By Steven T. Jones
Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin helped engineer the placement of some solid progressive measures on the fall ballot yesterday — and unsuccessfully tried to derail one that would give sick days to all SF workers. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association had been trying to weaken the measure with fewer sick days (five, rising to 10 after an employee works three years in the same job, which few in this category of worker do) and exemption of part-time employees (which, again, is most workers who don’t get sick days). Measure advocates say they were willing to compromise a little on the former request, but not the latter. So Peskin at the last minute not only said he won’t support the measure (after advocates say his aides said he probably would), but he also convinced Sup. Sophie Maxwell to pull her support, even though she’d already signed on the dotted line. That might have left advocates without the four supervisors needed to place the measure on the ballot, but they convinced Sup. Jake McGoldrick to lend his support. But in the end, election law requires all sponsoring supervisors to agree to let a colleague withdraw, and since Sup. Tom Ammiano couldn’t be found as the 5 p.m. deadline neared, the measure ended up going to the ballot with supervisors Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, Ammiano and Maxwell as sponsors.
So what happened here? Well, it’s more than meets the eye.