[Sustain] Peskin's Attempt To Gut SF Dept. of Env. After It Opposed Polluting Power Plant

[Eric Brooks]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/25/BA80SVJKJ.DTL&hw=peskin&sn=001&sc=1000


  SAN FRANCISCO
  Peskin thwarted in attempt to gut Environment Dept.


    City Charter only allows voters to decide fate of the agency

Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron *Peskin* quietly 
introduced a piece of legislation at City Hall this week to eviscerate 
an entire city department, just days after the head of that department 
broke with *Peskin* and other city leaders on a major energy policy.

The legislation would eliminate the jobs of all 64 employees of the San 
Francisco Department of the Environment - except for its director, Jared 
Blumenfeld - but was deemed illegal by the city attorney's office on 
Wednesday.

"This is not the first skirmish the board has had with the Department of 
the Environment and it probably won't be the last," *Peskin* said after 
receiving word from the city attorney that gutting an entire arm of 
government whose existence is written into the City Charter just 
wouldn't fly.

The charter can only be changed at the ballot box by voters.

Blumenfeld said he was "horrified" when he first learned of the proposal 
Wednesday morning, the day after *Peskin* submitted the one line of 
legislation without fanfare to the clerk of the Board of Supervisors.

"The Department of the Environment is recognized time and time again as 
the premier local environmental organization in the country," said 
Blumenfeld, noting his agency's efforts when the city hosted the U.N. 
World Environment Day in 2005.

"I was really disturbed that someone, without even phoning me, would 
decide to cut all these great staff people we have in the department," 
he added.

The department, formed after city residents voted to add it to the 
charter in 1996, has a budget that has grown steadily over time to just 
over $15 million this year. It gets almost no money from the general 
fund and instead is financed through grants and projects.

The legislation to effectively dissolve the department followed a 
meeting in the mayor's office Friday at which Blumenfeld broke with the 
plans of the city Public Utilities Commission - which are supported by 
Mayor Gavin Newsom, *Peskin* and other supervisors - to build a new 
natural gas-burning power plant near Potrero Hill.

The plant would replace an older, more polluting plant in the area. It 
would consist of three "peakers," which means officials would only turn 
them on when demand for power was high.

But according to people who attended the meeting, Blumenfeld said he 
thought the city should oppose a fossil-fuel power plant and come up 
with other alternatives, which put a significant voice in opposition to 
the perception of a unified city front on the issue.

Blumenfeld said *Peskin*'s proposal, which was co-sponsored by 
Supervisors Gerardo Sandoval and Sophie Maxwell, "is clearly a shot 
across the bow to say, 'You know what? Discourse in San Francisco 
shouldn't have too much environmental content to it when it doesn't 
support the status quo.' "

*Peskin* would not address the power plant issue other than to saying 
Blumenfeld's stance on the peaker is "rather nuanced."

He said his legislation is a nonissue because the city attorney must 
approve any legislation for it to be considered by the board.

"It's much ado about nothing. I have no intention of moving the 
legislation and let's let bygones be bygones," *Peskin* said.

But several supervisors have deep concerns about the department, 
*Peskin* added, referring in part to questions about whether the growth 
of the Department of the Environment over the years has been warranted 
and whether its work is duplicative of efforts that could be carried 
elsewhere in city government.

Sandoval said he would like to find a way to move the proposal forward 
and make big changes in the department.

He contended that Blumenfeld ignores the board's suggestions for the 
department, such as one Sandoval said he made that some administrators 
in the department should be able to speak Spanish or Chinese.

"The Department of the Environment does a pretty good job for the mayor 
but is largely unresponsive to priorities that come from the Board of 
Supervisors and our constituents," Sandoval said.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd said he was intrigued by *Peskin*'s legislation 
and said he thinks the department has too much overlap with other city 
departments in the services it provides.

Maxwell noted that while the department does not draw money from the 
city's general fund for basic government services, it does receive 
grants that could be spent elsewhere.

"Yes, they do some good work, but it's time to take a closer look," 
Maxwell said.

That's not a universally held sentiment at City Hall or in the 
community, however.

Janet Nudelman, an administrator with the Breast Cancer Fund, said the 
department has been instrumental in working with the organization to 
examine the role of the environment and toxins in disease.

"The department is not only effective in what it is able to accomplish, 
but it is truly the most visionary city agency," Nudelman said.

Newsom's spokesman, Nathan Ballard, said the mayor didn't support 
*Peskin*'s move.

Ballard said he did not understand "why anyone would declare war on the 
Department of Environment."

Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, a Newsom ally on the board, lauded the 
department for assisting her legislation to ban phthalates, which soften 
plastic and have been shown to be toxic, from children's products and 
called the legislation to cut the department "outrageous."

Alioto-Pier accused *Peskin* of using his legislative power to punish 
others who don't go along with him, saying she had her own run-in with 
the board president this week and wound up paying a political price when 
*Peskin* switched his vote to kill a charter amendment Alioto-Pier was 
pushing for the February ballot.

Alioto-Pier said she asked *Peskin* about the move in a meeting in his 
office. She said he replied by telling her, "Payback is a bitch."

She said *Peskin* said he was punishing Alioto-Pier for giving a 
television interview opposing Proposition A, the Muni reform measure he 
sponsored on November's ballot.

Asked about the conversation, *Peskin* said he wouldn't discuss it, 
saying he doesn't divulge details of private conversations he has with 
other supervisors. But he added that Alioto-Pier's comments on the 
conversation "sound to me to be unfortunate and vindictive."

/E-mail Wyatt Buchanan at wbuchanan at sfchronicle.com 
<mailto:wbuchanan at sfchronicle.com>./

This article appeared on page *B - 3* of the San Francisco Chronicle


-- 
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

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