president chiu: good afternoon. welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors thursday of tuesday, december 6, 2011. please call the roll.

president chiu? >> supervisor avalos? present. >> supervisor campos? present. >> supervisor chu? present. >> supervisor cohen? present. >> supervisor elsbernd? present. >> supervisor farrell? present. >> supervisor kim? present. >> supervisor mar? present. >> supervisor mirkarimi? present. >> supervisor wiener? present. mr. president, all members are present. thank you. ladies and gentlemen, could you please join me in the pledge of allegiance? >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. president chiu: colleagues, we all have copies of the october 25, 2011 board meeting minutes. can i have a motion to approve those minutes?

motion by. and a second. are there any communications? >> yesterday, december 5, the office of the matter submitted the notice of the appointment, and pointing susan christian and richard to the human rights position. the appointments are effective upon it transmittal of the notice of appointment and remain in effect unless rejected by a two-thirds vote of the board within 30 days following the transmittal to the clerk. this becomes a time-sensitive matter, as last week -- next week is the last regularly scheduled board meeting until january 10, which would fall outside of the 30-day window. therefore, if any member of the board would be interested in scheduling a hearing, please alert me by noon tomorrow, wednesday. that would be appreciated. president chiu: thank you. please read the consent agenda. >> items one through 18 comprise the consent agenda. these items will be acted upon by a single roll call vote,

unless a member requests discussion, it shall be removed in considered separately. president chiu: would any colleagues like to sever any of these items? ok, roll call vote on the consent agenda? >> supervisor cohen? aye. supervisor mar. aye. supervisor mirkarimi? aye. supervisor wiener? aye. resner of los? aye. a supervisor chu ye. president chiu? aye. supervisor elsberndaye. there are 11ayes. >> it is an unmarked -- an ordinance amending the environment could extending the resistant -- restrictions on to got back to a glut of retail and food establishments in san francisco, requiring the blunt

and -- implementation of a check out back charge, july 81, 2012. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you, mr. president, colleagues. appreciate all the input that we have received on this legislation that is before you today. this is an extension of a law that has been in existence now for over five years and the city and county of san francisco. we were the first city in the united states and the first city in the hemisphere to pass a plastic bag ban lot for one tier retailers, and that is towards the tier of the largest grocery stores in those stores that also acted as a pharmacies. proudly, many cities have blown by san francisco, throughout the state of california and across the country. cities in red and blue states who have seen why they should also pursue a bag man or a fee for bags.

they believe that, with regards to the very slow pace of the federal government is moving or even state government is moving, to insert larger calls about environmental degradation, especially those affected by the adverse effects due to the plastic bag, whether it is just the common plight that the bank provides or the fact that it takes 500 years for the common plastic bag to decompose in landfills, and i can be hard for the less harmful to our environment an atmosphere. whatever the motivations are, and number of cities are banding together to see the constructive need a pursuing legislation. this is what this legislation does. this legislation expands what is currently already law to all retailers. the very people who were not welcoming of this law five, six years ago have been very instrumental in as developing

this law to this point, especially the business sector could not wanting the chamber of commerce. i want to thank those representatives from small business networks and the small business commission, who unanimously passed their support for this law. and of course, the main fleet of unburned adult organizations who have helped make this a reality, the california academy of sciences. the bay council of biological diversity, food and water watch, a clean water action, the sierra club, the civic federation of fishermen. of course the department of environment has been on point for a number of years on this. it the planning department, city attorney's office, and a stellar work conducted by my aid, and so many others that have been involved in this process. i do not think that there is anything that we should be shy about in the passage of this law. i think it is time that we send a message, and a vigorous one,

because i think it is from mainstream thinking in conventional wisdom that instead of relying on the 350 million plastic bags that go through, really, our scavenger waste- hauling system into landfill every year, that san francisco should make a meaningful statement to say no more. the second is that we should not deflect the lack of reliance on the plastic bag used to the paper bag. this is why we decided to move forward with the idea that we assign a fee so that we ban plastic bags altogether, would exempt it uses that we identify in the legislation, and a side fee on the rest. we put 10 cents between the a plantation date in 2014. we based at 10 cents on a number of other cities in nations that have also used that same the metric. we thought that 25 cents would

be an uproar. disincentive for people continuing to use bags after the two-year time span. we have gotten good feedback from a number of circles. as i indicated earlier on, i would be more than happy to completely nix the 25 cents and leave it so there would be helpful revision later on, to see if an upgrade at 10 cents would be likely. there are amendments that i am proposing. they have all but passed out to you. i will read them quickly into the file. the four amendments are, on section 1702c1, page three, 24, language exempting raw and loose items to the work inside stores is removed, and award loose and cookies, i think to satisfy supervisor wiener, because we do not want the cooking bag to be caught up on this, to assure

all lose, raw, items would be part of this. we like that. the second, page 7, lines 6 and 9. always -- allows three more months for implementation. instead of the date that we subscribe to any current legislation of july, we would extend it to october. so it would be nine months. some supervisor's expressed a need for this but they are concerned about questions of that ready start date, and we hear you. so we think nine months, especially on par with what a number of other cities are doing it on page seven, line 12. removed an increase in back charges to 25 cents. that would be eliminated. this addresses the concern that that might seem unfounded at this point, and we agree, so we are certainly hoping there will be a review after two years to see how the 10 cents works. page eight, line 18. expands the number of days stores may give away reusable bags free of charge to 12 days,

