Board overrides mayor, June election on table

Pub date February 10, 2009
WriterSarah Phelan
SectionPolitics Blog

“Colleagues, the mayor’s veto is overturned.”
So said Board President David Chiu, as the Board of Supervisors overturned Mayor Gavin Newsom’s February 6 veto of legislation that former Board President Aaron Peskin introduced as his going away gift to San Francisco voters–a gift that involved declaring a fiscal emergency so that a June 2 special election would be possible.

Overturning Newsom’s veto allows the Board to keep this June 2 special election on the table. And they still have until March 3 before they need to decide whether to pull the plug on that plan. If they do, Chiu has also proposed
legislation that would open the door to an August election, if the Board decides that would work better.

Newsom vetoed the Board’s June special election legislation late last Friday afternoon, and he has stated that he prefers to wait until November.

But most folks on the Board (especially now that they have seen the depth and horror of the cuts that the City faces) aren’t buying the mayor’s wait-another-nine-months-and-see plan.