: Aaron Peskin is the current president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Aaron Peskin is the current president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He was first elected to the Board in 2000, and was re-elected in 2004. In January 2005, his colleagues elected him President of the Board.
Before entering politics, Peskin was an environmental activist and water rights negotiator for a non-profit organization which brokered passage and use rights for tribal lands. He first came to public notice as president of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, one of San Francisco's oldest and most active neighborhood organizations. He is a member of the South End Rowing Club.
Peskin was first elected in December 2000, along with other progressive neighborhood activists who had cut their teeth on Tom Ammiano's mayoral campaign. When he was sworn into offi e, Peskin described District 3 (Chinatown/North Beach/Nob Hill) as the "living room" of San Francisco.
As Supervisor, Peskin is known mostly for siding with a self-described progressive majority on development issues, being at odds with the pro-growth policies of mayors Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown. He has, however developed a reputation as a pragmatist, authoring an amnesty on unwarranted "in-law" apartment construction as a strategy to blunt housing costs and promoting fiscal conservatism in city spending.
He has also sponsored legislation to curb the abuses of the Ellis Act, a state law that allows property owners to evict tenants when they wish to "go out of the rental business." This law has led to many condominium conversions in San Francisco by real estate speculators, especially in Peskin's neighborhood of North Beach. Nevertheless, Peskin also angered his progressive allies by supporting legislation to bring Home Depot to San Francisco.
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia |
