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by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> APRIL 15, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Peskin-Speech.jpg?fit=1196%2C700&ssl=1\")
San Francisco\u2019s corruption issues are not only rampant and structural \u2014 they\u2019re downright creative. If not theatrical. A lot of corrupt water has flowed under the corrupt bridge, but let no one forget that San Francisco State Sen. Leland Yee was popped by FBI agents posing as mafiosos<\/a> who roped him in on a bogus scheme to run guns to jihadis in the Philippines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These jihadis went by the name \u201cMoro Islamic Liberation Front\u201d \u2014 yes, the MILF<\/a>s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, that\u2019s creative. <\/em>San Francisco\u2019s FBI field office must be full of ambitious up-and-comers \u2014 who may or may not have had experience in summer stock. But the city\u2019s ensuing decade of corruption<\/a> has done its best to top L\u2019affaire Leland Yee, often making up for quality with quantity. Yes, a tractor was involved<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The overarching feature of San Francisco\u2019s yearslong corruption tour has been federal agents and prosecutors swooping in to nail local officials that everybody long knew to be rotten \u2014 with local law-enforcement then belatedly making the case that there was gambling in the casino. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was what was ostensibly in the back of Board President Aaron Peskin\u2019s mind when he shocked, shocked gatherers at his April 6 mayoral launch<\/a> with the announcement that he\u2019d establish \u201ca new tool for fighting corruption and cleaning up City Hall \u2013 an Inspector General, under the Controller, with the power of subpoena and investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n An inspector general? <\/em>That\u2019s a very dramatic title; surely others also envisioned Russell Crowe glowering in an ill-fitting period costume<\/a>. But that\u2019s not what Peskin is envisioning. Rather, his proposal is, literally, cribbed from \u201cbest practices\u201d reports <\/a>for \u201cpromotion of the public trust.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n That would make it neither creative nor theatrical. And, if Peskin can persuade five of his Board colleagues to get to yes, we\u2019ll all be voting on this come November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What would an inspector general do that San Francisco can\u2019t already do? Perhaps the best analogy for a California audience is to think of it as the In-N-Out Burger <\/a>of anticorruption. The menu at In-N-Out <\/a>is, essentially, burgers and fries \u2014 and that\u2019s it. This is the singular place to go for a very specific thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An inspector general would be a centralized entity focusing on waste, fraud and corruption \u2014 and that\u2019s it. The position would have broad powers, but limited scope. This is the singular place to go for a very specific thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s not how San Francisco does it now. A number of city offices can (and do<\/a>) deal with municipal corruption as part of their much larger missions \u2014 the controller (which would house a potential inspector general), the Ethics Commission, the city attorney, district attorney and the Civil Grand Jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt seems to me that someone ought to be at the head of this train,\u201d sums up Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor and director of Columbia University\u2019s Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity who now teaches anticorruption courses at Columbia and NYU School of Law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether it\u2019s waiting for rampaging feds to kick down doors or follow-through by San Francisco\u2019s diffuse set of anticorruption agencies, Rodgers notes that the city appears to take a reactive approach to municipal wrongdoing. An inspector general, she says, could change that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe truth is, it\u2019s not great for any prosecutors to be the only way to find corruption. Prosecutors are, inherently, reactive in nature,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not nearly as good as finding fraud and waste and abuse on the front end and training workers to do the right thing and speak up if they see something wrong. It\u2019s not just who is doing this \u2014 but how.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that \u201chow,\u201d in Peskin\u2019s envisioning, would include more power than non-law-enforcement officials now possess. His proposal would give a future inspector general expanded subpoena power: City investigators can already compel cooperation from city employees. But a voter-approved inspector general could additionally lean on government contractors and subcontractors receiving city funds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, that means nonprofits. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s use SF SAFE as an example,\u201d Peskin says, referring to the disgraced police-adjacent nonprofit that \u201cfolded like a Ponzi scheme\u201d after a January controller audit<\/a> found it misspent upwards of $79,000. Peskin claims he\u2019d been pushing for that audit for a year. But under an inspector general, it could\u2019ve gone deeper: The controller \u201ccan audit the general ledger \u2014 if SF SAFE gives it to them \u2014 but they can\u2019t go and verify it vs. bank records. You\u2019d need the power of subpoena,\u201d Peskin continues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you look at the bank records, it probably tells a much<\/em> larger story than $79,000.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Under Peskin\u2019s forthcoming proposal, the inspector general would be appointed by the mayor to a five-year term, require approval of eight supervisors and could only be removed for cause. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Giving an independent anticorruption officer his or her free run in this city would be like releasing a bloodhound into a blood bank; the low-hanging fruit in San Francisco can be harvested with a shovel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Federal agents arrested ex-Public Works boss Mohammed Nuru in January 2020<\/a>, setting in motion this city\u2019s most recent federal anticorruption scourge. But Nuru had been in city government for 20 years, \u201cand we knew he was a crook when the mayor hired him,\u201d pointed out former controller Ed Harrington. