San Carlos postpones decision on biosafety

The discussion gained momentum in early February when staff asked the Planning Commission to approve a recommendation to the council banning biosafety levels 3 and 4 uses in labs. Those levels typically involve research into high-risk and strictly regulated microbes such as yellow fever and West Nile virus for level 3 and ebola for level 4, according to Consolidated Sterilizer Systems, a biosafety company based in Massachusetts.

But during a March 6 meeting, the San Carlos Planning Commission voted 3-1 to recommend that the City Council agree to ban biosafety level 4 uses within the city while creating a conditional use permit process for life science developers looking to add biosafety level 3 labs into their projects.

The decision was meant to strike a balance between the community’s safety concerns and the business interests of life science developers who argued that a ban on BSL 3 would send a signal to the industry that the city is not welcoming.

Alternatively, Community and Economic Development Director Al Savay told the council Monday that staff stands by their initial recommendation while acknowledging that they’ve learned more on the issue since the recommendation was made.

“City staff hasn’t changed our recommendation. We’re being consistent with what we originally recommended to the Planning Commission but we’re not arguing against what the Planning Commission put forth because we believe, having prepared this for the Planning Commission, that it is a viable solution for what is being considered this evening,” Savay said, calling the situation “quite unusual.”

Most community members who have shared their perspective on the matter have agreed with the first staff recommendation. As done during previous meetings when the issue of BSLs was being discussed, many turned out in person and virtually to implore the council to adopt the staff recommendation over the commission’s.

Some, including Dimitri Vandellos, president of the Greater East San Carlos Neighborhood Association, argued the Planning Commission wouldn’t be the right body to determine whether a company should be awarded the conditional use permit they’d need to commission a BSL 3 lab.

Others argued that the private sector is inadequately regulated and that the city wouldn’t be prepared if an accident were to happen, leading to a leak in the community that would potentially put nearby residents at risk.

“Before COVID we had animal and bird pandemics,” Gita Dev, a volunteer leader with the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, said. “However, COVID was a wakeup call because it was human and had devastating consequences, caused inadvertently by someone having a bad day, possibly in a lab.”

Christy Shirilla, a policy manager for the greater Bay Area division of Biocom California, a life science industry advocacy group, was the lone advocate for the commission’s proposal. She dispelled assertions that the industry isn’t regulating, noting companies must comply with regulations and oversight of roughly 20 different agencies.

The Federal Select Agent Program provides extensive oversight for some of the more hazardous materials being studied in BSL 3 and 4 labs but not all, Carla Boragno, a former Genentech executive tapped as an advisor by the city. Oversight can also depend on the types of agents being studied and whether the research is publicly or privately funded. Through the commission’s proposal the city would require compliance with all regulations and become the central body that ensures that compliance takes place.

“There might be some agents that don’t fall within that program and that’s where there’s a gap,” Boragno said. “What staff is presenting is a way to enforce these exact same guidelines for these agents that might be in that sort of gap zone that aren’t covered by the FSAP program.”

Councilmembers spent more than two hours Monday listening to a staff presentation on the two policy options, asking questions and receiving additional public input. But no decision was made after Mayor Adam Rak noted he needed to leave early.

Councilmembers agreed they’d like to have all members present to vote on the matter and decided to postpone further conversion to an unspecified date. In doing so, the council left the public hearing open, allowing the public to continue providing input on the matter.