He’s
Everywhere: On a visit to Martha &
Bros. on 24th Street—scene of a recent debate over
coffee and tea—Supervisor Scott Wiener (right) takes a
minute to chat with coffee shop regular Tony
Snapes. Photo by Beverly
Tharp
Good Report Card for District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener
By Corrie M. Anders
Halfway through his rookie term, Scott Wiener has
drawn mostly
high praise as District 8’s representative on the San
Francisco Board of
Supervisors—especially for the prodigious amount of
legislation he has
authored.
Excluding Board President David Chiu, Wiener has
introduced more
bills in the past two years than any other supervisor on the
11-member panel.
His name has been on 33 measures—some narrowly
focused, many
far-reaching. Twenty-four have been approved by the board,
including a measure
that cleared the way for higher wages for janitors, and one
that discouraged
universities from buying apartments and turning them into
student housing.
Measures still pending include a law that would make it easier
for
tenancy-in-common (TIC) owners to convert their units to
condominiums, a
building code revision that would allow construction of tiny
“micro-apartments,” and a change to the police code that would
eliminate fees
and fingerprint requirements for antique stores.
Since winning a four-year term in November 2010,
Wiener has
received steady applause for his close attention to
constituent issues in Noe
Valley.
“We’re very proud of him,” said Hunter Stern,
president of the Noe
Valley Democratic Club, who said he was particularly impressed
with Wiener’s legislative
acumen.
“He’s very systematic in his approach to
identifying issues,
analyzing and crafting legislation. He’s good at that,” Stern
said. “More
importantly, most of it gets passed.”
In a wide-ranging interview in his City Hall
chambers, Wiener, a
former deputy city attorney who resides in the Castro
District, acknowledged
that he took great pride in shaping policy for San Francisco.
“I do plenty of [work] behind the scenes,” said
the 42-year-old
supervisor, whose district includes Noe Valley, Diamond
Heights, the
Castro, and parts of Glen Park. “But there is a lot of
legislative work to be
done, [although] sometimes people say we have enough laws on
the books, we
don’t need more.”
Wiener said he was especially proud of his drum
major role in
getting voter approval last November for a $248 million bond
measure to
increase pedestrian and bicycling safety, repave streets and
fix potholes, and
make other capital upgrades. Twenty-fourth Street was one
beneficiary of the
bond measure, he said. His work on the community design for
the renovation of
Dolores Park also ranked high on his list of achievements.
Neighborhood leaders and politicians have had two
years to take
the measure of Wiener, a soft-spoken moderate often described
as a policy wonk.
“Overall, I would say [Wiener] has done an
excellent job. He’s
highly responsible to the small and large needs of the
community,” said Debra
Niemann, executive director of the Noe Valley Association.
“He’s a
problem-solver.”
Last May, for example, Niemann said Wiener was
summoned to calm a
dispute at a parklet outside Martha & Bros. coffeehouse on
24th Street.
DavidsTea had announced plans to open next door, and a number
of parklet
habitués were upset that proposed construction might disturb
the ambience of
the space.
Wiener spent 20 minutes at the sidewalk summit
discussing permit
procedures with the parklet regulars, who were also worried
that competition
from DavidsTea, a Canadian chain, might hurt the local coffee
shop.
Wiener said his role “was to bring understanding”
that
construction would be handled in “a very respectful way” and
that DavidsTea was
a niche business without much overlap with Martha’s.
More recently, Wiener was a background player in
the First
Republic Bank controversy, said Rob Roddick, president of the
Noe Valley
Merchants and Professionals Association.
In late July, the bank withdrew its plans to open
a branch in a
vacant storefront on the corner of 24th and Sanchez streets,
after residents
complained the neighborhood’s main commercial strip was
already well stocked
with financial institutions.
Rather than let the bank’s proposal fade, Roddick
said, Wiener set
out to help the bank find a more appropriate location in Noe
Valley.
“As supervisors go, he’s not been so bad,” said
Roddick, noting
Wiener’s work on a popular but expensive proposal to transform
the Noe Valley
Ministry parking lot at 24th and Vicksburg into a town square.
Valley Street resident Karen Spira has had only
one encounter with
Wiener, but it left her deeply impressed. The occasion was a
June 16
ribbon-cutting at Upper Noe Recreation Center for a new
sandbox cover designed
to keep cats at bay.
“I was very touched that he came to the ceremony.
He came even
though it could be seen as trivial. But it was a big deal to
our community,”
said Spira, who led a nearly two-year effort to find a
solution and funds for
the sandbox cover. Her 21/2-year-old
son, Tobias, now plays in a litter-free sandbox.
Still, Wiener hasn’t won over everybody in the
neighborhood.
“Scott is a little too conservative for my
taste,” said Vicki
Rosen, longtime president of the residents group Upper Noe
Neighbors.
“He seems more like a quote ‘downtown’ kind of
guy,” she said.
“He’s more pro-business and pro-development than past District
8 supervisors.
