War is peace. Ignorance is strength. SF’s mayor is weak.
by Joe Eskenazi : missionlocal – excerpt
By sfbluecomics
Plucky billionaire-funded outfit TogetherSF released a report this week about what’s ailing San Francisco government. And in only 76 pages, it managed — amazingly! somehow! — to say the very same things that TogetherSF’s billionaire backer Michael Moritz said in his curious February New York Times op-ed.
That is: San Francisco’s mayor, the beneficiary of perhaps the strongest strong-mayor system in America, is actually weak. As Moritz put it in The Gray Lady: “mayors have been stripped of much authority while remaining convenient heat shields for the [Board of Supervisors].”
Or, in the academic language you get when a wealthy individual can have a think-tank convert his ideological fixations into a position paper: “San Francisco’s 1996 Charter was designed to invest power in the Mayor, but subsequent Charter amendments have reduced the Mayor’s capacity to govern.”… (more)
Not sure sure why the Mayor wants games to replace the Heart of the City Farmer’s Market. The most popular game we see being played in San Francisco is the Blame Game. And the Blame Game is amazingly transparent. Even to the untrained eye can tell what is real and what is fake.
A friend who is trying to understand the intricacies of the legal case pending at the Federal Court had no trouble recognizing quotes from Susan Dyer Reynolds that the Mayor used in one of her speeches, as if they were her thoughts. She could not believe what she was hearing.
As a few people have pointed out, one of the country most powerful and highest paid Mayor’s in America owns the condition the city is in because she controls the purse. No matter what the Board of Supervisors ask for, they only get what she is willing to pay for. It looks like she wants to tear out what is left of the small businesses, marinas and any of the culture she does not like and turn SF into a Las Vegas entertainment center complete with downtown sports arenas, since the NY West plan did not last for long.
Perhaps this is why some of the big Silicon Valley money is flowing East to the untouched valley. It is easier to control a Company Town when you build it from the ground up.
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Web of corruption: Explore the cronyism, lies, and federal crimes at the heart of San Francisco’s govern ment
by Will Jarrett and Joe Eskenazi : misisonlocal – excerpt (updated July 2023)
Mohammad Nuru, then the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, was hit with a raft of federal corruption charges and was accused of lying to the FBI – crimes that could see him in prison for up to 25 years.
At the time, U.S. Attorney David Anderson commented on the allegations by saying, “corruption is pouring into San Francisco from around the world.”
The following two years seem to have proven him right. Multiple heads of city government departments have since been ousted from their jobs over allegations of corruption. City employees and contractors have pleaded guilty to charges of bribery, money laundering, and fraud; others are professing their innocence as charges continue to pile up.
The federal and local investigations have touched building inspectors, real estate brokers, and even a Chinese billionaire. From Public Works to the Mayor’s Office to the Public Utilities Commission, new charges are springing up, hydra-like, month after month.
Some have been charged, others have been found guilty. Others have had no charges brought. See how they are connected…
You can find a fullscreen version of the chart here…(more)
Take note of the fact that this chart and report is only covering the Federal investigations. There are numerous city leaders, staff, and connected parties who are also coming under fire for various legal and ethics infractions not listed here.
by Annie Gaus : sfstandard – excerpt
At the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and a team of attorneys tried to persuade a three-judge panel to toss out a hotly debated injunction that restricts the city from clearing homeless encampments…
The three-judge panel, composed of Judges Lucy Koh, Roopali Desai and Patrick Bumatay, probed attorneys for both the city and the Coalition on Homelessness about their views on involuntary homelessness, what constitutes an “adequate” offer of shelter and whether current precedent allows the city to enforce the laws on the books.
Under the injunction, the city is barred from enforcing six specific laws related to sitting, lying and lodging on public streets. The city maintains that it does not dismantle encampments without offering shelter; however, attorneys for the coalition have argued that those offers are made speciously and only as a pretext to enforce the laws…
“We heard a very different public concession today that we have not heard before, which is that if the city is making a real offer of shelter to you and you refuse it, or if you otherwise have shelter, you are not considered involuntarily homeless,” Chiu said. “So that was important for us to hear.”
“They are playing fast and loose with offers of shelter,” Shroff said. “We’re going to have some major fights about that.”…
Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said that the city’s operations have continued despite the injunction and pointed to a settlement offer her organization made earlier this month.…(more)
It will all come down to semantics and data. How will the Mayor explain her spending policies in light of the need for housing to put people in if she takes them off the street when the city is broke and begging for higher taxes and fees from residents and businesses? Will the public buy the pie in the sky?
By Joe Rivano Barros : missionlocal – excerpt
San Francisco police officers were paid more than $143,000 in overtime during the July 8 Dolores Park hill bomb, an annual skateboarding event that was shut down earlier this year and resulted in the arrests of 117 mostly young people.
The costs, tallied by the San Francisco Police Department in response to a public records request, include only overtime pay. The department said a total of 1,221 overtime hours were used by officers during the enforcement. Using the average overtime pay rate, the department calculated a total overtime cost for the operation: $143,236.
The department clarified that it was “nearly impossible” to disentangle general overtime costs during that time period from operation-specific overtime costs, and that “some of that figure came from SFPD use of overtime to backfill our basic staffing needs.”…(more)
by Annie Gaus : sfstandard – excerpt
Advocates Seek Deal With SF in Homeless Encampments Lawsuitsfstandard.com
Attorneys for the Coalition on Homelessness, which accused San Francisco officials of conducting illegal sweeps of homeless encampments, are seeking a settlement that includes filling vacant housing units and eliminating police from the enforcement of laws barring lodging in public.
