By RIGOBERTO HERNANDEZ
The City Operations and Neighborhood Service Committee voted Monday to pass an ordinance that will create a citizen’s committee to advise the mayor and Board of Supervisors on how to allocate grant money for housing and emergency shelters.
The ordinance is set to go before the full board Tuesday. If passed, it will create a nine-member Citizen’s Committee on Community Development to replace the current Mayoral Citizen’s Committee on Community Development.
The committee differs from the earlier citizen’s group in two ways. First it will oversee all development issues and instead of being made up of mayoral appointees it will include four appointed by the supervisors.
The old committee oversaw the office of Community Investment and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, which were the mayor merged as part of mid-year budget cuts.
“They crapped out and finally sat down at the table,” said District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly, referring to the mayor’s office agreeing to the legislation for the new committee.
He called the board’s new role of appointing four members “the magic of it.”
Doug Shoemaker, Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing, said that the replacement process will not cost the taxpayers any additional money.
“We don’t need additional staff to do this,” he said to the committee.
Brian Chiu, deputy director for the Mayor’s Office of Community Investment, said they will hold meetings throughout the city to inform community-based organizations about the new committee.
