City Hall Workgroup Looking at Selling SF Municipal Air Rights

When I attended the October 23 fire commission meeting I learned that the City is evaluating selling air rights over municipal buildings, which was news to me. I received information from John Updike, the head of the Department of Real Estate, that more than a million square feet of air rights above the Veterans Building are in the process of being sold.

Thanks to a public records request, I've received transcripts from that meeting which provide greater transparency about where the City is in terms of potentially selling off air rights over public properties. If the Board of Supervisors would pressure the fire department, whose current budget is $86 million, to air the commission meetings on SF GovTV, it wouldn't take public records requests to fully learn all that is discussed at the meetings.

First, let me explain that fire commission member Ken Cleaveland is the vice president of the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco and their primary purpose is "advancing the commercial real estate industry through advocacy, professional development and information exchange."

It's no surprise that Cleaveland is urging movement on selling air rights, after all, it would be a financial boon to his association and its members. At the July 10 commission meeting, he made an initial inquiry:

Commissioner Cleaveland asked if the Department has ever looked at the value of any air rights they may have above fire stations and suggested deputizing someone to look into this possibility. Chief Hayes-White thought that would be a good idea and explained air right proposals were looked at in 2008, specifically to Station 13 on Sansome Street.

(Click to enlarge. Page 1 of excerpted transcripts.)

Here are excerpts of the October 23 transcripts that were provided to me by the commission's secretary:

COMMISSIONER CLEVELAND: And know what the status is of all of our -- of all of our properties, if you will. And the other thing was had we made any progress on determining if we have any transferable developmental rights, air rights above any of our fire stations? Have we done anything to determine or quantify or monetize that value? We might be able to sell. It's a very hot real estate market in order to get more money for the department.

(Page 2.)

MARK CORSO, Chief Financial Officer for SFFD, bolding added: Specifically we looked at it when it was first brought up with the Commission a few months ago, I believe. That comes up every now and then, and we discussed it with the Department of Real Estate and we are not the only department to discuss it with them. So there is a workgroup city wide looking at that. They've hired some consultants with regard utilities pricing and inventory. I believe there is a demand for, or there's actually a large want amongst many city departments to sell it so there is an issue of over saturating the market with those real estate options. And so that's one of the things with regards to timing that the Department of Real Estate is looking at. So they are working on it in conjunction with capital planning, the city's capital planning department.

(Page 3.)

COMMISSIONER COVINGTON: Thank you, Mr. President. Every time my fellow Commissioner Cleveland talks about air rights I want to bring up the fact that I would like to have us to continue to investigate the ability to build workforce housing for firefighters, police officers, and teachers.

Since developers are running out of land to build on and they can't very well construct new properties in the San Francisco Bay, it makes sense that they would look to purchase air rights for future projects. At the same time, can you blame the City for considering how to sell those air rights and produce more revenue for municipal coffers?

Now is a good time for historic building preservationists, affordable housing advocates, progressive social and urban planners, to demand more transparency from the City's workgroup looking air rights.

Since there's a workgroup and consultants have been hired, selling air rights is far enough in development to demand greater public scrutiny.

9 Action Items for Campos to Be a Better Supervisor

(Campos at a City Hall rally in September. Credit: Paul Chinn, SF Chronicle.)

On Election Day, I held my nose and cast a vote for Supervisor David Campos in his bid for the District 17 seat of the state assembly. I was under no circumstances voting for his opponent Supervisor David Chiu and now that the race is over, I wish to offer a few suggestions to Campos in his remaining time on the Board of Supervisors.

These recommendations would go a long way toward showing me and others that Campos can accept constructive criticism and improve his record of delivering tangible results for constituents and supporters.

1. Begin providing weekly updates about the LGBT homeless shelter in District 9. I've followed the delays and lack of movement on this project for a few years, it's been in the works for about four years, and a recent article in the Bay Area Reporter by Seth Hemmelgarn provided a status report.

While I understand building permits and all are a laborious process, that is no reason for Campos to not tell the community what's happening and if there's anything individuals can do to move the project to finally open and provide beds and services to homeless queers. Campos complained in the BAR story that he wasn't getting balanced or objective coverage.

In addition to bemoaning the paper's reporting, Campos can his own on the shelter.

2. What's happening with opening a bricks-and-mortar shop for Tamale Lady Virginia Ramos? Almost one-year ago, Lauren Smiley at Mission Local reported that Campos had secured a lease for her on a storefront on 16th Street near Mission. Campos aide Nate Allbee was quoted saying they'd spent six-months pulling out all the stop for Ramos.

In May, Jay Barman over at SFist gave an update and noted that Allbee said Ramos' place would be open by late spring. Well, it's late autumn and the Tamale Lady venue isn't operational and selling food. Campos needs to share monthly updates on this project.

