January 06, 2004

DRAFT

MINUTES
of the
SAN FRANCISCO BIOSCIENCES
TASK FORCE

Tuesday, January 6, 2004 at 4:00 p.m.

City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton Goodlett Place, Rm. 421

1. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL

The meeting was called to order at 4:20 p.m.

Present:

Reed Benet
Richard Morten
Rajiv Bhatia (DPH)
Karen Pierce
Peter Cohen
Joe Raguso
L. Michael Costa
Scott Williams
Theresa Feeley
Corinne Woods
Dr. Mike Le
Lori Yamauchi
Chris Geiger (ENV)

Absent:

Jan Bolaffi (Exc)
Amit Ghosh (DCP)
Julie Brandt (SBC)
Madison Kilpatrick (Exc)
Frank Chiu (DBI)

2. TASK FORCE OPEN SEATS

Marti Paschal, Aide to Supervisor Maxwell, reported that the Rules Committee will review the application for the organized labor seat on Jan. 15. Presently, there are no applications for the Mission District and Visitacion Valley/ Little Hollywood. Rules committee approved adding one more position from organized labor that represents emergency service and public safety personnel.

3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of December 7, 2003 were approved as amended.

4. COMMITTEE REPORTS

Code Process Committee: Reed Benet and Corinne Woods. Mr. Benet reported that the meeting focused on researching best practices in other cities, e.g., Seattle, South San Francisco, San Diego, Woodlands near Houston, Boston. The website will be important for linking with other places. Ms. Woods said the committee is looking at jurisdictions that have the same constraints that SF has: residential adjacent to industrial use. Issue in SF will always be how neighborhoods react to having biosciences next to them. New Haven and Cambridge on east coast seem to have the same issues that SF has re biosciences.

Industry Location Criteria: Michael Costa, chair, reported that the committee met on December 18. Covered three topics: objectives of committee, deliverables and process for obtaining deliverables. Try to understand what are the factors that determine where a company will and will not locate. Want to consider quality of life issues, human resources, lifestyle and lifecycle factors. Need to find out what SF has already been done, check with Economic Development office and Julie Brandt. Want to talk to biotech companies to find out what their location criteria were. Mr. Benet offered to provide real estate information.

Mr. Costa suggested that the services of the Legislative Analyst Office might be useful. Ms. Lerner offered to make arrangements through Supervisor Maxwell's office.

Cost Benefits Committee: Rajiv Bhatia, chair reported that the committee identified a list of issues that may relate to the costs, benefits, community acceptability criteria, all potential issues affecting particular neighborhoods as well as SF in general without weighting any of them. Issues-health and safety, community compatibility after economic benefits are shared with community.

Ms. Feeley recommended that the Task Force collect reports and surveys done by Planning Department with respect to the Eastern Neighborhoods study.

Mr. Morten suggested that pollster David Binder might be able to include questions in his polls relating to biosciences. Task Force agreed that questions could be crafted by the Cost Benefits Committee

Dr. Bhatia suggested asking the Planning Dept., given the two years of the Eastern Neighborhood planning processes, where would the location of biosciences industries be compatible with neighborhood planning and where wouldn't it be. It was agreed that Amit Ghosh could provide this information.

5. REPORT FROM HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Dr. Bhatia introduced Sue Cone, Director of Hazardous Materials Program. He announced the opening of a new website, www..dph.sf.ca.us/ehs/phes. He provided Summary of California State Laws, applicable to bioscience, mostly hazardous waste and medical waste materials. Local jurisdictions throughout the country were surveyed to see if they did anything different. Cambridge, MA had model practices. It enforces its own state laws for hazardous materials and hazardous waste; Cambridge has a separate ordinance for recombinant DNA research; industries are voluntarily applying NIH guidelines for laboratory safety.

Sue Cone: Cambridge ordinance has been in existence since 1977. Community now welcomes biotech, -sciences industry because they have a good compliance history.

Ms. Woods explained that Cambridge has a Biosafety Committee and minutes and an annual report can be accessed on its website. Through the committee, the surrounding community was able to accept the biotech/science industry.

Dr. Bhatia also suggested that the risk management plans required for biotech/sciences may be another form of review.

6. TASK FORCE WEBSITE

Members discussed use of links to bioscience/biotech and other relevant websites.

7. NEW BUSINESS

Mr. Raguso, chair of the Functional Definition Committee requested that the committee date be changed from Wednesday from 5 to 6 to Thursday from 5 p.m. Moved by Mr. Costa, seconded by Ms. Pierce, the motion passed

7. ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 6:10 p.m.