(HorizonPost.com) – San Francisco Mayor London Breed last week refused to sign the Gaza ceasefire resolution passed by the Board of Supervisors after previously criticizing its language for inflaming “hurt and division,” the San Francisco Standard reported.
The clerk of the Board of Supervisors confirmed last Friday that the mayor returned the resolution unsigned, meaning that it would be enacted without her approval. While the mayor could have vetoed the resolution, a veto would have prompted another vote from the board that would have likely reignited the controversy on both sides of the issue.
In her memo announcing her decision to return the resolution unsigned, the mayor explained that since the resolution was introduced, the city had become “angrier, more divided, and less safe.”
She suggested that the point of the board’s resolution “was never about bringing people together,” but “choosing a side.” She said despite the “late amendments” added to mitigate the division, “the damage was already done.”
The board passed the non-binding resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in an 8 to 3 vote on January 9, following several chaotic meetings with hundreds of residents showing up to express their opposition or support to the resolution.
Introduced in early December by Supervisor Dean Preston, the resolution was revised by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and echoed similar non-binding resolutions passed by dozens of other Democrat-led cities like Detroit, Dallas, and Oakland.
Peskin blasted Mayor Breed for refusing to veto or sign the resolution, saying she “chickened out.”
The three supervisors who opposed the resolution, Matt Dorsey, Rafael Mandelman, and Catherine Stefani, objected to the absence of specific language calling for Hamas to be removed and condemning the terror group for the rape and assaults on Israeli women during the October 7 attacks.
Instead, the resolution watered down the language to call for “new leadership on both sides” and urged only for an investigation into “gender-based violence.”
In her statement, Mayor Breed blasted the Board of Supervisors for putting the city in a “terrible position,” and said her best option was to “try to quell” the controversy by trying to “turn down the volume.”
“I must choose unity,” Mayor Breed said.
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