3. Since Campos has three paid City Hall staffers, he and they should start writing and posting monthly newsletters about their activities on his City-funded web pages. His page for the dormant Campos Connect newsletter, last one was published in October 2013, should be the place we can turn to and learn about his agenda and City Hall goals.

4. Speaking of his Supervisorial web pages, he should set an example of voluntary transparency and begin posting his monthly work calender on one of the pages. After doing that, he could expand his government transparency agenda and urge his Board colleagues to do the same with their calenders.

5. Let's not stop there. We could use Campos pushing all City department heads and holders of elective office to post their monthly calenders, along with expense and travel reports, on their site and make it easier for taxpayers to keep tabs on our public servants.

6. Campos could also lead the fight to have public comment at the Board meetings on Tuesday at a fixed time, so taxpayers know when to show up and take advantage of addressing the Supervisors for two-minutes. Currently, public comment time is decided willy-nilly and citizens don't know if they should be in Board chambers at 3 pm or 5 pm or whenever. We're expected to just sit around waiting patiently, with working folks losing wages, until public comment is allowed.

7. Formally withdraw the plan,whatever the stalled plan's status, to rename San Francisco International Airport to honor Harvey Milk. This idea from Campos grabbed headlines and sucked the political oxygen out of the struggle to address the affordability crisis and eviction epidemic hitting the entire city, particularly so in District 9.

8. Let's hear what Campos' plan is for the next six months at City Hall. Put the plan in writing and on the web for public debate. Will he run for the Board president's position? If not, who does he support as the next president after Chiu moves to Sacramento? Is Campos preparing a strategy for stopping the Maximus Partners luxury condo at the 16th Street BART Plaza? What legislation is he preparing to introduce and topics for discussion at the committee level?

9. I'd like for Campos to get interested in airing the San Francisco Fire Department's commission meetings on SF GovTV. In the spring, when I approached his City Hall office about pressuring the Department of Public Health's commission meetings on Channel 26, the staff wasn't interested in the project. Here we had a city agency with tremendous influences over the health of hundreds of thousands of citizens, not to mention a huge multimillion dollar budget, and no one could watch and hear the health commission meetings.

After a month of my solo lobbying, DPH director Barbara Garcia authorized money be spent installing cameras and microphones in the auditorium at 101 Grove Street and the public and taxpayers now can tune in and watch anytime with the video-on-demand option at SF GovTV. Campos could have had a feather in his cap on this government transparency matter and used it as an example of his power of persuasion during the assembly race.

The fire department, with an $86 million budget, is under much pressure and scrutiny because of a shortage of trained EMT ambulance workers and poor response times to medical emergencies on the streets and in homes. Department chief Joanna Hayes-White faces calls from many quarters to be replaced. In short, a number of crises roil the SFFD and their commission meetings aren't televised. This must change in order to better serve the City and improve this vital department.

At minimum, Campos can send a letter to Chief White-Hayes strongly urging her to either move her meetings to a camera equipped room at City Hall, like the police commission did long ago, or install the necessary tech equipment to begin airing SFFD meetings on SF GovTV by the end of the year.

Campos has two years left on the Board of Supervisors. He's going to need plenty of prodding to be a better elected official. Let's see if he's open to my advice.

Closed-Door Job Evaluation of SF Fire Chief Protested
By Michael Petrelis

The San Francisco Fire Commission met yesterday afternoon for a regularly scheduled meeting and I was there for a few reasons, starting with verbally protesting how Chief Joanne Hayes-White's performance would be discussed out of public view.

As you may know, she's been under withering criticism from Supervisor London Breed, a former member of the fire commission, members of the firefighters union and its bosses, and ambulance workers and their parent companies over issues such as long response time for EMT vehicles.

However, Mayor Ed Lee has stood by Hayes-White and has given no indication that he's unsatisfied with her leadership and several women in leadership positions at City Hall have come to her defense.

During public comment about Hayes-White's report to the commission, I protested the closed-door evaluation that would happen at the end of the meeting and stated it was a huge disservice to the taxpayers, the general public and the safety of citizens to conduct the evaluation out of public view.

I mentioned that she's faced a pitchfork brigade and a trial by fire, no pun intended, in the media, and that I wanted facts unfiltered about her leadership protecting the public from fires and solving the ambulance response time crisis.

Even though the job evaluation would be behind closed-doors, I still requested a summary be issued to the public about what transpired in the session. I also distributed my #VotePetrelis campaign cards to folks.

How the heck are we taxpayers supposed to fairly judge Hayes-White's performance if we don't have access to the information and details presented to and debated by the fire commission? Yes, I understand privacy protections for public employees, but when that employee is responsible for a vast portion of public safety a way must be found to provide some degree of transparency to the public.

The fire commission owes everyone additional data about the job performance and evaluation of the chief.

Chief Hayes-White giving her report.

 Two ambulance workers. Minutes do not reflect the diversity of attendees at commission meetings.

Yours truly at the podium before the meeting began.