http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/25/BA80SVJKJ.DTL&hw... 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@sfchronicle.com <mailto:wbuchanan@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