HLU members (and others):
There was a vote at last Wednesday's General Membership (GM) meeting to oppose Home Depot's EIR. The past couple of days there have been some emails on the SFGP "stafflist" expressing disappointed with the vote outcome, which is the reason for this email. (As an aside, if you want to join the SFGP stafflist, send an email to: marc(a)cybre.net .)
The final vote on the "motion to oppose the Home Depot EIR" was:
11 for;
5 against;
2 abstentions
This number of yes votes was less than the 80% needed for passage, therefore the motion failed. This outcome upset a few of the posters on the stafflist, and they want the GM to reconsider the vote at its next meeting on September 21st.
I've copied two of the emails (from Mark Barnes and Bruce Wolfe) below, which you may want to read first before considering my reply to them.
dw
Mark, Bruce and others:
There were others who either voted to oppose or abstain from the anti-Home Depot EIR motion at Wednesday's GM meeting, and I can't speak for them, but I'll offer my perspective:
1) The HLU group was never aware of this resolution coming in front of the GM. If a working group is suppose to do work in a particular field, the least the Central Committee can do is forward item(s) to them for consideration before they go to the GM. Even if it was an "emergency" resolution precluding it from being heard in the appropriate working group, a few of the CC members have the emails of the HLU members, and they could have asked us on-line to offer an opinion of the motion. (I've cc:ed the "extended" HLU email list since most of them have no idea that Home Depot was even an item under review at the GM meeting - myself included.)
2) The motion before the GM on Wednesday had to do approving an EIR. The reactionary opposition to an EIR is the oldest (and least effective) trick in the book for NIMBY's and people who just want to stop a building project. It may be that the project needs to be stopped, or modified from its present form, but it looks childish to oppose an EIR just because we don't like a project or we don't like the business sponsoring it. If someone wants to offer a resolution to oppose Home Depot because of their labor policies, or because they make campaign contributions to politicians who we don't like, fine - do that. But to use an opposition of an EIR as a surrogate measure seems silly. If people do want to oppose the EIR, please be prepared to cite the specific page numbers of the EIR, explain why it's deficient under state law, and provide legal basis for your opposition. The EIR process is quite specialized, and there are limited reasons to oppose an EIR - if we want to be taken seriously then I think we need to have cogent reasons why this particular EIR is defective other than "I don't like the Home Depot corporation."
3) During the Planning Department's review of land uses in SF over the past few years, there has been some consensus that some "blue-collar" PDR (Production, Distribution and Repair) type-land uses have to be preserved in SF. These areas (generally) are: SOMA (primarily Bryant, Brannan, and Harrison Sts. - east of 5th St, and extending into the NE Mission); the Central Waterfront area - a few blocks east of HWY 280, between roughly Mariposa and Cesar Chavez; and the Bayshore area where the Home Depot is proposed. These areas already have many PDR business, and they don't currently have the infrastructure for housing. For those who think the Home Depot site should be used for housing, take a walk north of Cesar Chavez, between Hwy 280 and 3rd St sometime if you want to see what "neighborhoods" look like where there's housing amid commercial businesses. It's a joke - those housing units should never have been approved 5-10 years ago. Similarly, the Bayshore area is hardly well-suited for housing either given its current transportation and neighborhood retail infrastructure.
4) The presentation made at Wednesday's GM didn't include a representative from the Bayview groups who say they want Home Depot. I may not agree with Home Depot being the best use of space on Bayshore (the amount of cars it will attract is abhorrent to me), but we need to at least pretend like we're open to hearing both sides of an issue. Otherwise it just seems to make us another protest group - and there are hundreds of those in SF. Why does the SF Green Party have to be another one of those? Can't we start proposing reasonable alternatives instead of just being opposed to this or that issue?
