The Board of Supes will consider Tuesday/16 a measure that would potentially limit tech companies from using warehouse space to test delivery drones and other AI products that could have impacts on safety in the city.
The measure, by Sup. Jackie Fielder, would also preserve so-called Production, Distribution, and Repair space for blue-collar jobs and protect that space from tech-company displacement.
San Francisco has a long history of allowing PDR space to be taken over by tech companies. Now companies like Amazon and DoorDash are looking at robot delivery services (drones weighing ten pounds carrying chicken wings and pizza in the air over crowded neighborhoods? Robots riding along crowded sidewalks with Amazon products? What could possibly go wrong?), and Fielder is concerned. AI companies and tech research in PDR zones “places development pressure” on sites that still offer decent jobs for people without advanced degrees, she said today at the Land Use and Transportation Committee.
Her measure would, for 18 months, require a special conditional use permit from the Planning Commission for tech-lab use in PDR zones.
Sup. Bilal Mahmood offered an amendment exempting life science labs from the limits, which none of the committee members opposed.
But tech companies and their allies are still concerned about the bill, and Garry Tan, who once suggested that progressive supervisors should die slowly, is now ranting about the city’s ability to support creativity.
I can think of a lot of ways to support creativity, including making affordable space for artists, musicians, and small manufacturers. There’s lots of creativity and innovation in this city, and it isn’t all in the AI world.
That meeting starts at 2pm.
The San Francisco School District administration set off a political fury in 2024 with the release of a list of 13 schools that could be closed. Members of the School Board said they had no idea that list was about to become public. The superintendent resigned.
But the concept of closures never went away, and now the new superintendent, with a new contract, is considering shutting down schools that are underenrolled.
This is another part of the current approach to government, at all levels: Impose austerity.
Small schools offer a lot of advantages for a lot of students; the model of sending everyone to a massive place with thousands of kids may work for some, but the idea of a community-based school where everyone knows everyone else also has a role.
I know: the district has a huge budget crisis, and there’s no money, so we have to shut schools. I wish that every time any politician complained about budget problems they would also explain in public why this is happening, and talk about the need to raise taxes on the very rich.
Education activists are asking people to show up for public comment at the Tuesday/16 Board of Education meeting, where the members will vote on a “strong schools resolution” that calls in effect for closures.
From the activists:
Please come to a rally before the meeting organized by 5 Elements Youth Program along with the San Francisco Education Alliance, PODER, HOMEY (Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth), Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, and the Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition.
The press conference and rally will kick off at 4:45. The Board Meeting (where we need folks giving public comment) starts at 6:30.
