Thanks Elizabeth. Per Jonathan’s question about “How much weight does a recommendation from ACWC carry,” I would appreciate hearing an overview of this legislative process. I am thinking back to my grade school civics education about how a bill becomes a law but several things are different here (no bicameral legislature, the committee is a separate body from the legislature instead of a subset, etc.)

It sounds to me like there is not currently a bill written for this ban and that the ACWC will make a proposal to the Board about what kind of bill to write. After this, the Board can write the bill, debate it, or vote on it – or they can table the discussion, based on how much they trust the ACWC’s decision-making process. How much debate and fine-tuning generally happen on the board before such a proposal becomes law or not? I am thinking that, for all the friction that we have experienced at the ACWC level, once this gets to the Board the feathers could really fly, which is not a pretty thought.

If Philip or someone else could give us an idea about what to expect (or, if they have already done so, if somebody could point me at it), I think that would be helpful. Knowing as much as we can about how these things usually play out will help us to implement strategy.

I agree that the citizens of SF – and, ultimately, of everywhere else – should understand explicitly why this ban is important. I do not think that having an apparent majority agreement by the citizens is enough to prevent political timing and posturing. I have heard that SF politics can get pretty down and dirty and, as is also the case at the federal level, doing the “right” thing will frequently take a back seat to doing what will generate and preserve the most political power. (Everybody thinks they’re Karl Rove anymore, sigh.)

Thanks.

--VH

From: media-advisors-bounces@mickaboo.org [mailto:media-advisors-bounces@mickaboo.org] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Y
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 12:26 PM
To: Jonathan Harris; Mickaboo media advisor team
Subject: Re: [Media-advisors] FW: Some thoughts on banning pet sales from Philip

Thank you everybody for your input. I've forwarded all of your responses to Philip.

e