Signatures add up to democracy with a small “d” in San Francisco

How the Board of Supervisors votes next Tuesday on Supervisor David Campos’s interim controls on the construction of market-rate housing in the Mission will determine whether signature gatherers fan out across the city in support of a November ballot initiative that would put a moratorium on market rate housing in the Mission.

Negotiations also continue between Kilroy Corporation and the vendors at the Flower Mart even as they report that they’ve already collected 7,000 signatures to place a “Save the Flower Mart” measure on the same ballot.

And former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin has already submitted the 1,000 signatures necessary to put him on the ballot to challenge District 3 Supervisor Julie Christensen, Mayor Ed Lee’s choice to replace David Chiu on the Board. Peskin’s return to the Board might help shore up the faltering Progressive minority and help to bring the Board back in line with an electorate that has been using citizen-sponsored ballot measures to produce most of the positive change in the city lately.

The Board of Supervisors will vote on June 2nd on a 45-day moratorium in the Mission, the first step in a process that could bring the construction of market rate housing to a halt for up to 18 months. If nine out of eleven Supervisors fail to support the motion, a proposed ballot measure has already been submitted to the Department of Elections by tenant rights attorney J. Scott Weaver that would enact an 18 month moratorium.

Central SoMa organizer John Elberling reports that, as signature gathering continues, the Flower Mart negotiations have come down to one last issue about future rents. The ballot measure would lock in the existing 40 foot height limit, thus frustrating plans by a huge Los Angeles developer for a proposed high tech office complex. If all the outstanding issues are not settled, organizers of the ballot campaign have until July 6 to submit 9,703 signatures to put the matter before the voters.