An Ethically Troubled Ethics Commission
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
Another example of the dysfunction of San Francisco's Ethics Commission arose on October 29, 2014 when an ethics complaint filed directly with the Ethics Commission was dismissed by Ethics Commissioners on the grounds that Ethics Commission staff failed to meet its burden to show there was probable cause the respondent had violated San Francisco's Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code.
Although Pilpel claimed to be speaking as an individual … he switched from using the first person "I," into using multiple times the third person "we," again appearing to be speaking on behalf of, and representing, the Task Force."
Rather than ruling on the merits of the official complaint and hearing the complainants' allegations in an open, public meeting, Ethics Commissioners ostensibly dismissed the complaint entirely due to unspecified Ethics staff errors regarding meeting its burden, sinking to a new low.
A History of Dismissed Complaints
A June 2012 San Francisco Civil Grand Jury report — "San Francisco's Ethics Commission: The Sleeping Watchdog" — noted that the Ethics Commission held no public hearings on Sunshine Ordinance complaints referred to it over an eight-year period. An analysis in 2012 of 35 cases against City officials referred by the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force to the Commission alleging official misconduct showed five cases were then still pending, and that the Commission's Executive Director, John St. Croix, dismissed all 29 of the remaining cases, often citing the most arcane exculpatory excuses to let miscreants off the hook.
Before June 2012, the Ethics Commission had held just one official misconduct public hearing, in July 2011, that was referred to it by the Sunshine Task Force, a case involving Library Commission president Jewelle Gomez. (The Ethics Commission official misconduct hearing against Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi occurred on August 16, 2012.) Although the Ethics Commission recommended that Mayor Ed Lee remove Gomez from the Library Commission, the Mayor failed to do so for over two years. However, the Mayor eventually did not re-appoint Gomez when her term expired, and she was replaced.
The Ethics Commission had also dismissed every complaint during the previous 17 years alleging retaliation for filing whistleblower complaints. This will likely continue until voters demand removal of the Commission's executive director, John St. Croix, who was paid $148,419 in Fiscal Year 2013–2014 to bury the public's right-to-know investigations.
Two Clear Violations of Ethics Regulations Dismissed
As reported in the Westside Observer last September, wayward Sunshine Ordinance Task Force member David Pilpel appears to have violated the Statement of Incompatible Activities (SIA) applicable to Task Force members when he spoke during the public comment on a matter under discussion during the Ethics Commission on April 28, 2014 at a meeting that was referred by the SOTF for enforcement, by introducing himself as "David Pilpel, member of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force." Asserting one's affiliation as a member of a given policy body during a public meeting of another quasi-judicial body, or another policy body, is strictly prohibited by the SIA.
As we reported, the SIA applicable to Pilpel clearly provides that no officer may hold himself or herself out as a representative of the Task Force, or as an agent acting on behalf of the Task Force, unless authorized to do so. Pilpel had not requested or received a waiver known as an Advance Written Determination from either the Board of Supervisors, or from the Ethics Commission, exempting him from this SIA prohibition. And the Task Force itself had not authorized Pilpel to speak on behalf of the full Task Force on the matter under discussion.
Pilpel directly interfered with the Task Force's referral of Sunshine complaint #12-058, Dominic Maionchi vs. Recreation and Parks Department to the Ethics Commission in a case involving Rec and Park's General Manager Phil Ginsburg over failure to release public documents regarding leases of boat slips, a case that Ethics returned to the Task Force for further factual information. The Task Force is poised to send the Maionchi matter back to the Ethics Commission on December 3.
The first complaint about Pilpel's probable April 28 violation of the SIA was filed by this author on June 22 and remained a pending Ethics complaint that had not been dismissed — until October 29, when it was suddenly dismissed apparently due to potential Ethics staff errors.
Then, on July 28, 2014, Task Force member Pilpel again spoke before the Ethics Commission during public comment on Sunshine complaint #13-024, Mica Ringel vs. Planning Department being heard by the Commission, committing a second violation of the SIA. Although Pilpel claimed to be speaking as an individual on July 28, within the first minute-and-a-half of his testimony he switched from using the first person "I," into using multiple times the third person "we," again appearing to be speaking on behalf of, and representing, the Task Force.
Notice was received on August 15 that the second SIA complaint filed by this author against Pilpel on August 4, 2014 involving the Ethics Commission's July 28 hearing was dismissed by the Ethics Commission's Executive Director on August 13. In dismissing the second SIA complaint against Pilpel, St. Croix only cited Section III.A.1, "Activities that Conflict with Official Duties," of the applicable SIA.
St. Croix made no mention in his dismissal letter of Section III.B.1 of the SIA, "Restrictions That Apply to Officers or Employees in Specified Positions," which provides that certain activities are also expressly prohibited for individual
When Pilpel addressed the Ethics Commission on both April 28 and July 28, he was clearly engaging in providing advice to the Ethics Commission (as an entity) concerning Sunshine complaints that may appear again before the Task Force, matters that clearly fall inside the scope of his duties as a member of the Task Force.
Communications Violate Fair Hearings
Both SIA complaints against Pilpel adequately documented he was engaging in ex parte communications with the Ethics Commission, defined here as a communication in a quasi-judicial proceeding raised by one person in the absence of, and without representation or notification to, other interested parties, and/or improper unilateral contacts with an arbitrator (in this Case the Ethics Commission itself), or a represented party without notice to the other party or counsel for that party.
Once a Sunshine complaint is filed with the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, no member of the Task Force should engage in oral or written communications outside of Task Force meetings regarding either the merits of a Sunshine complaint, or the merits of a Task Force Order of Determination and referral to the Ethics Commission for enforcement proceedings. Pilpel's ex parte communications with the Ethics Commission on both April 28 and July 28 were unnecessary to the conduct of an Ethics investigation or an Ethics enforcement action.
And on both dates, the three of five Ethics Commissioners who just happen to be prominent lawyers — Commissioners Ben Hur, Paul Renne, and Peter Keane — had to have known, first, that Pilpel was engaging in ex parte communications, and second, also had to have known that as Ethics Commissioners they were condoning and allowing ex parte communications that they had a legal obligation to stop, if only to assure fair hearings. They did nothing to stop ex parte communications.
Instead of affording a fair hearing on either of Pilpel's two SIA violations, the Ethics Commission instead chose to dismiss both complaints without an open-to-the-public hearing. And instead of hearing the merits of evidence against Pilpel's April 28 violation of the SIA when he introduced himself as a representative of the SOTF before the Ethics Commission, the Commission simply claimed that Ethics staff had not met its burden to show probable cause of Pilpel's ethical violations.