“We all have a realistic sense of the potential risks and rewards of continued litigation,” wrote attorneys for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
In a letter to City Attorney David Chiu, the attorneys laid out a proposed settlement framework with several provisions, including a requirement that the city fill an estimated 1,000 vacant supportive housing units and require that empty units be filled within 30 days.
The proposed settlement also includes a provision that the city spend unused funds from Proposition C and Proposition I, two ballot measures intended to boost funding for homelessness services and supportive housing, and funding for affordable housing, respectively.
Zal Shroff, lead attorney representing the Coalition on Homelessness, said at a Thursday press conference that they believe a settlement would lead to a more productive outcome than continuing with the litigation. Shroff said that there is “little sunlight” between the views of the coalition and the city on most issues, but that the city’s enforcement of street encampments is counterproductive.
“There’s been a sound gap between the city’s good intentions on the response to homelessness, and then the actual outcomes,” Shroff said. “That’s been really frustrating to taxpayers and to all residents of San Francisco who want to see an end to this crisis.”…(more)
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Has anyone looked at the request for a settlement agreement to determine whether or not it is reasonable? Is there room to negotiate?
Billionaire Chinese developer leaves S.F. with trail of broken real estate deals, lawsuits
By J. K. Dineen :sfchronicle – excerpt
Earlier this month, Chinese billionaire Zhang Li finally agreed, after six months of negotiations, to be extradited to San Francisco from his London home, a 43rd floor penthouse with a private pool and a view of the Thames.
For a while it seemed that Zhang, who had been charged with bribing former San Francisco Public Works boss Mohammed Nuru in exchange for favorable treatment, would be held accountable for his role in the sprawling corruption case that had laid bare the city’s cozy universe of permit expeditors, developers and public employees who traded favors for overseas trips, fine wine and other gifts.
Yet, as it turned out, Zhang’s day in court would be short-lived. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire services fraud, admitting to bribing Nuru with food, drinks and other favors in exchange for fast-tracking one of his projects. He paid two fines — one for $1 million and one for $50,000 — and prosecutors agreed to drop the charges after three years. By 9 p.m., on the day he had arrived from London, Zhang was jetting off home to China.
His attorney, Roger Burlingame, called the deal “an extraordinary result.”…(more)
San Francisco’s Civic Center plaza may undergo a massive remodel
By : sfgate – excerpt
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A San Francisco public square may undergo a massive remodel in the coming months.
United Nations Plaza, located near the Civic Center and bordered by 7th, Market, Hyde and McAllister Streets, may become a new hub for skateboarding if plans proposed by the SF Recreation and Parks department are approved.
Tamara Aparton, a spokesperson for the parks department, told SFGATE that the remodeled plaza would include large skating spaces and other amenities including chess tables, ping pong tables, exercise equipment and tables for Teqball, a sport similar to table tennis…
Mayor London Breed asked the parks department to take over supervision of the plaza, which was previously owned by the San Francisco Department of Public Works, earlier this year…(more)
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This is not a done deal. Just a suggestion. Question is who will decide. There is already an opposition growing to the idea of reducing the idea. See the Heart of he City web site : https://hotcfarmersmarket.org/
Former planning commissioner agrees to $24K ethics fine
By Joe Esksnazi : missionlocal – excerpt
Frank Fung, a 20-year city appointee who served on the Planning Commission until June 2022, has signed onto a stipulated ethics agreement in which he’ll shell out a $24,200 fine.
The bulk of Fung’s penalty — $20,000 — stems from his contracting with a city entity while he was himself a city commissioner. The rest of the agreed-on fine stems from Fung’s inadequate reporting of his income sources.
At issue is a 2021 sewage contract with the Airport Commission in which Fung’s architecture firm, ED2 International, signed on as a subcontractor. Fung “signed the contractual agreement … on behalf of ED2,” reads the stipulated agreement. “The subcontract between ED2 and the Airport Commission constituted a violation of City ethics laws on Respondent’s part because Respondent was a City officer.”
Fung, additionally, failed to list his actual sources of income on financial disclosure forms in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.
“I made an error,” Fung told Mission Local. “Unfortunately, I had misunderstood the ethics rules and regulations in terms of how I read it. I was incorrect.”…(more)
San Francisco Official Named in Corruption Case Steps Down
By Michael Barba : sfstandard : excerpt
A San Francisco official who helped prepare a loan at the center of a corruption case against a senior building inspector resigned Monday under pressure.
Yosef Tahbazof, an attorney and real estate developer, stepped down from the Assessment Appeals Board, which resolves disputes between the assessor and taxpayers over property valuations. He quit after Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said he would introduce legislation to remove Tahbazof following reporting by The Standard.
“The Assessment Appeals Board needs to be above and beyond reproach and relies on public trust to do its important work,” Peskin told The Standard. “And the appearance of impropriety by any of its members, particularly when related to city business, erodes public trust.”…(more)
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Developer Halts Construction on San Francisco Skyscraper Until It Can Find Tenants or Investors
by Kevin Truong : sfstandard – excerpt
Lendlease, the Australian developer behind the only major high-rise in San Francisco to break ground during the pandemic, is pausing construction on its Hayes Point development pending the signing of new tenants or a capital partner.
The planned $1.2 billion development, which broke ground last year at 30 Van Ness Ave., is slated to consist of 333 units of for-sale condos and around 300,000 square feet of office and retail space.
The decision is a blow for the company’s largest investment in North America and the only major high-rise in San Francisco to kick off construction during the pandemic.
According to Lendlease’s recent financial filings, completion for the 47-story project is currently tagged at fiscal year 2027. The original delivery date for the project was in 2025…(more)
zRants 