Category: News

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California Treasurer Fiona Ma sued for sexual harassment by former employee

By Alexei Koseff : sfchronicle – excerpt

SACRAMENTO — A former senior employee in the California State Treasurer’s Office has sued Treasurer Fiona Ma for sexual harassment and wrongful termination, alleging that she was fired earlier this year after resisting unwanted sexual advances from Ma.

Judith Blackwell, who worked under Ma for about 16 months as executive director of the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, filed the lawsuit last week in Sacramento County Superior Court.

“Plaintiff felt the work environment to be hostile as she felt her employment was contingent on her accepting Defendant Ma’s sexual advances,” Blackwell’s attorney, Waukeen McCoy, wrote in the complaint. “As a result of Plaintiff denying Defendant Ma’s advances, she was terminated from her employment.”…(more)

A little light reading after all the heavy stuff we are hearing about graft and corruption in City Hall, this is tame by comparison.

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I joined SF’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force to expose corruption. Instead, I’m a cog in the machine

Opinion By Kevin Frazier : sfchronicle – excerpt

I’ve always been an aspiring muckraker. Years ago, in my hometown of Portland, Ore,, I immersed myself in local and state politics, and watched the “sausage” get made as a lobbyist in the Oregon State Legislature. I was appalled at the often-questionable actions taking place behind closed doors. A state senator once told me he wouldn’t consider a bill to reduce diesel pollution on school buses because the Big Oil lobbyist “got here first.”…

San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance was enacted by the Board of Supervisors in 1993 with the goal making the inner workings of local government more transparent and accountable to city residents.

“Government’s duty,” according to the ordinance, “is to serve the public, reaching its decisions in full view of the public.”

I joined the SOTF to be help empower citizens to better understand their local government and call out officials for non-compliant behavior. My time on the task force, however, has made clear that the Sunshine Ordinance is failing.

We aren’t exposing corruption. Instead, we’re a cog in the over-bureaucratization of democracy…(more)

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Walton calls out Breed for her attacks on the Board of Supes

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excpert

Simmering clash between the mayor and the supes breaks into the open after Breed attacks the board for asking tough questions of her department heads.

The Mayor’s Office has been attacking and refusing to work with the Board of Supes for some time now. Mayor London Breed refused – for no apparent reason – to spend the money the voters approved for rent relief. She threatened to go to the ballot if she didn’t get everything she wanted, immediately, on (of all things) parklets.

Her public comments about the supes have been just this side of hostile. One board member recently told me the relations between the two branches of government have been “toxic.”

All of that broke out into the open Tuesday…

Ginsburg has been all about privatizing the parks for years now; his role with a private contractor that may be linked to an ongoing corruption scandal is the public’s business…(more)

The public must insist o knowing how City Hall is working and the only way to do that is to do that is to shine a light on the process. Supervisor Walton has made it clear that he is going to assist the Board of Supervisors in their efforts to not only conduct studies and investigations, but to inform the pubic of their findings.

 

 

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Huge Victory for SF Public Bank!

via email:

SF Board of Supervisors Passes Reinvest in San Francisco
Supes Vote 10-0 for a SF Public Bank!

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors took a giant step for public banking June 15 by voting 10-0, a veto-proof majority, to pass the Reinvest in San Francisco Ordinance, legislation introduced by Supervisor Dean Preston to rebuild the COVID-devastated economy with a public bank.

Reinvest In San Francisco builds on years of work by the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, former Supervisors John Avalos, Malia Cohen and Sandra Lee Fewer, and many others who see the need for a municipal bank to counter the concentrated power of Wall Street banks. This legislation will result in San Francisco redirecting a portion of the city funds from “too big to fail” banks into the hands of community banks, credit unions and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) that invest to benefit SF communities.