Ethics Commission's Complicity
Other observers wonder to what extent the Ethics Commission simply dismissed the complaint against Pilpel to avoid the glaring fact that the Ethics Commissioners had clearly been complicit in permitting Pilpel's ex parte communications to have even occurred. Clearly, had the Ethics Commissioners ruled in the probable cause hearing that Pilpel had violated the SIA on two separate occasions, the Commission would also have had to acknowledge its own complicity in not having stopped Pilpel dead in his tracks when it had an ethical duty to guard against ex parte communications, but didn't.
The inescapable conclusion is that by having allowed Pilpel to engage in ex parte communications, the Ethics Commission had also engaged in ex parte communications.
San Franciscans should consider replacing the Ethics Commission with another oversight panel that will actually exercise ethical reasoning. It's time to go back to the ballot box, and amend our City charter to get rid of the Ethics Commission, and replace it with something that furthers — not weakens — transparency and open government.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate and a patient advocate He received the Society of Professional Journalists–Northern California Chapter's James Madison Freedom of Information Award in 2012. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.
December 2014
The November 4th Municipal Ballot
Billionaires Buying Elections
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
San Francisco's November 2014 election is but one example of the Citizens United ruling allowing wealthy organizations and individuals to drown out other voices in the campaign. It didn't take much to discover that Mayor Lee's pals, billionaires Ron Conway and Reid Hoffman, are spending heavily in local and state races to unfairly influence election outcomes, and elect into office legislators who will support their political agendas and financial interests.
Even before the Citizens Untied ruling, San Francisco was rife with "independent expenditure committees" raising funds for their preferred candidates and ballot measures under the pretext that the independent committees would not (wink, wink, wink) communicate and coordinate their activities with actual candidates or official ballot measure sponsors.
...a letter signed by more than 50 women to Chiu's campaign headquarters demanding that Chiu stop playing politics with
domestic violence."
Buying David Chiu's Airbnb Legislation
As the Westside Observer reported in our October issue, Supervisor David Chiu has taken over two years to develop legislation to "regulate" Airbnb conversion of rental housing stock into short-term rentals — hotel rooms for tourists — driving out San Franciscans who are being displaced out of town. Over those two years, Chiu has met more than 50 times with lobbyists for Airbnb.
Chiu cannot not have known that two of Airbnb's investors are none other than billionaire venture capitalist Ron Canway and his wife Gayle, and billionaire venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of Linked-In.
According to the State of California's Cal-Access campaign donor database, Ron Conway has contributed $154,800 to date in 2014, and his wife Gayle has contributed another $94,200 to state elections, while Reid Hoffman has contributed at least $702,350, for a combined total of $951,350. That allows these two billionaires to buy a lot of access to politicians.
In addition, San Francisco's Ethics Commission campaign data for local elections shows that in 2014 Ron and Gayle Conway, and various probable relatives — including Christopher Conway, Daniel Conway, Michele Conway, and Ronny Conway — have donated at least another $254,500 to local candidates and measures.
The ballot measures Ron Conway is supporting include the Prop "A" MUNI bond, Prop "J" to raise the minimum wage, and Prop "C" to extend San Francisco's Children's Fund for another 25 years. Local candidates the extended Conway family have contributed to include at least $2,000 to Supervisor Malia Cohen, $2,500 to Supervisor Mark Farrell, and $1,000 to Supervisor Scott Wiener.
The three supervisors are each up for re-election on November 4, and notably, all three of them voted on second reading to pass David Chiu's Airbnb legislation on Tuesday, October 21. And all three supervisors, along with Chiu himself, voted against an amendment that would have required Airbnb to pay its past due back taxes before the legislation could become effective. The amendment failed.
Between the Conway's and Hoffman, they have contributed at least $1,205,850 to state and local elections through Sunday October 20. Add on to that $1,193,000 in contributions made by another mega-billionaire venture capitalist, Sean Parker, who served as tech giant Facebook's first president.
Parker augmented his $1.2 million in state elections contributions during 2014 with an additional $299,000 to measures on San Francisco's November ballot, for a combined total of $1,492,000 in contributions.
Ron Conway appears to have donated at least $50,000, and Parker donated $200,000, to help pass the Prop "A" bond measure to raise $500 million for MUNI, perhaps in part because as the Observer predicted last month, Caltrans may be a beneficiary of the MUNI bond.
Both billionaires may want taxpayers to foot the bill via the Prop. "A" bond financing to extend Caltrans to the Transbay Transit Center to assist venture capitalists, investors, and developers of high-rise buildings around the planned Transbay Transit Center who had hired former Mayor "Slick" Willie Brown to help them wiggle out of their tax obligations in the Mello-Roos property tax district.
The San Francisco Chronicle's Matier and Ross reported on Monday, October 20 that Caltrans is in line to receive $40 million from the $500 million bond in order to "electrify" the system. In previous media reports, Caltrans was reported to be a potential beneficiary of the MUNI bond in order to complete its extension to the Transbay Terminal. Now we're being told it is to "electrify" Caltrans. It's unclear at this point whether Caltrans will receive multiple portions of the MUNI bond, to both complete its extension and "electrify" it.
Part of that uncertainty is because there is no precise language in the question being put before voters dedicating how the bond will be spent, other than that Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors will be able to carve up the spending any way they please if voters are dumb enough to pass a bond that provides no clear or precise language on how the bond will be spent.
Between the three billionaires — Conway, Hoffman, and Parker — and their relatives, they have sank at least $2.7 million in spending through October 20 on state and local elections, and may contribute more between now and the election on November4.
The flood of their money may well drown out other voices in this election.
Buying a State Assembly Seat
How many so-called "Independent Expenditure Committees" does Supervisor Chiu need to buy himself a seat in the California Assembly?
California's Cal-Access campaign donor database reported that as of September 30, 2014, David Chiu's official campaign ("Chiu for Assembly 2014," ID # 1360422) had received $1,401,737 in contributions, compared to David Campos' $864,524 ("Campos for Assembly 2014," ID # 1359298). Late contribution reports filed between after September 30 and before October 20 reveal another $61,100 in contributions to Chiu, and $32,640 to Campos, bringing their official campaign totals to $1,462,837 and $897,164 respectively.
David Chiu has garnered at least four independent expenditure committees — "San Franciscans to Hold Campos Accountable (Opposing David Campos)" (ID # 1366671); "San Francisco Alliance For Jobs And Sustainable Growth"
(ID # 1369934); "San Franciscans For Effective Government" (ID # 1365064); and the "Public Service Coalition, Sponsored By Public Safety, Building Trades and Retail Workers Organizations" (ID # 1371281) — who have combined contributions of an additional $999,282, of which $733,900 came from the "San Franciscans to Hold Campos Accountable" committee Reid Hoffman has so lavishly donated to.
