The Board has another 40 or so agenda items in front of them tomorrow. They have admittedly been doing a decent job of keeping things snappy in the past few weeks, but tomorrow sees the return of two big issues that were tabled over the past month or so: the Parkmerced plan and the AT&T Lightspeed network upgrades. Those issues, plus the rest of the agenda items we'll be keeping an eye on at tomorrow's board meeting:
Settlement of lawsuits: Two of 'em this week (Items 1 and 2), totaling $1,586,000 in payouts.
Items 3-5: Affirming or Rejecting the Parkmerced Project's Environmental Impact Report - Back in front of the board after a two-month delay, tomorrow's discussion is expected to focus on the rights of tenants and neighbors. Current tenants want assurances that they won't be displaced when the new towers go up, while others are concerned about living in a construction zone for the next 20 or 30 years. There's also the question of whether or not Parkmerced is a historical artifact that should be preserved, but does anyone really believe that it is?
Items 6-8: Affirming or rejecting the ruling that AT&T Lightspeed Network Upgrade plan should be exempt from environmental review - Another lengthy discussion item. This one was tabled last month while the Planning Commission got their story straight on whether or not the scope of AT&T's network upgrades (and the boxes they'll be placing all over city sidewalks) warranted an environmental impact report.
Item 9: Finally passing stock option tax exclusion until 2017 - Mirkarimi's stock options legislation that passed on first reading last week. Expect it to pass without too much opposition tomorrow.
Item 24: Convening the Redistricting Task Force: The city decided the population has changed enough to warrant re-drawing district lines, so Supervisor Kim and President Chiu are calling the appropriate task force in to action. Mixing things up sounds like fun until people start complaining about getting lumped in with a less desirable district than the one they started with.
Items 25-28: Parkmerced Development agreement, planning code and general plan amendments - Assuming everybody is cool with the above environmental review, the board can go ahead and grant development rights to Parkmerced Investors LLC.
Item 29: Proclaiming May, 2011 as Lyme Disease Awareness Month - At last week's meeting, a handful of people came out of nowhere to talk about Lyme Disease and now we're going to make the month of May National Lyme Disease Awareness Month. Seems like we should have been aware of that earlier in the month.
Item 30: Opposing increased taxi fares until taxi service improves - It almost makes too much sense: why should taxi patrons pay more for the crap service we already receive? On the other hand, will the MTA actually care what the Board thinks about their move to increase fares?
Items 32-34: Joe DiMaggio Playground Master Plan - Sets the public hearing for the Joe DiMaggio playground for the June 7th board meeting.
Three items creating an Executive Park special use district within the Bayview Hunters Point Plan. If we plop an office park down in the Bayview, it'll make a nice compromise for the next round of companies threatening to skip town for Brisbane. That's the idea here, right?
Highlights from the Clerk's Mailbag this week:
- 12 letters urging the Board to take action in preserving Sharp Park Wetlands.
- A letter from one Jeanie Scott, with copies for each supervisor, supporting the Parkmerced Project.
- A letter from Michael Russom opposing the Parkmerced Project. (Only one copy, apparently.)
- A letter from Sandy Weil, urging the board to rescind their vote on the Stow Lake Boathouse concession lease.
- Roughly 30 letters concerning the sidewalk sitting ban.
- 4 letters in support of reversing the EIR certification for the Housing Elements Plan.
- A letter from one Ivan Pratt, "regarding senior citizens learning martial arts for self defense."
The full board agenda is available here and the meeting thing kicks off at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays. For those of you who like to follow along from home, you can stream it live on SFGovTV.org.