My overall assessment of his presence in my part of District 8
is that he
doesn’t connect easily to ordinary residents and their issues
in the district,”
she said.
Rosen qualified her evaluation, however. “I feel
like if we really
did have a problem he’d be there to help.”
In his favor, Rosen said, Wiener has proposed
some good
legislation, including a parks bond measure on the November
ballot that would
provide $195 million to fix up Glen Canyon Recreation Center
and other rundown
fixtures in city parks.Still,
she said, “I’m not a fan of his effort to water down the
Historic Preservation
Act” through reform legislation that the board approved in
May. She called the
reforms “misguided” and “a solution in search of a problem
that will mostly
benefit developers.”
Wiener countered that “people get caricatured in
politics all the
time. You’re pro-development or anti-development or you’re
pro-business or
anti-business.”
He defended his performance, emphasizing that he
has a “strong
pro-tenant record” and that he supports “smart development.”
“I think people can agree or disagree with
particular votes I’ve
cast or positions I’ve taken,” he said. “But what I don’t
think anyone can
dispute is my level of engagement in tangible projects that
matter in the
district.”
High on his agenda this year is facilitating the
town square,
shepherding a $200,000 renovation of the popular Noe Courts
park—“that park
needs a lot of attention”—and trying to resolve the impasse
over the Real Food
Company building, which has confounded politicians since the
grocery abruptly
closed nine years ago amid a labor dispute.
As for citywide issues, Wiener plans to devote
more time to
housing and transportation—especially improving access to
car-sharing and
getting more taxis on the streets.
Some, like Rosen, believe Wiener’s record
foreshadows mayoral
ambitions, while Stern said an assembly race might be a
possibility.
“He’s made a name for himself, and others are
talking about him in
that way,” said independent political analyst Corey Cook, an
assistant
professor of politics at University of San Francisco and
director of the
school’s Leo T. McCarthy Center.
Wiener smiled away any suggestion that he had
higher ambitions.
“I’m very, very focused on doing the jobs as
supervisor,” said
Wiener, who also works outside City Hall attending two to five
events each
evening and eight to 14 on weekends.
“Politics is so uncertain and there are so many
variables that I
think it’s foolish to start planning ‘this is what I want to
do in the future,’
because you end up not focusing on what you’re doing now.
“This,” he said, “is truly the best job I’ve ever
had.”
Wiener’s Laws: From ‘Towel, Please!’ to TICs
to Street Trees
Some of Scott Wiener’s legislative achievements
have won national
attention. For example, his measure last year requiring
nudists to put a towel
down before sitting on a public bench hit CNN and the
late-night talk shows.
Then there was his repeal of an item in the
police code that had
made it a crime to tie a dog to a tree. That created a stir
too.
But the District 8 supervisor has also championed
more serious
legislation, some of which holds particular resonance for Noe
Valley residents.
In June, Wiener and Supervisor Mark Farrell
introduced legislation
to make it easier for tenancy-in-common (TIC) owners to
convert their units to
condominiums.
Under the measure, TIC owners (with some
restrictions) would be
able to pay a one-time fee of $20,000 per unit to bypass the
city’s current
lottery system and convert immediately. The fees would go
toward creating
affordable housing.
“The TIC condo reform will be very beneficial in
Noe Valley,”
Wiener said, noting that “District 8 has the highest number of
TICs in the
city.”
The bill is pending before the Board of
Supervisors.
Already on the books is Wiener’s “Good Samaritan
Rental Law,”
which was prompted by arson fires in the Castro and an
accidental fire last
year that displaced residents above Radio Shack on 24th
Street.
The measure allows landlords to offer temporary,
one- to two-year
leases at low rents to disaster victims without committing to
long-term
rent-controlled contracts.
Wiener said the passage of legislation in April
that streamlined
the planning code for restaurants, cafes, and bakeries was
another significant
accomplishment.
He said the existing code had so many separate
classifications
that some businesses could sell a cold bagel but not a toasted
one, or serve
ice cream in a cup but not in a cone.
“We collapsed that from 13 down to three broad
classifications and
made it a lot easier for people to open and grow these small
businesses,”
Wiener said. “I think every single restaurant or café in Noe
Valley will
benefit from this.”
Last month, Wiener called for a public hearing on
an issue that
has been raising the hackles of Noe Valley homeowners: the
high cost of caring
for street trees. Earlier this year, the Department of Public
Works began
transferring, neighborhood by neighborhood, the entire
responsibility for
maintenance of the city’s 100,000 street trees to property
owners.
“There certainly are a lot of street trees in Noe
Valley, and a
lot of people were surprised in an unpleasant way” when they
learned about the
city’s plans.
Wiener said he wants to find an ongoing source of
funding that
homeowners can tap into to pay for tree-pruning or for repairs
to sidewalks
broken by tree roots. One of the suggestions—a parcel
tax—would require
enabling legislation.
The public hearing on trees has been tentatively
scheduled for
late October. For information, call Wiener’s office at
415-554-6968 or email Scott.Wiener@sfgov.org.