Additional spending on behalf of Chiu includes $374,208 in late independent expenditures not reported above from nine other PAC's supporting him and $12,136 from the "San Francisco Police Officers Association PAC Opposing Campos," bringing Chiu's campaign war chest to at least $2,848,463.
By way of contrast, two other PAC's supporting David Campos raised $79,339 as of October 20, and another $269,000 was raised by the "Nurses, Teachers and Working Families United to Support David Campos for Assembly 2014 Sponsored By Labor Organizations (Opposing David Chiu)" (ID #1366930), which brings Campo's war chest to just $1.2 million (actually $1,245,502), less than half of Chiu's $2.8 million.
Clearly, additional "official" independent expenditure committees supporting David Chiu have skewed the political spending by the elite few having money to burn.
Smearing Campos
Many observers wonder whether Supervisor Chiu's official election committee is coordinating messages with various independent expenditure committees to unfairly blame Supervisor Campos for the Board of Supervisors vote to reinstate Sheriff Mirkarimi.
Leading up to the primary election last June, voters were inundated with, nasty campaign mailers seeking to discredit Campos funded by both the Police Officers Association PAC and the "Committee to Hold David Campos Accountable" for his vote on reinstating Mirkarimi as Sheriff. They seek to place the blame for Mirkarimi keeping his job solely on Campos.
This is ludicrous, as I wrote in October 2012 in "Swimming in 'Official Misconduct'." At the time, an anonymous analysis of the Ethics Commission's handling of the Mirkarimi case clearly laid out how the Mayor and Ethics Commission had gotten it wrong charging Mirkarimi with official misconduct. The analysis noted the Ethics Commission was strictly limited to a single legal question: Did a public official commit "official misconduct" as defined in City Charter Section 15.105(e), or not? The Ethics Commission didn't answer this question.
Chiu, Conway and Hoffman keep using a political tool against Campos, to punish him for having understood that official misconduct laws are there to punish official misconduct, not to remove elected officials the Mayor may have disagreements with.
An official mailer from Campos' Assembly Committee rightfully notes that three men — billionaire Conway, billionaire Hoffman, and David Chiu right in the middle — are playing politics with domestic violence. Many women reject the negative attacks on Campos, including Kim Shree Maufus on San Francisco's School Board, former Police Commissioner Angela Chan, and former State Senator Carole Migden.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on October 16 that a group of domestic violence survivors staged a rally denouncing the smear campaign against Campos, and submitted a letter signed by more than 50 women to Chiu's campaign headquarters demanding that Chiu stop playing politics with domestic violence. According to the Chronicle the letter reads, in part:
"If you really cared about us, about this extremely difficult and complicated issue ... then you would stop using us to win votes. You would tell your billionaire friends to take the $600,000 they have spent on vicious ads filled with hyperbole and lies and instead use that money to directly help domestic violence survivors like us."
One signer of the letter, Trisha Fogleman, asserted that Chiu and his billionaire backers are focusing their attacks solely on Campos. She noted "You can't use it against one candidate and not others," since Campos' vote to reinstate Mirkarimi was just one of four votes finding that the charges against the Sheriff were too unconstitutionally vague.
The San Francisco Chronicle also reported on October 21 that Campos' campaign manager, Nate Allbee, believes this is "pay-to-play politics at its worst. Allbee says "David Chiu's Airbnb investor friends have realized that their sleazy attempt to use domestic violence to get their friend elected has backfired and angered women."
Another group — the League of Pissed-Off Voters — also cries foul with David Chiu's dealings with Airbnb lobbyists. The Examiner reported on October 21 that the League filed a complaint with San Francisco's Ethics Commission involving a consultant on Chiu's Assembly campaign, Nicole Derse, who co-founded 50+1 Strategies. The League alleges that Chiu did not disclose the relationship between himself, 50+1 Strategies, and Airbnb prior to the Board of Supervisors vote legalizing Airbnb's short-term rental business. As I reported in October, Chiu's two-year delay developing the Airbnb legislation clearly has benefited Airbnb's prime investors: Billionaires Conway and Hoffman.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. He received the Society of Professional Journalists–Northern California Chapter's James Madison Freedom of Information Award.
Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com
Further Reading
Eric Brill's dispassionate, initially anonymous analysis of the Ethics Commission's handling of Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi's case can be found online at rjemirkarimi.blogspot.com/2012/09/ethics-commission-proceeding-against.html. It's well worth the read, disputing much of the nonsense being raised by billionaires Conway and Hoffman against Campos.
November 2014
The November 4 MUNIcipal Ballot
Prop "A" and David Chiu: Just Say No
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
If the idea of sending Supervisor David Chiu off to represent you in the California Assembly in Sacramento doesn't scare you enough, get ready for being bilked, San Franciscans.
The use of the vague words "could be" and "may be" are no substitute for more precise language that uses "shall be." The choice of words is obviously no mere accident."
According to a December 3, 2013 article on StreetBlogSF, you're being asked to approve half-a-billion dollars for MUNI in 2014 and 10 years from now, the City plans to come back in November 2024 to ask you to approve a second half-a-billion dollars for MUNI, 20 years before the 30-year interest on the first bond will be paid down.
Between the two bonds, taxpayers may have to pay down nearly one billion in interest on the one billion in bonds. Add to that the Mayor's Task Force recommendation to place a ballot measure before voters in November 2016 to increase San Francisco's sales tax by a half percent, from 8.75% to 9.25%, designed to help raise another billion dollars for MUNI.
Add onto the mix a ballot measure to raise the vehicle license fee (VLF) from 0.65% to 2% that was planned for the November 2014 election, but which the Mayor pulled off the ballot to make the first $500 million bond for MUNI more palatable to voters hoping for passage of the 2014 bond. Since state law allows San Francisco voters to restore the VLF cut by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, do not doubt that the VLF measure recommended by the Mayor's Transportation Task Force to raise another cool one billion dollars for MUNI will eventually make it onto a future ballot, perhaps in 2016.
Say No to Prop "A"
If voters approve it, the 2014 Proposition A, the Transportation and Road Improvement Bond, will authorize The City to borrow $500 million by issuing general obligation bonds in order to meet some of the transportation infrastructure needs of the City. The key word is "some," which is not clearly described.
The Mayor's Transportation Task Force identified $10 billion in spending on "crucial infrastructure projects" for MUNI earlier in 2014. Proposition "A" funds would be used to address "some" of the needs identified by the task force.
