Hi all, California's most important environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is under attack. In late August of last year, state Senator Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) attempted to introduce legislation that would have greatly weakened CEQA, making it much harder for citizens and environmental groups to appeal bad corporate and developer projects that would harm ecosystems and communities. Thankfully, a statewide coalition of over 150 organizations was able to block that attack and protect CEQA at the state level. Local Attack On San Francisco CEQA Protections But only two months later, using the November and December election and holiday time as cover, San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener launched his own attack locally to gut San Francisco CEQA protections. In the guise of cleaning up some small inefficiencies in the local CEQA process, Supervisor Wiener's proposed amendments would force environmental determinations on projects to happen so quickly and so removed from the sight of the public, that in many cases we would not even find out that a problem project was happening, let alone be empowered to challenge it. To take immediate action to help stop this attack on our local environmental protections go to: http://tinyurl.com/cmvzkuq - or read on for more details. Local Coalition Rises Up To Defend CEQA In late October 2012, Our City brought together a new coalition that has now grown to over 41 environmental, social justice, community and labor organizations, which is fighting to defend our local CEQA protections. Together we have succeeded in drafting counter legislation to Wiener's attack measure. Our community-based CEQA alternative, now sponsored by Supervisor Jane Kim, will make CEQA more fair and efficient, but also make local CEQA protections stronger (not weaker). But Supervisor Kim's measure is trailing Supervisor Wiener's proposal in the legislative process at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, creating the danger of Supervisor Wiener's bad legislation becoming law. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Contact Board of Supervisors President David Chiu and our other San Francisco supervisors by noon Monday, May 6, to support Jane Kim's community alternative. Follow the link below to Sierra Club's easy to use CEQA action alert: http://tinyurl.com/cmvzkuq Please forward this email widely. And as always, thank you for your continued involvement and action. peace Eric Brooks Campaign Coordinator Our City -- This alert sent by: Our City 1104 Polk St. #225 San Francisco, CA 94109 415-756-8844 For more information about Our City campaigns go to: Web: http://ourcitysf.org FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/OurCitySF Twitter: http://twitter.com/OurCitySF -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." Che Guevara