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2004, Nuru\u2019s former nonprofit was debarred from receiving city grants following an audit by Harrington\u2019s controller\u2019s office<\/a>. When Mayor Ed Lee elevated Nuru to the head of Public Works in 2011, mayoral candidate and then-City Attorney Dennis Herrera pilloried the move<\/a>: \u201cFor ten years, Nuru\u2019s questionable ethics and repeated misappropriation of taxpayer dollars didn\u2019t seem to merit a slap on the wrist from Ed Lee. Now, as Mayor, Ed Lee thinks it merits a promotion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lee, you will recall, won that election. And, until the feds saw fit to intervene nine years later, Nuru did as he pleased in this city. Yes, a tractor was involved<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe had said you can\u2019t even give him a contract and then we hired the man. Once he was there, why didn\u2019t we watch him better?\u201d says Harrington. \u201cIf managers aren\u2019t doing it, an inspector general who is more aggressive would\u2019ve filled a different role. The controller\u2019s auditing function is not that aggressive. It\u2019s not going out and looking for wrongdoing as an inspector general might.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Harrington also liked that the position would be appointed rather than elected, like \u201cpublic advocate\u201d<\/a> propositions of the past. Elected officials, he said, \u201cfind fault and publicize it so they get elected again.\u201d Rodgers, the subject-matter expert, says that an appointed official would be \u201csomeone more qualified than whatever dude happens to get himself elected.\u201d Unlike a public advocate responding to a \u201cone-off situation,\u201d an inspector general is tasked to root out deep-seated government inefficiencies and corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rodgers\u2019 list of best-practices would call for a separate office for the inspector general. Peskin isn\u2019t calling for that; rather, the role would be housed within the controller\u2019s office. This is a bottom-line move for a city facing a fiscal reckoning: It would be folly to ask voters to fund a wholly new layer of government bureaucracy. A well-oiled inspector general can be revenue neutral or somewhat close to it, and Peskin is selling this as a case of resources being repurposed more than enhanced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This will, invariably, induce institutional backlash among the government entities that stand to have their resources repurposed. But they aren\u2019t voting on this. You will be, though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVoters like anticorruption measures,\u201d says Rodgers. \u201cPeople realize they\u2019re not the ones in the crosshairs of a newly appointed powerful person rooting out corruption. Opponents can spin it as a waste of dollars, but if you tell voters what it is and that message gets through, then they approve it overwhelmingly.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Did we mention there\u2019s an election in November and Aaron Peskin is running for mayor? Because there is and he is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is also neither creative nor theatrical for a mayoral contender to, simultaneously, launch a ballot measure \u2014 as a publicity engine, storyline generator and soft-money conduit. Peskin wouldn\u2019t even be the first candidate to do so in this cycle: Mark Farrell last month established a candidate-controlled committee<\/a> to run on the two TogetherSF measures to enhance mayoral reach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do voters like Peskin\u2019s proposal? Well, they kinda do! January polling obtained by Mission Local shows that 57 percent of San Franciscans are positively inclined toward the inspector general measure. Not great, not terrible \u2014 but, after hearing pro and con arguments, that figure swells to 63 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could some benefactors, perhaps public sector unions, see fit to donate to a ballot proposition that could reveal waste, fraud and inefficiency in the city\u2019s practice of contracting out labor to non-union nonprofits? Yes, that\u2019s a possibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Could it benefit Peskin to make corruption a discussion topic \u2014 joining crime, filth and economic woe \u2014 and remind voters who was mayor while the feds were rampaging through town and arresting that mayor\u2019s friends and colleagues? Yes, that\u2019s a possibility too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If Aaron Peskin proposed inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, a goodly portion of the city establishment would call for asphyxiation. That\u2019s the nature of politics. There is a political risk in enabling Peskin\u2019s political vehicle. But there is also a risk in opposing a municipal anticorruption measure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many interesting decisions to be made. And, surely, creative and theatrical ones.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n getbackjoejoe@gmail.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Managing Editor\/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour humble narrator\u201d was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ballot measures for mayoral candidates serve as as publicity engines, storyline generators and soft-money conduits by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI APRIL 15, 2024 (MissionLocal.org) San Francisco\u2019s corruption issues are not only rampant and structural \u2014 they\u2019re downright creative. If not theatrical. A lot of corrupt water has flowed under the corrupt bridge, but let… Continue reading ![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/pdfeggd5_I8\/hqdefault.jpg\")
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WEB OF CORRUPTION<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWeb of corruption: Explore the cronyism, lies, and federal crimes at the heart of San Francisco\u2019s government<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n