Supervisor David Campos introduced his new legislative aide, Hillary Ronen, at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
Ronen, a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, comes to Campos’ staff from La Raza Centro Legal in the Mission, which provides legal services for a largely immigrant community.
As a staff attorney at La Raza Centro Legal, she was most recently involved in a resolving a conflict between day laborers and a UHAUL manager.
Ronen told Mission Loc@l her first two days have been “great — a little overwhelming, but great.”
She is filling a vacancy when Linnette Peralta left to teach social work at San Jose State, according to Sheila Chung Hagen, another legislative aide for Campos.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty also announced the departure of legislative aide Nicolas King, who is joining the mayor’s staff as the public safety policy adviser. He will be replaced by Alex Randolph for the remainder of Dufty’s term, which ends in January of next year.
Several of the items at Tuesday’s meeting called for discussion, but many were continued without a vote.
Supervisor John Avalos proposed further amendments to his legislation to extend just cause protections to tenants living in non-rent controlled units that have been foreclosed. This comes more than one month after its initial introduction and will be voted on next week.
Avalos said the amendments address the actual definition of foreclosure, as well as noticing rules that require landlords to tell tenants what their rights are in the event of eviction or foreclosure.
He said there is “some back and forth with the mayor” but he expects support from the mayor, as well as from property owners on a more narrowly-tailored legislation.
A vote on Supervisor Eric Mar’s legislation to prohibit smoking in enclosed and certain unenclosed areas was put off until next week.
The types of areas as specified in the ordinance include: “1.) business establishments and bars regardless of whether owner-operated; 2.) common areas of multi-unit housing complexes; 3.) tourist lodging facilities; 4.) tobacco shops; 5.) charity bingo games; 6.) unenclosed dining areas of restaurants; 7.) service waiting areas; 8.) areas outside entrances, exits and operable windows and vents of all buildings except at the curb of the nearest street, sidewalk or alley; 9.) farmers markets; and 10.) vehicles owned by the City and County of San Francisco.”
Supervisor Sean Elsbernd raised initial concerns from the Small Business Commission and Supervisors Dufty and Ross Mirkarimi agreed that it could negatively impact small businesses.
Mar said after the meeting that Supervisor Chris Daly had previously proposed a smoking ban that was essentially killed at the committee level because of small business concerns. Mar stressed that he hopes his legislation will “get through next week with no loopholes.”
“The bars and nightclubs … are the main culprits of trying to make more changes that allow more areas for smoking,” Mar said. “Every night club and bar in my colleagues’ districts are going to be knocking on their doors and calling their phones.”
Mar expects the mayor to support the legislation.
Avalos, a co-sponsor, said he had more familiarity working on the legislation as a legislative aide in Daly’s office and stressed the health benefits of the ordinance.
“There is no safe level of exposure from secondhand smoke and we need to protect people where they live and in their workplace,” Avalos said. “To me this is environmental legislation and environmental legislation is about protecting people or the natural environment and that does generally regulate business behavior.”
Bicyclists might also see some improvements in some “dangerous” intersections after the board unanimously passed a resolution from Daly urging the SFMTA to do a study at the following areas: Market, Polk, Oak and 10th Street, and of Howard, South Van Ness, 13th Street and Division, and along Division, 13th Street and Duboce from Folsom to Valencia.
While the resolution calls for “bicycle facilities,” Daly said there are no specific plans for what could be installed at these intersections after a study is completed and can range from “dedicated bike signals … [to] pulling out parking.”
“I’m not a transit designer or engineer, I’m a politician,” Daly said. “But I’m asking the professionals to take a look and come up with some solutions for these problem areas.”