California: Courts, interpreters end labor dispute
San Francisco, a city that banned plastic grocery bags and packing peanuts, is now taking on factory farms that pump antibiotics into livestock.
The Board of Supervisors’ Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved an ordinance requiring certain stores to report the use of antibiotics in raw meat and poultry — a small step toward changing an entrenched practice in the meat industry. The measure will go to the full board on Tuesday.
Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who sponsored the ordinance, said he intends to chip away at “the very real problem” of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that spread infections. Two million people throughout the United States contract antibioticresistant infections each year, and 23,000 people die from them, according to data that San Francisco Health Officer Tomas Aragon presented at the committee meeting.
The ordinance is targeted at large grocery chains like Safeway and Trader Joe’s, asking them to report antibiotic use in meat products to the city’s Department of the Environment. Once the department compiles the information, it will create a website for consumers.
Though it seems like a small gesture, the measure will encourage grocers to take a hard look at their supply chains, said Department of the Environment Director Debbie Raphael. She hopes consumers in San Francisco will shift to buying meat with lower antibiotic content once they have the information.
The committee’s three members — Supervisors Sheehy, Hillary Ronen and Sandra Lee Fewer — shared that hope. But Fewer hinted that she’d like to see the city enact a more far-reaching policy in the future.
“I’m assuming that this is a first step,” she said.
— Rachel Swan Get moving: Plenty of politicians have gone to their grave unsuccessfully trying to do something that Mayor Ed Lee is vowing to do: speed up San Francisco’s famously laborious and plodding construction entitlement and permitting process.
On Wednesday afternoon, Lee summoned several dozen housing advocates, developers and elected officials to a meeting where he announced an executive directive aimed at cutting in half the amount of time it takes to get a residential development approved and permitted. Attendees included state Sen. Scott Wiener, as well as Assemblymen David Chiu and Phil Ting. Also there were Don Falk of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. and Todd David from the Housing Action Coalition.
The directive sets maximum time frames for various types of approvals, ranging from no more than six months for a project not requiring an environmental review to no more than 22 months for a “complex” environmental study. If the deadlines are blown, managers for the various agencies involved in approving and permitting construction projects will be called on the carpet.
“The time for excuses, delays, and bureaucracy is over,” the preamble to the directive states.
More speed is needed to meet Lee’s goal of producing at least 30,000 new or rehabbed units by 2020. About 17,000 units have been created since 2014, 37 percent of which have been affordable.
“We can produce 5,000 units of housing a year, because we have for the last three years. One way to get that done is to have projects permitted more quickly,” Lee said. “I want a new, aggressive longterm housing goal that will lift us out of this housing crisis.”
— J.K. Dineen One more for D2: Recreation and Park Commissioner Kat Anderson filed papers Wednesday for the District Two supervisor’s race and clinched a surprise endorsement from former supervisor and veteran political player Angela Alioto, whose niece, Michela Alioto-Pier , is also a rumored candidate.
Alioto-Pier represented the district, which includes the Marina and parts of Russian Hill, from 2004 to 2011, and told The Chronicle on Wednesday that she is strongly considering a run. If she files papers, then her aunt would shift allegiances.
“If my niece Michela is in, she’s my No. 1 candidate — I’d endorse both of them, but Michela would always come first,” Alioto said. “For that matter, if my son Joe enters the race, he would be No. 1, then Michela, then Kat.”
Other official contenders to succeed termed-out Supervisor Mark Farrell next year include BART board member Nick Josefowitz and media startup founder Schuyler Hudak. Anderson works for the Pacific Media Workers Guild that represents some Chronicle employees.
— Rachel Swan