San Francisco Citizen

“…& Call for Positive Campaigns in Last 8 Days Before Election Day.”

Whew! That was the title of yesterday’s Ed Lee Campaign presser in Chinatown yesterday.

So basically, Senator Leland Yee sucks because his campaign released this yesterday.* Oh, and there was something about the City College campus, but I’m not sure exactly what the beef against Leland is about that.

And there was this –  a call for mayoral candidates to “put out facts and not opinion,” but I’ll tell you, that book was chock-a-block full of facts, actually. And it had 107 endnotes to boot.

And let’s see here, oh, suggesting that City Family member Mohammed Nuru has issues, well, thems is fighting words, partner. Even though, well, you know.**

It looked like this:

Click to expand

Apparently, if you find anything at all wrong with San Francisco since the current administration began in 1996, if you think that there’s anything that could be improved, you’re a “hater.” Quoth mayoral spokesmodel Tony Winnicker:

“This one goes out to all my #sfmayor #haters! Keep ‘em coming, we got ur number. Lee’s opponents go nonstop negative: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/30/BALG1LJNSD.DTL“

But argumentum ad hominem coming from Tony hisself doesn’t make Tony a hater, no, not at all. (Somehow this makes sense.)

OK fine.

*There was a big fuss about the distribution of the Untold, Untold Story book on Sunday, but it had pretty much died down by the time this news conference was beginning.

**All right, play us off, Fog City Journal:

“Nuru, who was first hired by Lee during the administration of former Mayor Willie Brown, was the subject of a series of ethical scandals involving the misappropriation of public funds for personal uses, retaliatory threats against whisteblowers as well as directing city contractors to engage in illegal political activities while they were being paid with public funds, Herrera states:

“Herrera’s office conducted an investigation in 2004 into the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, or “SLUG,” the city-funded nonprofit Nuru headed from 1994 to 2000, in the midst of a series of San Francisco Chronicle news reports about potentially illegal electioneering activities. Nuru maintained close working ties to SLUG after going to work for Lee in 2001, according to witnesses, and also oversaw SLUG’s $1 million-per-year street-cleaning contract with DPW. The City Attorney investigation found that while at DPW, Nuru directed SLUG employees who were paid with city funds to conduct campaign activities in the 2003 municipal and runoff elections for Mayor and District Attorney—in clear violation of local law prohibiting city-funded nonprofits from using those funds to campaign for candidates or ballot measures. Witnesses also testified that Nuru had instructed city-funded SLUG workers to engage in similar campaign activities while he served as SLUG’s executive director, for a 1997 ballot measure backed by then-Mayor Willie Brown, and for his 1999 re-election campaign.

Following the 2004 City Attorney investigation, an audit by then-San Francisco City Controller Ed Harrington found a raft of financial improprieties involving SLUG and DPW. The Controller’s review revealed that SLUG mismanaged city grants and contracts, and was overpaid by city departments, including DPW, an amount totaling nearly $72,000. The audit additionally found that SLUG failed to pay more than $643,003 in payroll taxes, and that DPW improperly used SLUG’s contract with Public Works to purchase a $62,508 portable building for DPW’s use. Though Lee reportedly instructed Nuru to conduct no further business with SLUG, neither the 2004 City Attorney’s investigation report nor the similarly damning City Controller audit appears to have resulted in disciplinary action against Nuru at DPW. SLUG was formally debarred from city contracts for two years for violating Section 12G.1 of the San Francisco Administrative Code, which prohibits city funded organizations from using any of those funds to participate in, support, or attempt to influence a political campaign. The organization is now defunct.

Conspicuously absent from last week’s announcement that Mohammed Nuru would take over as DPW’s acting director effective Aug. 15 was interim Mayor Ed Lee. Though the appointment was announced in a written statement from the acting City Administrator, such appointments require “the concurrence of the Mayor,” according to San Francisco City Charter, § 3.104. A report noted that while Nuru’s salary was not finalized, his predecessor’s annual salary was $204,750. Nuru’s most recent previous annual salary as DPW’s Deputy Director of Operations was $193,000.”