Early Monday morning about a hundred citizens gathered in front of City Hall to protest the construction of two natural gas-burning “peaker” power plants in the city — one at the airport and one in the Bayview/Portero district. Representatives opposed to the plan, from a coalition of 20 different environmental and social justice organizations, articulated in so many ways that San Francisco should be moving toward green energy and away from fossil fuels.
Then the crowd, about 100 strong, filed inside to speak their minds about it at a Government Audit and Oversight Committee hearing — last stop for the plan before it heads to the full Board of Supervisors. But 10 hours later, only a handful of people were still in the room when the chance to speak was finally given.
The insanely long hearing had a loaded agenda, with topics ranging from funding the airport to defunding Edgewood foster care center, not to mention six separate bits of legislation related to the peaker power plants. The public comment requests were piled high and proceedings slammed to a halt during Item #5 when Stephanie Gates, a rep for Edgewood, fainted to the floor in the middle of her testimony about foster care in San Francisco.
It was well into the evening and most of the audience had left for home or work by the time talk finally turned to the peakers.