San Francisco Citizen

Thank Gaia Wheezie gave me time off from the Help Center this week, else I would have missed the big Senator Leland Yee Central Subway press conference.

And look who was there. See ‘em?

1. Taciturn Bill Barnes - Ed Lee for Mayor Campaign Manager

2. Pugnacious Tony Winnicker – Ed Lee for Mayor Campaign Spokesperson (Boy, you give him your money and he won’t just sit around – he’ll hit the streets to fight for you.)

3. Corrupt Randy Shaw – Dictator for Life, Tenderloin

4. Others

I don’t know, if Ed Lee held a news conference about alleged corruption involving the San Francisco “City Family,” would a bunch of Leland Yee for Mayor managers show up to coach the media on what questions to ask (mind you, this is during the press conference) and also listen closely to every last syllable? Maybe. I kind of doubt it though.

Anyway, all the deets are below, but there’s no satisfying ending to this one – you’ll have to cool your heels to wait for the response from City Hall.

Senator Yee is giving The Powers That Be* ’til the end of the week to start turning over documents.

Click to expand

“Yee calls for sunshine into waste, fraud and abuse at CCDC - Says without full disclosure, Central Subway project could be threatened

SAN FRANCISCO – Senator Leland Yee, along with several city residents, today called on interim mayor Ed Lee to make public the details of all contracts for the past five years between the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), city departments and Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) regarding the Central Subway.

Today, Yee also submit public records requests for all correspondence between the Mayor’s office or the City Administrator’s Office and CCDC or powerbroker Rose Pak.

Yee’s request comes after the San Francisco Chronicle unveiled several instances of waste, fraud and abuse by the nonprofit, including charging taxpayers $750 an hour to attend project meetings, $578 per visitor for outreach, and $25,000 to host a single community meeting.

By comparison, city contracts show payment to other entities for meeting attendance does not come close to what was received by CCDC. In fact, one contract for the city’s Arts Task Force showed a charge of 80 percent less, at $125/hour.

On the steps of City Hall and using a “golden” chair to represent the exorbitant cost the City paid for CCDC to attending meetings, Yee said, “As a strong supporter of the Central Subway, I am very concerned that possible malfeasance may jeopardize this important project. We need to get to the bottom of this immediately and the interim mayor needs to give the public the facts about these contracts.”

Yee said he expects Lee to provide the public documents regarding the Central Subway by the end of the week, at which time he will consider further action

This is not the first time Yee has fought to disclose public documents. Yee has become one of the State’s staunchest open government advocates, and last year, Yee made national headlines when he demanded the release of Sarah Palin’s speaking contract at California State University. Subsequently, students found parts of the contract along with shredded documents in the administration’s Dumpster, and Californians Aware successfully won a lawsuit against the University to fully disclose the contract.”

*Have you seen this one from Anonymous,** via writer John Cote, from deep inside the CCDC itself?

Wow.

**Somebody within the CCDC who doesn’t approve of its recent dealings, I’m forced to assume…