Voters Support Help for SF 'Legacy' Businesses

San Francisco voters adopted a local ballot measure in Tuesday's election that provides financial assistance to keep the city's "legacy" businesses open amid increased economic pressures.

Longtime LGBT businesses could particularly benefit by the passage of Proposition J, which passed with 56.71 percent of the vote, according to the unofficial returns Wednesday morning.

As noted in the Bay Area Reporter 's online Political Notes column Monday, in recent years the city has been losing its gay nightlife venues, LGBT-owned eateries and more traditional brick-and-mortar retail shops in the gay Castro district. The pace of gay-owned business closings, as well as LGBT nonprofits relocating across the bay to Oakland, seems to have increased of late due to rising rents for commercial spaces.

In response to the difficulties many longtime businesses in the city are confronting, gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos pushed for passage of Prop J, which creates a Legacy Business Historic Preservation Fund. It allows the city to provide grants to legacy businesses and to building owners who lease space to those businesses for terms of at least 10 years.

"So proud to see Prop J, our legacy business proposal, passing," Campos tweeted Wednesday morning. "Thank you SF voters for helping save our legacy businesses!"

The measure defines a legacy business as those that have operated in San Francisco for more than 20 years. It also includes nonprofits that have been operating in the city for at least two decades.

To benefit from the measure, a legacy business has to show it has "significantly contributed to the history or identity of a neighborhood." And it needs to show that, if excluded from the city's Legacy Business Registry, it risks being displaced "because of increased rents or lease terminations."

The city established the Legacy Business Registry in March, but it did not include funding for those establishments that qualified to be on it. Under Prop J, legacy businesses are eligible to receive an annual grant of up to $500 per employee.

The city controller has estimated the program will cost the city between $2.1 million to $3.7 million annually to begin with and grow to $54 million to $94 million by 2040.

All 11 members of the Board of Supervisors supported Prop J. They noted that the measure's costs amount to less than 1 percent of the city's budget and argued the expenses would be recouped from the economic benefits of having the local businesses remain open.

Clean Power, Family Leave Measures Pass

Also passed Tuesday was the City Hall supported Proposition H, which aligns CleanPowerSF, the long-stalled city program to sell energy from renewable power sources, with how the state defines clean energy sources. It garnered 79.51 percent of the vote.

A competing measure, Proposition G, which had been put on the ballot by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, which represents employees at power utility PG&E, and would have restricted how the city program defines "renewable, greenhouse-gas free electricity" was defeated. It received 76.79 percent of the no vote.

Prop H had been expected to pass due to a last minute compromise between city leaders and the union. But their agreement to support a revised Prop H came too late to pull Prop G off the ballot.

The long stalled CleanPowerSF program is now expected to launch sometime next year. All households in San Francisco will be placed into the CleanPowerSF program unless they opt out.

Under Prop H, the city will use the state's definition of "eligible renewable energy resources" when referring to terms such as "clean energy," "green energy," and "renewable greenhouse gas-free energy." It restricts PG&E from including nuclear power as a green energy source.

"San Francisco made the right choice in passing Prop. H, so that we are able to hold city leaders accountable when they enroll us in CleanPowerSF," stated Hunter Stern of Truth in Energy, a chief supporter of Prop. H. "Prop. H is all about transparency in the new city-run power program - so customers can make informed choices."

Voters passed two other ballot measures impacting bureaucratic policies at City Hall. Proposition B, which received 66.34 percent of the vote, amends the city's charter to allow city employees whose spouse or partner is also a city employee to receive paid leave for up to 12 weeks upon the birth or adoption of a child.

The measure is expected to cost the city between $570,000 and $1.1 million annually, according to the city controller, depending on how many employees take advantage of it.

The San Francisco Ethics Commission's Proposition C passed with 74.54 percent of voters supporting it. It requires anyone who spends $2,500 or more in a month to influence decision-making at City Hall to register as an "expenditure lobbyist" with the Ethics Commission, pay a $500 registration fee, and file monthly disclosures regarding their lobbying activities.

Voters, however, rejected Proposition E, which netted 66.65 percent of the no vote. It would have required the city to broadcast all meetings of policy bodies live on the Internet. It would also have allowed for public comments to be submitted electronically in a video or audio format to be played during meetings and permitted requests that discussion of a particular agenda item begin at a specific time.

Opponents of the measure argued it would be too unwieldy to implement and allow for right-wing groups to hijack public meetings, as it did not place any restrictions on who could submit public comments via video.