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Rules Committee advances two BIC nominees, rejects a third after vocal SRO advocates oppose appointments
Summary
The committee advanced mayoral nominees Bianca Newman and Angie Somer to the Building Inspection Commission and rejected nominee Raquel Beto after multiple public callers representing SRO families and tenant advocates said commissioners had ignored outreach and supported budget cuts to code-enforcement programs.
The Rules Committee on July 10 forwarded Mayor Breed’s nominations of Bianca Newman and Angie Somer to the Building Inspection Commission to the full Board as committee reports, and it rejected nomination of Raquel Beto after public testimony from tenant-advocacy groups and a close committee vote.
Chair Matt Dorsey opened the BIC segment by noting that Proposition B (June 2022) reformed the Department of Building Inspection and the commission’s appointment process. Bianca Newman described 20 years of affordable-housing experience and said she had worked to increase transparency and accountability at DBI. Angie Somer, a licensed structural engineer, submitted a written statement (she was absent due to a prenatal appointment) describing structural-engineering qualifications and interest in the non-ductile concrete retrofit ordinance.
Raquel Beto, a licensed architect and current commission member, described her work leading a client-services subcommittee focused on permit streamlining and said she had spearheaded a subcommittee on permit timelines.
Multiple public callers opposed the nominations of Newman and Beto and urged rejection of Beto in particular. Juan Alejandro Garcia (Esso Families United), Sanika (representing an SRO families collaborative) and Becky Hamm (Just Cause) told the committee the commissioners had "rejected or ignored" invitations to visit SROs, minimized the importance of code-enforcement outreach and supported budget decisions that left SRO collaboratives underfunded. "We hope that you reject these 2 nominations," one caller said, and the testimony framed the complaints around the February DBI budget process and the SRO collaborative’s role in habitability and pandemic response.
Supervisor Asha Safai said she appreciated the work of Newman and Somer and moved to approve them while moving to reject Beto. The committee subsequently voted 2–1 to advance Newman and Somer to the full Board as committee reports; the committee also voted 2–1 to reject Raquel Beto and to forward that rejection as a committee report.
Committee members stressed the importance of DBI’s role in housing-element timelines and permit streamlining as part of economic recovery, and asked nominees about plan review, outreach to vulnerable tenants and the department’s budget choices. Newman and Beto described visits to SROs and work on permit-process improvements; Beto acknowledged tension over budget decisions and said the mayor and Board later restored funding to the SRO collaborative.
By advancing two nominees and rejecting one, the committee split the mayor’s package for the BIC and signaled heightened scrutiny of nominees’ engagement with tenant advocates and code-enforcement programs.