Some observers report the $500 million in General Obligation Bonds will be accompanied by $350 million in interest, for a total debt load of $850 million. Other observers assert that the interest will actually be $500 million.
In both the enabling legislation and the Ballot Simplification Digest in the voter guide, specific projects to be funded are not clearly described. Instead the operative words being put before voters indicate that funds "could be allocated" for transit and roads, or alternatively described as "a portion of the Bond may be allocated to." Voters beware: The use of the vague words "could be" and "may be" are no substitute for more precise language that uses "shall be." The choice of words is obviously no mere accident.
There is no mention in either the Board of Supervisors ordinance or in the Ballot Simplification Digest itemizing either estimated dollar amounts, or percentages, of how the funds will actually be allocated across project categories or to specifically-named projects. The City is clearly seeking carte blanche authority for unspecified projects. It wants voters to authorize a half-billion dollar check having a blank memo line so The City can spend the funds anyway it pleases.
MUNI's Five-Year Budget
Given the five-year history of MUNI's budgets, voters should be skeptical of handing MUNI any more money using vaguely-worded ballot measures.
Data available on The City's SFOpenBook web site shows that across the past five years, MUNI's budget has soared by $172.9 million, up from $775 million in FY 10-11 to $947.9 million for the current FY 14-15 — a whopping 22.2% increase. Of the $172.9 million increase, $93.9 million occurred between FY 13-14 and FY 14-15.
Across the four-year period from calendar year 2010 to calendar year 2013, MUNI added 221 employees pushing its total payroll (excluding fringe benefits) up just $30.1 million, from $375.4 million in CY 2010 to $405.5 million in CY 2013, leading observers to wonder why MUNI's budget increased $172.9 million between FY 10-11 and FY 14-15 and what the $173 million was spent on, if not on salaries.
There are few signs that increasing MUNI's budget has improved the system overall, or improved on-time performance.
Looking closer at MUNI's budget, the category for "Administration" increased by 44.4% across the five-year period — from $55.6 million in FY 10-11 to $80.2 million for FY 14-15. Why did Administration need a $24.6 million increase?
Before voters hand MUNI $500 million in new bond funding via Prop "A," reasonable questions include whether the agency has too much bloat in its budget; whether it needs a department-wide comprehensive, and independent, audit; and whether the agency has been a good steward of public funds.
Say "No" to David Chiu
Leading up to the June 2014 primary election, readers may recall in-depth reporting about the race between Supervisors David Campos and David Chiu to replace termed-out Assemblyman Tom Ammiano in this reporter's article "The Three-David Race for Assemblyperson" on the Fog City Journal web site last May. Since then, the race between the two Davids has become neck-and-neck, and additional information has surfaced about why you won't want to send Mr. Chiu to Sacramento.
Airbnb and the "Sharing Economy"
Although New York City; Berlin, Germany; and other cities are taking steps to ban short-term rentals altogether, Supervisor Chiu continues his attempts to write legislation to "regulate" — rather than ban — short-term rentals in San Francisco. Problems with Airbnb have surfaced in many neighborhoods throughout San Francisco, from West Portal to single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotels in the Tenderloin.
As I reported last May on FogCityJournal.com, Supervisor David Chiu has taken over two years to develop legislation regulating "sharing economy" short-term rentals in San Francisco. Chiu's two-year delay may have benefited Airbnb and its prime investor, billionaire Ron Conway, who holds considerable sway over Mayor Ed Lee after Conway formed an independent expenditure committee that spent $600,000 towards electing Lee as Mayor in 2011.
Chiu's delayed legislation has allowed Airbnb to continue refusing to pay the 14% hotel tax, which it has failed to do during the six years since the company was founded. Current estimates project that the City would receive $11 million annually if Airbnb would begin paying the hotel tax; over the six-year period it has refused to pay the tax, San Francisco has lost somewhere between $66 million and $100 million in revenue, a fact that cannot have escaped investor Conway's notice.
On April 3, 2012, San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector Jose Cisneros published an opinion that short-term rental companies and their hosts are required to collect and pay the city's Transient Occupancy Tax (the hotel tax). On the day Cisneros published his opinion, the SF Bay Citizen reported that Mayor Lee's office "had urged Cisneros … to postpone applying the rule to give a 'collaborative consumption task force' time to consider possible legislation that would apply a lower tax rate" on brokers of short-term rentals. The term "collaborative consumption" is used to describe the so-called "sharing economy" … although "sharing economy" companies such as Airbnb don't actually pay their fare share of taxes.
Mayor Lee, for his part, has offered no explanation as to why a lower tax rate should be granted to Airbnb and its prime investor, Ron Conway. Perhaps Lee is counting on Conway spending more independent expenditure committee funds to re-elect him to a second term as mayor and doesn't want to annoy his "angel" investor.
On August 14, 2014, the San Francisco Examiner reported that the Department of Building Inspection's (DBI) Code Advisory Committee believes that Chiu's legislation to regulate short-term rentals "still fails to address fire-safety, life-safety, accessibility and occupancy issues," and argued that DBI should not be an administrative record-keeping agency monitoring short-term rentals by being required to operate a registry of hosts using short-term rental platforms like Airbnb.
The Code Advisory Committee noted Chiu's legislation doesn't add safety codes to the short-term rentals beyond what currently exist for residential units, and doesn't provide for code-compliance checks for issues such as smoke detectors.
Between August 14 when the Code Advisory Committee expressed its concerns and September 15 when the legislation was last heard by the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee, Chiu had taken no action to include the Code Committee's concerns.
During the September 15 Land Use Committee hearing, Supervisors pushed David Owen, Airbnb's director of public policy, for information on liability insurance and the number of nights hosts can rent out their units. Owen, who served as a legislative assistant to former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, creatively claimed that reporting to The City the number of nights each unit is used would violate Airbnb's "innovations" and violate the privacy of hosts renting out their units. Owen has refused to comment on whether Airbnb will pay its back taxes, despite Cisneros' 2012 ruling and Aaron Peskin's belief the back taxes should be paid.
Chiu's legislation appears to be restricted to a 90-day limit when a host is not present, but the Land Use Committee debated, but has not yet required, that a similar limit should be applied when hosts are present, since without an explicit restriction there's a clear loophole allowing hosts to be able to rent out portions of their units all year long provided they are present.
Supervisor Jane Kim is concerned that if Chiu's legislation does not include regulating co-hosted days, and if Airbnb continues to refuse disclosing room rental data, the City will have no way enforce Chiu's legislation as written.
