FOR RELEASE MARCH 30, 1999, 9:30 A.M.

Newsom Introduces Muni Reform Amendment;
Riders File It for Signature Gathering

Supervisor Gavin Newsom announced today that he is introducing the Muni Reform charter amendment to the Board of Supervisors. In addition, San Franciscans for Muni Reform announced today that it is filing the amendment with the Department of Elections for the purpose of gathering the signatures necessary to put it on the November ballot.

The initiative takes bold steps to reform San Francisco's troubled transit system by:

creating a new, autonomous agency to run Muni and the Department of Parking and Traffic;

protects the agency's budget from arbitrary cuts;

imposes strong, enforceable standards of service for Muni including 85% on-time performance,
backed by merit pay; and

strengthening the City's Transit-First policy.

"Muni needs serious reform," said Rescue Muni chair Andrew Sullivan, who is also serving as campaign chair. "We are thrilled that Supervisor Newsom agrees that our approach makes sense."

"No General Manager could make Muni work as it's currently structured," said Jim Chappell, president of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR). "Serious Muni reform requires a Charter Amendment that shakes things up and goes to the root of the problem."

Once a charter amendment is introduced at the Board of Supervisors, it requires six votes to place it on the ballot. Alternatively, the citizens may place it on the ballot with signatures from one-tenth of registered San Francisco voters, or approximately 45,000 signatures.

To that end, the campaign committee (a coalition of Rescue Muni, SPUR, the Environmental Organizing Committee, and other concerned San Franciscans) will also file the initiative with the Department of Elections. In approximately two weeks, the committee expects to have petitions available for volunteers to gather signatures.

"We look forward to earning the support of the Board of Supervisors, and of Mayor Brown," said Sullivan. "But we will also not hesitate to collect signatures. Muni riders will not sit idly by and wait for solutions to come out of City Hall."

"San Francisco needs a transit system on the level of the great cities of the world," noted Chappell. "This is how we will achieve that goal."

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