Ending a two and half year absence of having LGBTQ representation on the San Francisco Planning Commission, the Board of Supervisors has confirmed gay strategic economist Derek Braun to serve on the powerful oversight body.
The supervisors voted 8-3 Tuesday to approve Braun to a term that ends June 30, 2026. Mayor London Breed appointed him to succeed former planning commissioner Frank Fung.
Braun is expected to be sworn in as a member of the planning commission in time to take part in its meeting Thursday.
The supervisors also approved on the same 8-3 vote Tuesday the reappointment of mayoral appointee Rachael A. Tanner, currently president of the planning commission, to a new four-year term. The board's rules committee had voted 3-0 September 19 in support of confirming both Tanner and Braun.
The vote before the full board occurred amid a growing scandal over Breed asking dozens of her commission appointees to sign undated letters of resignation. She ended the practice several days after the San Francisco Standard first reported on it last week.
Tuesday afternoon the mayor's office released copies of the resignation letters, showing that Braun had signed one of the letters and Tanner did not. Responding to the revelations, a number of supervisors voiced concerns about voting on the planning commissioner appointees without being able to further vet them.
The board was under a deadline to take up their nominations Tuesday, as it was the last day for the board to cast a vote. Otherwise, the two appointees would have been automatically confirmed to the planning commission.
With the oversight body down in members, and the rules committee having already voted to support them, a majority of the supervisors opted to go ahead and vote in support of the two appointees. They also voiced their concerns about the mayor's use of the resignation letters.
"I think this is a troubling practice not least because it is ineffective and embarrassing for the mayor's office," said gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who nonetheless said the two applicants are "good strong applicants" who should be confirmed.
He voted in the majority to seat them both, while Supervisors Aaron Peskin (District 3), Dean Preston (District 5) and board president Shamann Walton (District 10) voted against confirming the pair. Peskin, who chairs the rules committee that vets mayoral applicants, had raised the issue of the resignation letters at the start of the board's discussion of the confirmations.
Peskin had called the practice "troubling" and said he was "glad" it had stopped. But he also said it raised serious questions for him, particularly why some commissioners were asked to sign the letters and others were not.
There not being any "rhyme or reason to the practice," he said, was "kind of mindboggling."
Tom Paulino, a gay man who is Breed's liaison to the board, told the supervisors he did not know why some appointees had been asked to submit the resignation letters and others were not. He said the mayor asked for them in case an appointee had a "dereliction of duty" and could no longer serve in their oversight position.
Neither Braun nor Tanner addressed the supervisors at the meeting, as it is usual practice for them to speak before the rules committee.
Braun, 39, is employed by Berkeley-based Strategic Economics and has been working with South San Francisco officials to update their city's affordable housing impact fees for new commercial and industrial development activity. He also worked with Oakland officials on a new plan for the East Bay city's downtown area in terms of its economic development and housing needs.
"My work really lies at the intersection of market and economic conditions and understanding that to fulfill the goals and visions in the communities I work," Braun, who is Japanese American, had said at last week's rules hearing. "I am coming to the planning commission because I really want to share this expertise and engage very closely with our local community and local communities."
The planning body's last LGBTQ member Dennis Richards, a gay man, resigned in March 2020 after he sued the city's building inspection department alleging it had retaliated against him for taking critical stances against it. The city and Richards settled the lawsuit in March for $1.8 million.
Braun had told the supervisors panel last week that he would be "very open-minded" as a planning commissioner. Issues he wants to focus on include housing affordability, protecting current residents and tenants, and cultural displacement.
A renter who doesn't own a car, he had been a resident of the Castro for 11 years but recently moved. Braun has lived in San Francisco for 13 years.
He graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 2005 with a B.S. in management. Braun then earned his masters in planning
from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 2008.
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