The Land Use Committee reportedly added a requirement to Chiu's legislation that tenants must notify their landlord if they register as a "host" on a hosting platform such as Airbnb, a key provision that Chiu failed to include all along, as if landlords have no say in whatever happens in their rental units. Still unresolved is the amount of liability insurance Airbnb and hosts will be required to carry on short-term rental units.
Airbnb's "sharing economy" business model appears to be based on flouting laws on the books regulating various public accommodations. Take for instance an August 20 article in San Francisco Weekly reporting that Airbnb had launched a pilot program to allow city residents to register for its "dinner party program" in which "hosts" will be able to throw paid dinner parties for total strangers while violating all sorts of regulations that apply to brick-and-mortar restaurants. SF Weekly reported that Richard Lee, head of San Francisco Department of Public Health's food safety program, noted that for-profit hosts running what amounts to a restaurant out of their homes is completely illegal. That hasn't stopped Airbnb. It's another illegal ancillary venture following Airbnb's illegal venture in short-term rentals.
Chiu's legislation does nothing to stop Airbnb from encouraging its "hosts" to sell home-cooked meals as an ancillary service, sales from which Airbnb will pocket a cut. Chiu will likely not develop additional regulations governing "sharing economy dinner parties," perhaps out of deference to his benefactor, Ron Conway.
Forewarned Is Forearmed
Developers, high-tech companies, and "sharing economy" companies don't want to pay their fare share of taxes — and have successfully avoided paying taxes in San Francisco for years — and want voters to bear the tax burden, instead.
To avoid David Chiu pulling his same stunts in Sacramento affecting the rest of the State, vote for David Campos, and urge your friends and relatives living in Assembly District 17 to do the same. Say "No" to both Prop. "A" and to David Chiu.
Monette-Shaw received the Society of Professional Journalists–Northern California Chapter's James Madison Freedom of Information Award in the Advocacy category. Feedback: mailto:monette-shaw@westsideobserver.
October 2014
Civil Grand Jury Report on Ethics Commission
Ethics' Pretenses vs. Sunshine
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Ethics Commissioner PeterKeane, Photo: Bob Butler |
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
The tenuous relationship between San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and the City's Ethics Commission was already the subject of an Ethics Commission complaint filed on June 22 involving probable inappropriate communications from an errant Task Force member to the Ethics Commission that appears to have contributed to conflicting rulings issued by the Ethics Commission.
Ethics Commissioner Peter Keane — a widely respected Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at Golden Gate University School of Law who was appointed to the Ethics Commission by City Attorney Dennis Herrera — observed that the draft response was too "defensive," needed substantial edits, and that a "lot of the language in the proposed draft is inappropriate." Finally, St. Croix's excessive influence over the Ethics Commission appears to be gradually waning."
The very next day, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury coincidentally issued a blistering report on June 23 that is highly critical — once again — of the Ethics Commission.
Civil Grand Jury Faults Ethics Commission — Again
The 2010–2011 Civil Grand Jury issued a scathing 15-page report three years ago, titled “San Francisco's Ethics Commission: The Sleeping Watch Dog,” highly critical of the excessive influence the Ethics Commission's Executive Director, John St. Croix, holds over Ethics Commissioners, leading Commission members to abdicate oversight and their responsibilities to serve as an independent watchdog. The 2011 report contained seven findings and seven recommendations. A new Grand Jury report remains critical of the Ethics Commission.
Among other issues raised, the Jury's June 2011 report focused heavily on the dismissal of all 18 Sunshine complaints referred by the Task Force to the Ethics Commission for enforcement between 2004 — the year St. Croix was first hired — and 2010. Each of the 18 cases was dismissed by the Executive Director; none was ever heard during an open hearing before the Ethics Commission. The Grand Jury's report asserted the Commission's Executive Director controls the “agenda” of the Ethics Commission, and reported that one Commissioner stated that there was an expectation that “… the Commission should support the Executive Director in his decisions to dismiss a case.”
St. Croix's control over the Ethics Commission is a classic example of the tail wagging the dog — a Sleeping Watchdog. The Grand Jury noted its 2011 report was not meant to be a definitive report on the Ethics Commission; that report would be left to a future Grand Jury.
Grand Jury's New Report on Ethics Commission
Fast forward to 2014. On June 23, the 2013-2014 Civil Grand Jury released a 43-page report (excluding several appendices) containing 45 findings, and 35 recommendations, titled “Ethics in the City: Promise, Practice or Pretense.”
Among other recommendations, the 2014 Grand Jury recommended a two-year pilot contract with California's Fair Political Practices Commission to enforce violations of California Public Records Act and Sunshine Ordinance violations; an audit by the City Attorney of potential improper campaign contributions returned to the contributor, rather than forfeited to the City, as required by City laws; a recommendation that the Board of Supervisors enhance the “Citizen's Right of Action” to enforce the City's ethics law; a policy needs to be developed to preserve e-mails and text messages consistent with preservation of other public records; violations of departmental Statements of Incompatible Activities by City employees and members of boards and commissions should be disclosed; and enhancing the Form 700 Statements of Economic Interests City officials are required to submit to make them searchable. There are many more substantive issues raised in the Grand Jury's 2014 report.
The Ethics Commission's draft response to the 2014 Civil Grand Jury appears to have been authored by Mr. St. Croix. Of note, during its August 18 special meeting to discuss the Ethics Commission's response to the Grand Jury, Ethics Commissioner Peter Keane — a widely respected Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at Golden Gate University School of Law who was appointed to the Ethics Commission by City Attorney Dennis Herrera — observed that the draft response was too “defensive,” needed substantial edits, and that a “lot of the language in the proposed draft is inappropriate.” Finally, St. Croix's excessive influence over the Ethics Commission appears to be gradually waning.
Of concern to the 2014 Grand Jury was the failure of the Ethics Commission to produce an annual report about the effectiveness of San Francisco's ethics laws, an annual report required by the City Charter in addition to the departmental annual report required of each City department, and each board and commission. St. Croix's draft response to the Grand Jury claimed that the additional annual report addressing effectiveness of ethics laws “was not necessary,” and “implementation is not up to the Ethics Commission.”
Initially Ethics Commissioner's were poised on August 18 to allow St. Croix's draft language to stand, until they took public comment and heard from both members of the public and members of the Civil Grand Jury, that the second report is required by the City Charter. Only then did the Ethics Commissioners decide to re-write St. Croix's draft response, agreeing that the Ethics Commission should, in fact, develop and submit the supplemental annual report.
