City Attorney rules that the newly elected supe doesn’t have to wait until January

By Tim Redmond

NOVEMBER 4, 2015 – Aaron Peskin can take his seat on the Board of Supervisors within as little as a few weeks, and won’t have to wait until after January, the City Attorney’s Office ruled today.

That’s significant because there are major development projects, including 75 Howard (on the waterfront) and the 5M Project (at Fifth and Mission) moving through the pipeline quickly, and both could come to the board before the end of the year.

Normally supervisors take office in January. But Peskin won a seat that was up in a special election because Christensen had just been appointed. (He’ll have to run again in the fall.)

And the City Charter states that such an election is to “fill the unexpired term” (in this case of David Chiu, who resigned to move to the state Assembly) – and the “winner may be sworn in as soon as the election results are final.”

That means the head of the Department of Election, John Arntz, has to issue a certificate of election (after the last ballots are counted, which will probably be the end of this week or early next week), and the Board of Supervisors has to “declare the election results,” which is pro forma and can happen at the next meeting.

Which means in theory Peskin could join the board before Thanksgiving.