Last week's meeting turned out surprisingly short after most of the supes managed to keep their discussions of the Twitter tax break relatively brief. This week, a slightly longer list of agenda items, some administrative items to take care of, and a very special cameo by Temporary Mayor Ed Lee might stretch the meeting's run time a little longer. With that said, here's a brief rundown of how Question Time with Ed Lee will play out and the agenda items we'll be keeping an eye on after the Board is finished gently poking the Interim Mayor:

Mayor Question Time: 2 p.m. Special Order - Question Time is scheduled for the 2nd board meeting of every month from now on and Supes must submit questions ahead of time, so don't expect anything too timely. Discussion of any regular agenda items is against the rules and the Mayor will have 5 minutes to answer each supervisor's submitted question. In situations where time-sensitive policy questions need to be asked of the Mayor, any supervisor can move to allow a spontaneous question, but they'll need 8 votes from the board to get an answer out of him. If the public wants to comment on anything the Mayor had to say, they'll have to wait until regularly scheduled Public Comment time.

For his first round, Lee will answer five questions from Districts 1, 3, 5, 7, and 11 (All of these questions fall under Agenda Item 1, by the way):

  • D1 Supe Eric Mar submits the longest question asking how Lee intends to "create a framework where all neighborhoods and business districts get assistance and advantages in terms of job creation and community benefits?" Mar also wants to know how the Mayor will make sure the entire community is involved in creating the community benefits agreement in the midmarket corridor and elsewhere.
  • Not sure why D3 Supe/Board President Chiu needed to submit a question publicly since he and Lee seem to be joined at the hip lately, but he's interested in how the Mayor gauges budget cuts to major city services and whether Lee plans to look for new revenue sources to make up the budget deficit.
  • From D5, Ross Mirkarimi is already thinking ahead to that possible term as Sheriff - he wants to know how San Francisco should deal with the responsibility of housing inmates that Governor Brown's AB 109 bill will unload on local municipalities. That's kind of an unexpected question, but we hope Lee offers to reopen Alcatraz.
  • From the Outer Sunset, D7 supe Sean Elsbernd asks for the Mayor's thoughts on "city employee pensions, health care and retiree health care".
  • In D11, John Avalos wants to know how Mayor Lee plans to revitalize the area around Balboa Park Station and turn it in to a true transit hub, rather than just a maintenance facility.

Regular Agenda Items:
Items 2, 3, 4: The Twitter Tax Break, Urban Agriculture legislation, and new lease terms with the 49ers at Candlestick were all passed last week. Expect them to be bundled together for final passage, unless someone wants to be a total jerk about the Twitter thing.

Items 5, 6: This whole thing over admission fees at the Botanical Garden has gotten some people riled up, and these two items both relate to that: Item 5 is the Mayor's legislation to continue charging non-residents an admission fee. If item 5 passes, the charge for out-of-towners to tour the Botanical Garden will stick even if Item 6 shifts $143,000 from the general fund to the Botanical Garden. If Item 5 fails but item 6 passes, access fees for the Botanical Garden will disappear, just like that. If you're confused, just be glad you're a city resident and still free anyway. Then remember this is the kind of crap we have to go through pretty much every time we want to charge tourists money to look at plants.

Item 11: Mission District Streetscape Plan: recommended from the Planning Commission, the ordinance would adopt the Mission District Streetscape Plan, which includes new parklets, traffic calming on residential streets and greening efforts in that sketchy Northeast corner of the Mission.

Special Order: Appeal of Final Environmental Impact Report on the 350 Mission Project - The owners of 50 Beale Street are appealing the EIR for the 350 Mission project around the corner. The 350 Mission project will demolish a 4-story office and retail building and replace it with very green 24 story office building.

Special Order to determine whether 1653 Grant Ave/501 Greenwich St project is exempt from Environmental Review: Notorious NIMBY group, the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, want an environmental review of project in their neighborhood. Strap on your tinfoil hats, kids, because this one involves installing cellphone towers. Could be a big to-do.

Item 20: Opposing the GGNRA's new Off-Leash Policy for dogs: Just a resolution, but Scott Wiener is all fired up to get the Board on record opposing Golden Gate National Recreation Area's proposed policy change that will mean leashing your dog in the park. Wiener would also like to scold the new plan for not considering the impact this will have on the rest of the City's dog runs.

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