St. Croix's Preservation of the Status Quo
The Grand Jury's finding regarding the “Citizen's Right of Action” involved a simple matter to enhance citizen's rights to enforce all of the City's ethics laws. But St. Croix's inflammatory draft language recommended that the Ethics Commission disagree with the Jury's finding and not implement it; he wrote, “absent a problem with the status quo, there is no compelling basis for specific enhancements.”
St. Croix further noted in the Commission's draft response “To our knowledge, no one has ever attempted to use or even inquired about this right [the Citizen's Right of Action].” St. Croix appears to have the mindset that so long as nobody ever attempted to use the right before, there's no need to change the status quo.
The status quo that has developed at the Ethics Commission under St. Croix's decade-long tenure as Executive Director is troubling, in part due to the status quo of his single-handed dismissal of the 18 Sunshine cases referred to Ethics for enforcement during the first six years of his reign.
For his part, Commissioner Keane astutely noted during discussion of the recommendation on August 18, that the Citizen's Right of Action is a “mom-and-apple-pie issue.” Keane asked, “Why would we disagree with a broader right of citizen's access to ethics laws?” After lengthy discussion, the Commission voted to change the recommendation from “disagree,” to “agree,” and agreed to write the second report.
“Designated Filers” Escape Sunshine Training
The Grand Jury wrongly noted that all Form 700 “Statements of Economic Activities” are filed electronically. They are not. Only City Department Heads and members of boards and commissions are currently required to file their Form 700's electronically; so-called “designated filers,” who file directly with their City departments, do not file electronically.
San Francisco's Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code Sections 3.1-110 through 3.1-457 enumerates a total of 1,524 positions listed by working job titles as being required to file Form 700's with either the Ethics Commission, or to their Departmental “Filing Officer.” Of those, just 533 were required to begin submitting them electronically to the Ethics Commission in April 2014.
Of the 533, there were just 57 City department heads and a few senior managers who filed Form 700's with Ethics (10.7%), 390 members of boards and commissions filed with Ethics (73.2%), and another 86 (16.1%) were filed with Ethics by filers who aren't even enumerated in the Governmental Code.
Sunshine Ordinance Section 67.33 requires Form 700 filers who file directly with the Ethics Commission to also submit an annual “Sunshine Ordinance Declaration” to the Ethics Commission. California Government Code Section 53235 requires Form 700 filers who file directly with the Ethics Commission to also submit a bi-annual “Certificate of Ethics Training.” There is no local regulation requiring other types of Form 700 filers to take either of the two trainings.
This effectively means that approximately 1,077 (fully 70.7%) of the 1,524 positions enumerated in the Governmental Conduct Code who are “designated” filers do not file electronically. No date has been set as to when the 1,077 “designated” filers will be required to start filing electronically, or with whom. Designated filers are not required to submit annual statements that they've taken Sunshine Ordinance Training, or that they've taken the bi-annual Ethics Training required of those who file directly with the Ethics Commission. That's a significant number of City employees who receive little training on Sunshine requirements.
In fact, of the 37,606 City employees in the City Controller's payroll database for CY 2013, fully 37,549 file neither Form 700's nor are required to take Sunshine and Ethics training — 99.98% of all City employees with no such requirement. Only 57 of the City's 37,606 City employees — less than two-tenths of one percent — have such a requirement. It appears 37,549 City employees may never receive any notice that they are required to comply with the Sunshine Ordinance.
Ethics Commission Rejected More From St. Croix's Draft Response
Among other changes described above, the Ethics Commission reversed more of St. Croix's draft responses, including:
· The Grand Jury is concerned that improper election campaign contributions were returned to the contributor, rather than forfeited to the City, as required by City law. The Grand Jury recommended that the Board of Supervisors should request the City Attorney's Office conduct an independent audit to determine whether prohibited campaign contributions were actually forfeited to the City.
Although the Grand Jury didn't ask Ethics to respond, St. Croix included a response anyway, asserting that since August 2008, the Ethics Commission has followed a policy it set (in potential contradiction of City law) to allow campaigns to return donations to donors prior to any action being taken by the Commission. St. Croix asserted that the Commission has authority to waive or reduce forfeitures. Once again, it was Commissioner Keane who introduced a motion to strike out St. Croix's draft language, and recommend that the Board of Supervisors should, in fact, ask the City Attorney to conduct an audit of potential improperly returned campaign contributions rather than forfeitures.
· The Grand Jury made a number of recommendations regarding Form 700 Statement of Economic Interests that are filed after the required April 1 deadline, specifically noting that the Ethics Commission should recommend dismissal for any officer or employee who fails to file their Form 700 within 90 days after the deadline (Recommendation 14b), and should recommend dismissal for employees who file inaccurate Form 700's (Recommendation 14c). The Grand Jury also recommended that all Form 700 filers — including “designated filers” who currently only submit their Form 700 to their departmental filing officer — be required to file them with the Ethics Commission (Recommendation 14d).
Initially, St. Croix's draft response to Grand Jury Recommendations 14b and 14c was “would not be implemented,” as being outside of the Ethics Commission's jurisdiction. But after lengthy debate the Commissioners changed the response to the Grand Jury saying that Recommendations 14b and 14c “will be implemented in amended form,” indicating that the Ethics Commission will instead recommend to the appropriate appointing authority suspension (rather than dismissal) of an employee who fails to file their Form 700 within 90 days of the deadline. In its final response to the Grand Jury, the Commissioners removed St. Croix's claim that dismissal or suspension recommendations of City employees fall outside of the Commission's jurisdiction.
Ethics Commission Fails to Correct Other Flaws in St. Croix's Draft Response
Although Commissioner Keane astutely introduced motions to change many of St. Croix's inflammatory draft responses, several glaring mistakes went unchallenged:
· Sadly, both the Ethics Commission's draft response and its final response to the Grand Jury adopted by the Ethics Commissioners failed to address Grand Jury Recommendation 11 dealing with retention and preservation of e-mails and text message consistent with preservation of other public records. Indeed, in its final response to the Grand Jury, the Ethics Commissioners let stand St. Croix's ridiculous nonsense that “the City's document retention policy does not require retention of correspondence for any specific period of time.”
To the contrary, San Francisco Administrative Code Section 8.3 expressly provides that current records may only be destroyed five years after they were created, and then only if they have served their purpose and are no longer required for any public business. This stands in stark contrast to St. Croix's claim — which Ethics Commissioner's apparently didn't even think to question — that there is no “specific period of time” for records retention.