or once a month. supervisors like kim and wiener also expressed that interest. these are all reasonable amendments. they have my support. and i motion for those minutes. president chiu: and motion to amend. is there a second? second by supervisor wiener. supervisor wiener: i want to thank supervisor mirkarimi for the amendment. i had been prepared and had the city attorney dropped a number of amendments, including the cookies, but also several others, eliminating the 25 cents, eliminating the inside store language, and a few others. i really want to thank supervisor mirkarimi for moving out my amendment by including them in his own. i think it improves the legislation significantly because of thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. i also want to thank supervisor mirkarimi's office for all of their work. historically setting the

legislation in 2007 that bans plastic bags in our supermarkets in pharmacies and its follow-up to a real supportive of this. appreciative of the amendments that have come in today. however, i am not ready to support this legislation. for me, it is not about the intent or the outcome, but rather, the process that this legislation to before it came to us. prior, i assume that a lot of outrage had happened in our neighborhood and amount small businesses, particularly in our communities of color, where we have a lot of business owners that speak cantonese and spanish. i have learned that many businesses did not get out region did not even know that we were voting on this legislation. out of respect, i would like to make a motion to continue. i think at least a month or two is needed to get actual real dialogue prior to implementation. i think we might get some very good feedback in terms of how we

could best implement the outcomes we would like to see, which is a reduction in the usage of plastic bags, and of course all bags overall in the city. but i do not think we have garnered that feedback yet. one thing i have heard, for example, is -- is their capacity in the city to do language out reach on education, the waiver process, and the enforcement as well? also, why small businesses to not go through a similar process, as did our supermarkets and retail pharmacies, where they first got rid of the plastic bags before they had a fee added on? they're kind of getting hit all at once in this legislation. i think more time is needed for the feedback. i support this overall. but for me, it is respecting the communities that will be impacted by this legislation. president chiu: because the motion to continue will take precedence, let me ask if we could consider the motion to amend, because i think that would be unanimous. the motion was made by

supervisor mirkarimi. a second by supervisor wiener. colleagues, can we take in motion to amend without objection? that will be the case. now on the motion to continue. is there a second? second by supervisor chu. let's go to supervisor mirkarimi on the motion to continue. supervisor mirkarimi: i appreciate the spirit of wide supervisor kim is saying but would argue against any motion to continue. there has been extensive outreach. in fact, i was surprised to see some of the criticisms that emerged by one organization, especially in the chinese- american, asian-american community that suggested that this law somehow would ban the right of using a bag for live animals that are bought at markets, which was completely untrue. they did not read the legislation, because the

exemption is already built in. and i ask the department of environment if there had ever been in that level of redress by those that were concerned. i want to be able to separate very carefully this notion that this seems to be all of a sudden. it has not been. this has been burgeoning for five years. this is been a mainstay the is a valid -- law to the degree that we have now. i believe the department of environment is represented here. we have an extensive memo in discussing what outreach efforts there are. this is the other reason why we had pursued the same recognition to the small business commission, who passed this unanimously. because we wanted to be sure that there had been proper steps made and made it to all communities as best as can possibly be. this is the other reason why i extended the implementation date

by three months. so to what end that there would be any continuance to try to nurture greater outreach is simply build into the law itself. so if you support the law, as i just heard, but you want a perfect outreach, than what we have just done is added three months to the tool itself so that that could happen. i would be more than happy to bring out the department of the environment, mr. president, that can speak to this. president chiu: it is up to you. supervisor mirkarimi: all right, doe director, melanie nutter. >> good afternoon, members of the board of supervisors. thank you, supervisor mirkarimi:, for inviting me to speak very briefly about the department of the environment's efforts over the past few weeks and months, and years, in fact, on out reach regarding plastic bags and getting rid of plastic bags in our community. i did it, first, want to thank

supervisor mirkarimi and his aide for their leadership on this issue and doing a lot of work to get us to where we are today. as supervisor mirkarimi did reference, there are a number of organizations that are supporting this legislation, ranging from the chamber, the golden gate restaurant association, the california grocers association, the small business commission, chinese newcomers association, and a whole host of environmental organizations that have been urging san francisco to take action on this legislation for many years. in terms of the out reached that we have done, the technical advisers to supervise the mirkarimi on this legislation, as soon as it was proposed, we hit the ground running in doing individual ought reached to organizations throughout san francisco. the richmond, chinatown, the bayview, and a lot of different communities, to ensure that we started out reached on this new propone it in this extension of the law. some of the organizations we have reached out to include the

asian-as the american ocean harmony alliance, at the san francisco chinatown merchants association, saw help for the elderly, sunset merchants association, the small business network, small-business advocates. the list goes on and on. what we have been doing is distributing the information about the legislation, as well as the fact sheet that was created by the department of the environment in english, spanish, and chinese. before the legislation is passed, the role of the the parties to clarify information in the community. as supervisor mirkarimi mentioned, there has been someone and an organization actively working to put out some of the information in the community about what this is, so that has caused confusion. that is what we have been working to clarify what our fact sheet and outrage. from our perspective, as soon as this legislation is passed, that is when the department of the environment hits the ground running with putting additional

resources towards implementing the law in doing out reach that, as the law is now written, would be nine months. what i also wanted to mention is the department of the environment has many years experience implementing these types of legislation, whether was the first plastic bag and, what there was mandatory recycling, the food-service ordinance. these are all people with legislation that have similar constituencies that we do, as a department, have expertise to reaching out to. merchants one-by-one, in committee the organization's overall. last, we did put together an outline of a plan that shows -- that, should this legislation be adopted, and these are the types of things the we would undertake to ensure sufficient out region to the community and adoption of the law. accretion of education outreach, materials, and a number of different languages. chinese, spanish, and