (a factually accurate statement), she then asked how he intended to “renew our goal of zero [pedestrian] deaths.” Lurie highlighted the need for more police, more traffic enforcement, new cityscaping, and speed cameras (although SF, for some reason, is choosing to warn violators instead of ticketing them just yet).

Let’s Get Down to (New) Business:

Nothing era-defining this session, but a couple of interesting items:

• We’re getting a new “pro” soccer team: Supervisor Mahmood introduced legislation that would authorize a long-term permit for Golden City FC to play at Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park (yes, Mahmood’s District 5, which begins in the TL, stretches all the way to the park). Golden City FC would play in a league two levels below the MLS, although the MLS has no incentive to add relegation and promotion.

• Supervisor Melgar introduces a package of housing legislation: While an urbanist majority took over the board in last November’s elections, we’ve yet to see an outpouring of pro-housing legislation. Part of that is probably because everyone’s collectively holding their breath in anticipation of the imminent upzoning, but part of it is also probably hesitancy to kick the hornet’s nest. Melgar is termed out in 2028, so she faces some of the least pressure on the board, and it’s nice to see her ™DoSomething here even if some of it is not ideal. Her proposed pieces of legislation would:

1. Create an enhanced infrastructure financing district for West SF to fund affordable housing. She pointedly remarked that this was “an area of the city that has seen very little of that for decades.

2. Add protections for commercial tenants facing eviction due to construction–specifically, creating a fund to mitigate their losses. People’s fears of new housing killing businesses can fly under the radar, but it’s prevalent; Melgar’s solution (buy them off) is much preferable to, say, Peskin’s strategy of preventing the removal of any legacy business so that neighborhoods never change.

3. Allow developers to forgo inclusionary housing requirements (generally shown to be a tax on middle-class renters that kills new housing production) by instead voluntarily participating in rent control.

4. Schedule a hearing on the impending upzoning at the Land Use Committee.

• The SF Parks Alliance gets called to the principal’s office: The SF Parks Alliance is our latest nonprofit to fall victim to the whims of its own corruption and mismanagement. That’s bad news considering the SFPA is heavily involved in managing most of our parks. With its finances tearing apart at the seams–including the misuse of $4 million in funding–Supervisor Walton requested a hearing to investigate. There’s probably a lesson in here about the dangers of outsourcing all your city’s work to non-profits instead of building state capacity, but who knows?

• Supervisor Dorsey calls for a hearing to discuss whether the city’s required “annual reports on overdose prevention policies” should be reformed to focus more on recovery (a la his “Recovery First Ordinance.”)

Not Another Public Hearing:

Fun one today. When I was in Dorsey’s office, I spent some time looking into SF’s graffiti abatement laws. Basically, if a business gets marked by graffiti, they’re required to clean it within 60 days or else the city fines them a few hundred dollars (a number that can technically grow exponentially if the business continues to refuse to clean). Whereas a more functional city like, say, Dallas offers to clean up all graffiti free of charge for the victimized businesses, San Francisco is comparatively a developing economy, meaning we don’t offer that service to most businesses. So when I saw a sign outside my regular bodega detailing how the store could contest its 2024 graffiti abatement fine at a hearing in front of the board, I was kind of psyched.

The hearing was the type of shit-show you’d expect from SF. About 20 or 30 businesses gave comments on why they were unjustly fined. This included numerous speakers complaining that the Department of Public Works was to blame, having fined the wrong business or failed to answer phone calls or failed to record the matter as settled. But many also challenged the ethics behind the law. For example, one business owner complained that the graffiti artists also burglarized their place and left spray cans behind. “I am the victim of a crime!” he pleaded. Another asserted he had spent over $120,000 over the decades on graffiti cleaning, then asked: “Where does it end?”

While this hearing was enlightening, it was also mostly pointless. DPW was waiting outside to hear and resolve the businesses’ complaints again, so it was unclear why these owners were pushed to also testify in front of the board. Indeed, Supervisor Sauter argued that it would have been “a better use of everyone's time” if DPW had just held a private workshop. And while Sauter seemed interested in the idea of pursuing a reform that would give some slack to owners with graffiti in hard-to-reach places, the board didn’t need this hearing to find that out. The problems with SF’s graffiti policies are not unknown, and I even advocated for the most modest of reforms as an intern. To the city government, it’s just not an issue worth acting on; why choose to cut a revenue stream and take on more cleaning responsibilities?

Commendations:

Supervisor Chen introduced, welcomed, and presented a Certificate of Honor to Liana Szeto, Founding Principal of the Alice Fong Yu Alternative School, on the occasion of her retirement and in recognition of her accomplishments bridging cultures and building community by educating the youth of San Francisco at the nation’s first Chinese immersion pubic school. Supervisor Melgar shared in this commendation.

Supervisor Fielder introduced, welcomed, and presented a Certificate of Honor to the El Farolito Soccer Club, accepted by Coach Santiago Lopez and Irene Lopez, in recognition of their exceptional achievements at the World Open Cup and their positive impact on the Mission District and San Francisco. Supervisor Chen shared in this commendation.

Supervisor Melgar introduced, welcomed, and presented a Certificate of Honor to Phoebe Lee in recognition of her lifelong dedication to celebrating Chinese culture, martial arts, and preserving the stories of her talented family’s legacy. Supervisor Chen shared in this commendation.

Supervisor Engardio introduced, welcomed, and presented a Certificate of Honor to Wah Mei School, accepted by Board President Gabriella Ghai and Director Lily Wong, in recognition of their accomplishments educating the youth of San Francisco and its commitment to ensuring a bilingual education is accessible to all families.

Any last words:

Supervisor Melgar’s resolution supporting the student journalists of Lowell High inspired a number of Lowell students to give public comments in support. The resolution came after a Lowell student newspaper article accused certain teachers of verbal abuse, motivating the admin to remove the newspaper’s advising teacher and demand more control over future publications.