While the City's overall records retention and destruction policy may not address retention of correspondence, as St. Croix claimed, many individual City department's unique records retention and destruction policies do require retention of correspondence, typically retention for two years. The Commissioners should have recommended that the City's Administrative Code be revised to adopt a two-year retention period, as required by California Government Code Section 34090[1], which states that the destruction of records less than two years old is not authorized.
Although the Ethics Commission's response to the Grand Jury got it wrong on this point, the Sunshine Task Force's response to the Grand Jury on the same recommendation and same issue got it right: The Task Force rightfully noted that Section 8.3 of San Francisco's Administrative Code should be amended to comply with California Government Code Section 34090. The Task Force should have gone a step further and recommended that a Sunshine training video on the City Attorney's web site also needs to be updated to clarify the two-year record retention period.
The Ethics Commission also got it wrong on this point, because even the City Attorney's misguided Good Government Guide updated on September 3, 2014 — which Commissioner Keane has previously indicated carries no force of law, and is merely an advisory document — clearly notes on page 113 regarding records retention schedules, that State law (citing Government Code Section 34090) “sets a ‘floor' for records retention” of two years.
St. Croix's draft response — which the Ethics Commissioner's again mistakenly let stand in the final response to the Grand Jury — claimed “departments are free to create more restrictive [records retention] rules as they find necessary.” Departments are not “free” to override Government Code Section 34090 on a department-by-department basis (any more than the City's claim that the Sunshine Ordinance cannot “trump” the City Charter, it's clear that department-specific policies and procedure manuals cannot trump State law). At minimum, the Ethics Commission should have recommended that departmental records retention policies be standardized to require the two-year records retention.
In addition, St. Croix's draft response and the Ethics Commission's final response to the Grand Jury completely sidestepped the issue of whether a uniform policy regarding retention of e-mails generated using City-issued e-mail accounts, and on City-issued cell phones and electronic equipment, needs to be developed now, rather than waiting on an eventual California Supreme Court ruling pending before it regarding e-mails and text messages sent using personally-owned digital equipment.
Whatever outcome of the Supreme Court case regarding personal devices used to conduct official City business, the fact remains that there is currently no consistent Citywide policy on preservation of e-mails and text messages, or social media content on City-funded social media accounts, for retention of these materials generated using City-issued e-mail accounts and City-issued electronic devices.
The Ethics Commission completely sidestepped this concern of the Civil Grand Jury in its formal response to the Jury. For its part, the City Attorney's response to the Civil Grand Jury somewhat sidestepped the issue. The City Attorney asserted that developing a policy to preserve e-mails [even those generated on a City-issued e-mail account] is a “policy matter for the Ethics Commission and other appropriate City agencies, such as the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor,” and indicated the City Attorney would “assist” other agencies implement the recommendation to develop a policy, but only if such assistance is requested.
At minimum, such a policy governing City-issued equipment and accounts needs to be developed immediately.
· Unfortunately the Ethics Commissioner's let stand St. Croix's ridiculous assertion in response to Jury Recommendation 20 involving use of an independent hearing officer for complex cases that the Ethics Commission is a “law enforcement agency,” and the Sunshine Task Force is merely an “advisory body.” Both assertions are wrong.
San Francisco's Ethics Commission is not a law enforcement agency as defined for law enforcement agencies. At best, it is an advisory or oversight body that enforces campaign and government conduct laws, but that does not make Ethics a law enforcement agency. Were the Ethics Commission a law enforcement agency, so too would the Sunshine Task Force be, since the Task Force also was created to adjudicate violations of our Sunshine laws.
The Task Force is not merely an “advisory body,” as both Mr. St. Croix and all five of the Ethics Commissioners must surely know (if they don't already know this, they shouldn't even be Ethics Commissioners). In addition to providing advice as just one of its duties, the Task Force's larger duty is as a quasi-judicial body charged with adjudicating disputes between members of the public seeking access to public meetings and public records, and the very City agencies that thwart access to public meetings and public records. Even the City Attorney's Sunshine training video for those required to file their Form 700's directly to the Ethics Commission acknowledges the Task Force is an adjudicatory body, not merely an advisory body.
Ethics Commission Rejects Two Key Issues of Concern to the Grand Jury
The Ethics Commission rejected two key issues raised by the Grand Jury:
· The Grand Jury's first major recommendation was to develop a contract with California's Fair Political Practices Commission on a two-year pilot basis to hear and enforce major enforcement cases, including official misconduct, conflict of interest, campaign finance and lobbying violations, and violations of post-employment restrictions to enforce both state and local ethics laws.
The Ethics Commission's response to the Grand Jury was “Will not be implemented,” under the claim that “the Ethics Commission sees no need for this and it is possible the [City] Charter would prohibit such a contract.” The Ethics Commission did acknowledge that the FPPC has a pilot program with the County of San Bernardino, but that is the only jurisdiction currently permitted such a pilot program under state law. Rather than investigating whether the City Charter was permit such a contract, the Commissioners simply went with the possibility that it might be prohibited.
· Concerned that the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and the Ethics Commission have legal and procedural differences in their processes and their legal requirements that result in disharmony between the two oversight bodies, the Grand Jury recommended that arrangements should be made to use an independent hearing officer to develop a consistent, legally-sufficient record of any given case.
Again, the Ethics Commission's response to the Grand Jury was:
“Will not be implemented,” saying “The Ethics Commission does not agree with this finding and believes it is in the public's best interest to have the Commission continue to investigate and hear Sunshine referrals and complaints. Further, there is no mechanism in the Sunshine Ordinance to do this.”
First, it would be a simple matter to amend the Sunshine Ordinance to provide a mechanism to hire an independent hearing officer. But the Ethics Commission does not want the status quo changed, as St. Croix observed regarding another Grand Jury recommendation.
It is painfully clear, given St. Croix's track record of dismissing the 18 Task Force referrals to Ethics for enforcement between 2004 and 2010, that he is not interested in changing the status quo, and wants to retain his past practice of finding exculpatory excuses to let City officials off of the hook by dismissing Sunshine complaints filed against them.
Given St. Croix's track record, the best interests of members of the public would be to have an independent hearing officer take over, but that might lead to more public officials being found guilty of having violated our ethics laws, an outcome St. Croix is desperate to prevent. So it is not surprising that the Ethics Commission rejected this Grand Jury recommendation in a turf-protecting move.
The Ethics Commission may want to preserve the City's status quo by retaining the current authority to appointment both Ethics Commissioners and members of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force. Appointees chosen by the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, and the City Attorney are easier to control than an independent hearing officer. After all, an independent hearing officer may be a wild card the Mayor and Board of Supervisors don't want established who might find and uphold violations of our ethics laws by City officials.
