Assemblyman Mark Leno Joins Poverty Rights, Tenant Advocacy, Environmental and Labor Leaders to Discuss Efforts to Derail Misguided Eminent Domain Ballot Initiative

WHEN:      Wednesday, November 14 at Noon

WHERE:     Civic Center Plaza, across from SF City Hall on Polk Street between McAllister and Grove Streets.

WHO:         Assemblyman Mark Leno

Susan Leal, General Manager, SF Public Utilities Commission

                        Ted Gullickson, SF Tenants Union

                        Barbara Blong, Senior Action Network

                        John Rizzo, Sierra Club

                        Tim Paulson, SF Labor Council

                        League of California Cities

WHAT:        Inspired by a narrow defeat by California voters in 2006, supporters of a deceptive ballot measure to restrict the use of eminent domain are back at it again with an even more seriously-flawed initiative that favors wealthy property owners.

Assemblyman Leno will be joined by a coalition of poverty and tenant rights organizations, environmentalists, labor leaders and others to denounce the so-called “California Property Owners and Farmland Preservation Act,” which would abolish rent control, reduce rights for many low-income Californians, remove important environmental protections and hand rich property owners more power to control local land-use decisions.

Leno discusses what the impacts would be of this initiative and what efforts are under way to ensure it meets the same fate as its 2006 predecessor.