Supervisors ask Lee to let go of stop and frisk

A Board of Supervisors' majority has asked Mayor Ed Lee to stop pursuing any notion of implementing a local version of New York City's controversial stop-and-frisk policy.

The program allows police to stop and search people they consider suspicious in an attempt to seize illegal weapons. The vast majority of those stopped by the NYPD have been black and Latino.

Lee, concerned about gun violence in San Francisco, said that after he spoke to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg last month about the Big Apple's experience with stop and frisk, he decided to explore the feasibility of putting a similar program in place in San Francisco.

Lee's hand-picked police chief, Greg Suhr, voiced strong reservations about the idea. A coalition of civil rights and community groups sent Lee a strongly worded letter Tuesday "to express our alarm and deep dismay" that he is considering such an approach.

That was followed by the nonbinding resolution introduced by Supervisor Malia Cohen and co-sponsored by Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, David Chiu, Eric Mar and Christina Olague.

"While I appreciate the mayor's commitment to raising awareness for the public-safety challenges that we have in the city, in particular the issue surrounding gun violence in our southeastern neighborhoods, I don't believe that a policy similar to stop and frisk is something worth exploring," Cohen said.

Christine Falvey, spokeswoman for Lee, said the mayor is aware of the concerns but is not prepared to give up investigating a stop-and-frisk program and other ideas to tamp the troubling rise of gun violence. "He certainly won't support a program that includes racial profiling or violating anyone's constitutional rights," Falvey said.

- Rachel Gordon

Tax break: Small businesses in San Francisco that create new jobs, give their existing employees a raise or increase their hours will get a break on their payroll tax, under rules adopted Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

Mayor Ed Lee is expected to sign the legislation into law. The exemption would be effective for four years, expiring after 2015.

Businesses with annual payrolls under $500,000 can expand their payroll by as much as $250,000 without having to pay any additional taxes. The business tax rate is set at 1.5 percent. The maximum potential savings for each business would be $3,750 a year.

The exemption would reduce the city's payroll tax revenue by an estimated $2 million a year, according to a projection by the city's chief economist, Ted Egan. The trade-off, say sponsors, is the creation of more jobs.

"The goal here is to create hundreds of jobs here within our small-business community," said Supervisor Mark Farrell, chief sponsor of the legislation.

Supervisor David Campos, a co-sponsor, described the tax break as a matter of fairness, since the city extended a payroll tax exemption to businesses like Twitter that relocate to the Mid-Market area.

- Rachel Gordon

A fun(d) raiser: Supporters of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council recycling center in Golden Gate Park are nothing if not dogged. Although they have not had a lease at the site since 2001 and they lost their appeal of an eviction notice in court, they continue to act as if they'll be allowed to stay.

On Sunday between 12 3 p.m., HANC is sponsoring an event to support the site. Since the recycling center was designated as a non-conforming use under the 1998 Golden Gate Park Master Plan, HANC has re-branded it as "Kezar Gardens Ecology Center," and has built planter boxes for native plants.

"We are working hard to stay alive and defeat eviction from our home of 30 years," the invitation says.

The event is billed as a chance to "celebrate community gardeners," and one of the features will be a "mock chain yourself to the garden photo booth."

- C.W. Nevius