5) A few weeks back Sue Vaughn wanted the HLU group to weigh in on the Mills Project on the Waterfront (Piers 29/31?). Before that, someone thought the HLU group should weigh-in on the Harding Theater fight. As everyone knows, there are always dozens of controversial building projects working themselves through the development process at any one time. We're a small group. We're still in the process of figuring out our priorities and getting educated about the key land use issues in SF. If individuals want to pursue these individual projects, great. But I think responsible activism requires that you become an expert on the particular project, educate the rest of us, and work with the members to lobby us to get us to support your resolution. Eric Brooks is doing this with his proposal about reforming the city's purchasing of forest products. Others should follow his lead by becoming knowledgeable in a subject area, understanding the point of view of those who oppose your position and coming up with practical, reasonable alternatives.
6) If Green Party members are so up in arms about Home Deport, where's the related interest in the housing that's being proposed for the Shipyard? The plans I've seen allow for low-rise (1-3 stories), suburban type housing for part of the shipyard, and almost all, if not all, of the affordable housing is rental housing. This seems to be an area that should be getting a lot more of our attention than the Home Depot store issue since it involves thousands of housing units, mostly built around car ownership. If anyone has ridden their bike along Innes Ave. recently, currently a very nice bike ride along the waterfront, be prepared for 4 lanes of express traffic in the years ahead if the current shipyard plans come to fruition. Where's our similar outrage on this much more impactual project?
7) Much (not all) of the Home Depot fight is between two neighborhoods - Bernal Heights and Bayview. On Wednesday we heard a presentation by a Bernal Heights neighbor, who admitted he wasn't very knowledgeable about the Home Depot issue. Is it in the Green Party's interest to get into this fight? If so, I'd rather build alliances with Bayview folks opposing the project than the NIMBY's of Bernal, who live in their cute $1,000,000 homes and usually oppose all new development projects - just like the people in lots of different neighborhoods in the city - nothing different there! But I think we should ask ourselves, why do we want to take up Bernal's land-use battles? Where have they been for those of us who want ownership housing built in SF that the majority of San Francisans can afford? The answer to the last rhetorical question is, "They've been nowhere to be found."
8) If you're looking for a good issue to get involved with, what about Mid-Market, where 88% of the new housing being proposed is $1 million condos with 1:1 parking, located between two of the lowest income rental areas in the whole city - SOMA and Tenderloin, where current car ownership rates are around 10% in some census tracts. Talk about a proposed nightmare in the heart of the city, a mere 2 blocks from the GP office. Where is the Green Party on this much more important land-use battle?
9) The HLU group currently meets twice a month, and we always have a full agenda. Personally I think we're meeting too much and that it will lead to burn-out over time - people with real lives (work, family and friend obligations) can only take so many meetings. If every development battle going on in the city becomes a priority for the GP and HLU group, we'll never get anything done towards developing a platform so that we have some basis for supporting or opposing various projects. If some people want to get involved with these issues who are not HLU members but who have an interest in various land-use projects, I suggest you start showing up at the HLU meetings, become an expert on the issue, get to know the members, and start lobbying them for why you want their vote on a particular issue. In short, do the real work needed to make a difference. But to suggest that "since we're progressives, we should be opposing this EIR," is a weak argument, in my opinion, and it may be why the electorate doesn't always take us very seriously.
10) Christina Olague was at our meeting this past Wednesday, and she was also present when the Planning Commission heard about 4-5 hours of testimony on the Home Depot EIR. In her informed opinion, she thought the Bayview jobs issue was very important, along with other factors, and she voted to approve the EIR (as I recall). I consider Christina one of the most informed, if not the most imformed about land-use issues in the SFGP, so her opinion carries quite a bit of weight with me. The rest of us are mostly just arm-chair analysts since very few GP memvbers have really gotten their hands dirty showing up at the numerous rezonigns and land use hearings that have been held over the past few years, mainly around the Eastern Neighborhods. Hell, most of the GP members, or CC members, weren't at the forum the HLU group sonsored on Mid-Market. It's not very credible when we feign indignation about an outcome, but haven't been involved with the issue other than as a casual observer. I'll echo what I said at last Saturday's gathering - the Green Party needs to take itself and "real" issues more seriously if we want to capture people's attention. To be on record opposing the war, opposing Mayor Newsom and now opposing Home Depot may make us feel good, but it doesn't do much for letting people know what we stand for other than we're opposed to a bunch of stuff. This "anti-everything" approach has weakened the left, in my uninformed opinion.
