| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 28, 2004 |
Contact: Scott AdamsTel: 415/648-3488 Dan Kalb: 415-753-0137 |
District
5 Candidate Wants the City to do Business (San Francisco) District 5 candidate Dan Kalb released an innovative platform plank that will bring a greater element of social and environmental responsibility in how our local government operates and with whom our city does business. According to Kalb, when city contracts are awarded to larger companies, very little background checking is done to determine if they meet strong social, environmental and corporate responsibility standards. Kalb intends to change that. Over 9% of individual investments in the United States are made in ‘socially responsible’ investment funds. Kalb believes we should bring that same ethics to most larger business dealings in City Hall. He noted that already much of our city treasury is invested using some social screens. “Now’s the time to bring that same philosophy to the rest of City Hall,” said District 5 candidate Dan Kalb. “When I am on the Board, I will introduce legislation to ensure that when a business wants to receive a large contract with our city, they would have to meet strong labor, environmental and other corporate responsibility standards as part of the qualification process.” Kalb noted the city lost an opportunity to address responsibility standards in its recent decision to give a special tax preference to biotechnology companies if they move into our city. “If I were on the Board,” added Kalb, “I would have insisted that certain criteria be built in to make sure that environmentally damaging biotech companies would not be eligible for the tax breaks.” Kalb would also seek to extend a similar tax preference to companies that are environmentally beneficial such as manufacturers of solar and wind energy products. Kalb would get the city to create a task force with city representatives and outside experts to come up with appropriate socially and environmentally criteria. “The Board of Sups should weigh in, but they shouldn’t be the ones doing the initial drafting of criteria,” said Kalb. “There are experts out there who have already done this thing. Let’s recruit them and come up with the best set of criteria possible.” Kalb asserts that this will attract socially responsible businesses to San Francisco and boost the local and regional economy. He added“this is what should differentiate San Francisco from many other big cities. As your Supervisor, I will work to make our city a place where we hold our contractors and ourselves to these high standards. The residents and taxpayers of our city deserve nothing less.” Go to www.DanKalb.net
to view the campaign video “See DAN Run in under 4 minutes”
and to research Kalb’s positions on a range of local issues. # # #
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