From the November 2009 Newsletter:

The Effort To Elect More Property Rights-Friendly Supervisors Starts Today!
But the latest proposal on pets reminds us that tenant advocates never stop trying to push the limits of our tolerance.
By Noni Richen, SPOSFI BPresident

As we approach our final meeting of 2009, and my two-year anniversary as president of SPOSFI, I am simultaneously appalled and encouraged by the latest outrage emanating from City Hall. A relatively obscure and purely advisory body, the Animal Control and Welfare Commission, has suggested that property owners be required to allow pets into their places of business—rental apartments. We sent out an e-mail asking for your opinions on this new suggested mandate, thinking we’d print a few. The response from you, our members, has been overwhelming. We’ve never had so many impassioned e-mails on any subject. We could fill the entire newsletter with your responses, even crowding out my editorial, and still have material left over. While we find the suggested legislation outrageous and will fight it vigorously should it ever get as far as a Board of Supervisors subcommittee, we are elated by the number of responses and by the passion and energy they reflect.

The next meeting of the Animal Control and Welfare Commission is Thursday, November 12, 5:30 p.m., City Hall, Room 408. We encourage you to attend and speak out against yet another proposal that would stymie our ability to effectively manage our businesses. Please check the city’s website, www.sfgov.org, ahead of time, to make sure that the item is on the agenda.

It’s all about a moderate Board of Supervisors
Our primary focus for the coming year will be to maintain and, we hope, increase the number of moderate supervisors on the 11-member Board. We are part of an organized effort to endorse and work for moderate candidates in the even-numbered districts with elections in 2010. Our former president, David Fix, is on the Plan C Board of Directors. We have attended several meetings of the Coalition for Responsible Growth (CRG), and their president, Rodrigo Santos, will address our November meeting. As partners in this informal force of moderates, we will be able to support our candidates with volunteer hours and cash donations, and avoid endorsing multiple candidates for the same office.

Because so many of you responded so vigorously to a relatively minor proposal about pets, we know that every one of you, and many more, will be ready to take part in the most important project we have for the coming year. I ask each one of you who e-mailed about the pets issue to focus on the big picture: the 2010 elections. Surely, between now and election day, almost every person who wrote is capable of spending ten hours for a candidate. Most of us can afford to direct what amounts to a few dollars a month to write them checks. We will work hard to get more of our members involved, but we know that we have a healthy bloc of people who are vitally interested in the future of San Francisco and how it is governed.

Thank you, members, for joining us, for attending meetings and governmental hearings, for writing with your suggestions and constructive criticism, for bringing your friends to our meetings, and for supporting our business members.

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