Lastly, who in the city really cares whether the GP supports or opposes the EIR? Most people who are following this issue know the GP wasn't involved in the Home Depot battles over the past few years, so why does it all of a sudden become a big deal when we don't vote to oppose the EIR? As I said in the beginning of this email, if the GP wants to oppose Home Depot for its labor policies, or because of its politics, fine, but to oppose an EIR is really weak without some solid, legal basis for doing so, in my usual uninformed opinion.
dw
PS - The next meeting of the HLU is Tuesday, Sept 6th at the GP office. If folks are serious about revisiting the Home Depot issue at the September GM meeting, I urge you to attend the HLU meeting to let HLU members learn about and discuss the issue, although our current agenda is fairly packed already, which is posted below:
* Approve agenda (5 minutes)
* Isn't it Time for Green Design - I think we'll need a bit of time to polish the questions (30 minutes - Jennifer, Kathi & Rosa)
* Transportation Working Group/HLU Mid-Market Letter (20 minutes)
* Better Neighborhoods Plus Legislation (20 minutes)
* Housing Element - Tanja (20 minutes); Kathi (20 minutes)
* Announcements (5 minutes)
mark barnes <mbarn2002(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Folks,
Word is going to be out on this vote in favor of Home
Depot. Can we have some clarification as to what was
defeated (opposition to EIR) and why the SFGP wants a
Home Depot in SF (the effect of the vote)? How jobs
trump defective EIR, etc.?
Mark
--- Bruce Wolfe wrote:
> This is a vote to OPPOSE the question to "Oppose the EIR" I suppose. This means that the SFGP maintains no position on the matter. I would gather this means that SFGP will not promote or advertise anything regarding this matter. We maintain a NO POSITION position at this time and we take no part as a party to support or oppose the matter in public or media.
I request that this be place on the agenda again next month's GM though this probably would be a moot issue.
I for one oppose the EIR because it doesn't address many transit, environmental, urban development, multi-national corporation and conservation issues. I would rally like to hear from the Transportation and Land Use WG on this matter.
I read an interesting LTE the other day that explains a fairly factual truth regarding how residents will use this store. Many people who may want to use it only use public transit. I am sure that a MUNI drive will have issue with riders on that line bringing toilets, refrigerators, hot water heaters and BBQs on the bus. Plus, for the rider, what happens when they have to transfer? This could make the obvious conclusion that few residents would use this Home Depot for many of the larger items.
Additionally, SFGP, if not the largess, has maintained opposition of multi-national corps and opposition to big-box stores a la Matt Gonzalez' legislation. My concern is that the SFGP would seem to be okay with this "solution" in order to create jobs. There are other better means to do this than to just do the most easiest thing and find some Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot or other huge, multi-national chain store that to WORK on finding other solutions to creating jobs. Creating jobs does not depend on these monstrosities. It just makes them bigger and affords them the opportunity to perpetuate unsafe work conditions and unsustainable wages.
Furthermore, small business owners will close under the pressure. Will the City give them subsidies so they do not lose their entire investment. I have had first hand experience of this of two personal friends who had to close their substantial neighborhood hardware stores to a Home Depot that moved in 5 miles away, and one of my small businesses in another industry on a big-box store opening.
What we should be doing is putting a lot of pressure on the Mayor and his Office of Economic Development. Serramonte is really not that far away to go to a Home Depot. Will we allow a Target or a Wal-Mart to move in next under the same premise of creating more jobs? How far does the hypocrisy go?
I would urge anyone who does not consider these facts and many others on the effects of this infiltration to read the 10 Key Values again and then weigh the issue.
This is really a no-brainer.
Bruce
7. Home Depot
Oppose EIR: 11-5-2 fails