The Process for Starting the Public Bank

Reinvest in SF sets up a Working Group which will develop the plan for establishing our bank. Last year, an extensive report by the Budget and Legislative Analyst on a Municipal Bank for San Francisco recommended a phased-in transformation of City banking by beginning with a non-depository municipal financial corporation (MFC). Lending by the MFC will finance loans for small businesses, affordable housing and sustainable infrastructure enabling a smooth transition into a public bank. The Working Group will produce a business plan for the Board of Supervisors that will be sent to State regulators for approval.

Once chartered, under the rules of The Public Bank Act (AB857) signed into law last year, SF will have its own municipal public bank. As a depository bank, it will be able to leverage its capital multiple times in loans, greatly expanding its lending capabilities.

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Supes to vote on public bank plan

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee passed unanimously a plan that could lead to a public bank in San Francisco, and the item will come before the full board Tuesday/15.

The concept has been years in the making, and the bill by Sup. Dean Preston would set up a committee of experts with the task of drafting plans for a municipal bank within one year…

There are lots of options on how the bank could operate and what it could do. That would be worked out by the panel. The bank could, according to the supes Budget and Legislative Analyst,…

Both models feasible and could operate profitability. We recommend that the City establish a non-depository MFC, at least initially, for lower operating costs, bigger impact, and no requirement for FDIC approval…(more)

This is great news. I did not know about that option.
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CDFW Takes Proactive Measures to Increase Salmon Smolt Survival

cdfgnews – excerpt

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is taking the proactive measure of trucking millions of hatchery-raised juvenile Central Valley fall-run chinook salmon this spring to San Pablo Bay, San Francisco Bay and seaside net pens due to projected poor river conditions in the Central Valley. The massive trucking operation is designed to ensure the highest level of survival for the young salmon on their hazardous journey to the Pacific Ocean…(more)

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Top SF Public Works Official Retires Amid $100 Million Overcharging Scandal

By Jaxon Van Derbeken : nbcbayarea – excerpt

Julia Dawson, the chief financial officer at the San Francisco Department of Public Works, retired Friday amid the still ongoing investigation into what city officials knew about $100 million in overcharges by the Recology garbage hauling firm…

Dawson spent 24 years working for the city, seven and a half years of them at Public Works, as well as earlier stints at the airport, fire department, municipal transportation agency and the department of parking and traffic…

In March, City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced a $100 million settlement with Recology over customer overbilling. The company says was due to an error in how it accounted for its revenues…

After Porter acknowledged at the meeting in December 2018 that the company had indeed been undercounting revenue, Dawson enlisted an outside consultant to study the issue in 2019, records show. However, record shows Dawson failed to alert the public -even after that outside consultant confirmed the overbilling in early 2020.

Gordon said while the city’s probes continue, “we see no criminal wrongdoing in the investigations so far involving Julia Dawson.”…(more)

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San Francisco’s Supervisorial Districts Will Be Redrawn

By Laura Wenus Laura Wenus : sfpublicpress – excerpt (includes audio)

Redistricting, the process by which electoral districts are drawn, will happen locally as well as at the state and federal levels. San Francisco will use census and resident input to redraw its supervisorial districts, a process that begins this year and will likely carry on into 2022. Alison Goh, president of the League of Women Voters of San Francisco, explained to “Civic” how the process will work and outlined the transparency and outreach the League wants to see from the city…(more)

Podcast: https://civic.simplecast.com/episodes/san-francisco-will-redraw-its-electoral-districts

 

 

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New It’s Our Money podcast discusses public bank principles and how they’re being applied

via email from Public Banking Institute

Public banks of one form or another are emerging like Spring flowers. Across the USA a score of new public interest banking initiatives aim to fill service and credit voids that private finance won’t or can’t provide. Today we discuss three emerging applications of public bank principles: serving the substantial number of un- and underbanked people in California through the proposed new BankCAL program, creating a multi-trillion-dollar public infrastructure bank for the US, and clear evidence that public banks have excelled over private banks in responding to the global pandemic crisis. Our guests are Trinity Tran of the CA Public Bank Alliance, Alphecca Muttardy of the National Infrastructure Bank Coalition, and Thomas Marois, a leading expert on public banks globally.

[listen to the podcast]