A Wayward Sunshine Task Force Member
On April 28, 2014 Sunshine Ordinance Task Force member David Pilpel appears to have violated the Statement of Incompatible Activities (SIA) applicable to Task Force members when he spoke during the public comment period on a matter under discussion by the Ethics Commission that was referred by the SOTF for enforcement, by introducing himself as “David Pilpel, member of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.”
The SIA applicable to Pilpel clearly provides that no officer may hold himself or herself out as a representative of the Task Force, or as an agent acting on behalf of the Task Force, unless authorized to do so. Pilpel had not requested or received a waiver known as an Advance Written Determination from either the Board of Supervisors, or from the Ethics Commission, exempting him from this SIA prohibition.
Pilpel appears to have directly interfered with the Task Force's referral of Sunshine complaint #12-058, Dominic Maionchi vs. Recreation and Parks Department to the Ethics Commission in a case involving Rec and Park's General Manager Phil Ginsburg over failure to release public documents regarding leases of boat slips. Pilpel's testimony on April 28 deprived Maionchiof due process notice that Pilpel intended to advocate before the Ethics Commission to undercut and overturn a prior decision the full Task Force had previously ruled appropriate. Pilpel's testimony on April 28 helped convince the Ethics Commission to reject the complaint and return it to the Task Force for having named the so-called “wrong actor” (Department Head Ginsburg) in SOTF's referral for enforcement to Ethics. Pilpel's testimony ended up letting Ginsburg off the hook when the Ethics Commission ruled against Maionchi.
Although Pilpel has fretted extensively about the due process rights of departmental respondents and the “actors” named as having violated the Sunshine Ordinance and their due process rights, when it comes to the due process rights of complainants, Pilpel appears to be not quite so interested. Pilpel provided no due process notification to Maionchi — or to his fellow SOTF members — that he, Pilpel, intended to advocate against the SOTF referral of Maionchi vs. Recreation and Parks on April 28 before the Ethics Commission.
A formal complaint about Pilpel's probable April 28 violation of the SIA filed by this author on June 22 with the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors that was forwarded to the Ethics Commission on June 25, remains a pending Ethics complaint that has not been dismissed.
Notably, Ethics Commissioner Peter Keane observed on July 28 — during Commissioner debate and discussion on the separate, unrelated SOTF Mica Ringel referral to Ethics for enforcement involving largely the same issues in the Dominic Maionchi case — that the Ethics Commission may have erred on April 28 when it found Ginsburg had not violated the Sunshine Ordinance, after the Ethics Commission determined on July 28 that in a very similar case, John Rahaim, Director of the Planning Commission, had violated the Sunshine Ordinance, essentially involving the same underlying issue of naming department heads as ultimately responsible for the actions or inactions of their subordinates. Keane suggested that the Ethics Commission may have erred in April “punting” the Maionchi matter involving Ginsburg back to the Task Force for “further factual information.”
The Ethics Commission's ruling sustaining the Task Force's Order of Determination finding that Planning Director Rahaim had violated the Sunshine Ordinance was an historic moment, since it was just the second time that the Ethics Commission upheld a Task Force referral for enforcement, and was the first time that the Commission ruled a department head had, in fact, violated the Sunshine Ordinance. And the first time the Commission issued a cease-and-desist order involving Sunshine Ordinance violations.
Phil Ginsburg and “Further Factual Information”
Four months after the Ethics Commission referred the Maionchi matter back to the Sunshine Task Force on April 28 for further factual information about whether Phil Ginsburg was the properly-named respondent in the Maionchi complaint, Ginsburg suddenly responded when the matter was scheduled for preliminary re-review at the Sunshine Task Force's September 3 regularly-scheduled meeting.
During the full year between May 1, 2013 (when the Task Force first heard Maionchi's December 12, 2012 complaint) and April 28, 2014 when the Ethics Commission finally considered the Task Force's referral for enforcement naming Ginsburg as responsible, Ginsburg had never appeared at either multiple Task Force hearings or at the Ethics Commission hearing, instead sending subordinates to fall on his sword during hearings to defend him.
So it was surprising that on September 3, Ginsburg finally submitted a letter to the Task Force defending himself for the first time, perhaps hoping he could influence the “further factual information” requested by the Ethics Commission. Ginsburg admits in the letter he was aware of Maionchi's records request and subsequent Sunshine complaint, but that the records did not rise to the level of calling for the “time and attention of [Rec and Park's] General Manager” and he was not personally involved in the redaction of information provided to Maionchi. Instead, Ginsburg asserts he is fully supportive of his staff who decided to redact the records provided to Maionchi. Ginsburg claims the redaction is consistent with “widespread City practices” guided by long-standing “public advice” in the City Attorney's Good Government Guide.
Ginsburg twice referred in his September 3 letter that the Good Government Guide has long provided “public advice,” all but ignoring that the advice may not be accurate “legal advice,” and simply public advice. No matter how “long-standing” or “widespread” the practice has been doesn't automatically justify the past practice, nor make the “public advice” valid legal advice. And Ginsburg may be unaware Ethics Commissioner Keane has stated publicly that the Good Government Guide carries absolutely no force of law. The Guide is a flawed guideline, not law.
Observers now wonder whether Ginsburg submitted his September 3 letter only after the Ethics Commission issued its cease-and-desist letter against Planning Director Rahaim finding that Department Heads are, of course, responsible for the actions and inactions of their subordinates. Others wonder whether Ginsburg only submitted his letter after Commissioner Keane indicated on July 28 that the Ethics Commission may have erred three months earlier in the Maionchi case punting it back to the Task Force.
Could it be that Ginsburg is now worried that if the Task Force returns the Maionchi case back to the Ethics Commission asserting that the Ethics Commission can't have it both ways ruling differently between the Maionchi case and the Ringel case, that Ginsburg may eventually be found by Ethics to have also violated the Sunshine Ordinance, just as Ethics found Rahaim had?
The Task Force asserted during its September 3 meeting that it will not re-adjudicate the entire matter again in light of Ginsburg's unexpected September 3 letter, and will focus instead at its next meeting on how to respond to, and return the case to, Ethics.
A Second SIA Violation
On July 28, 2014, Member Pilpel again spoke before the Ethics Commission during public comment on Sunshine complaint #13-024, Mica Ringel vs. Planning Department being heard by the Commission. Although Pilpel claimed to be speaking as an individual, within the first minute-and-a-half of his testimony he switched from using the first person “I,” into using multiple times the third person “we,” again appearing to be speaking on behalf of, and representing, the Task Force.
Pilpel again questioned whether the “right” actor had been referred to the Ethics Commission, and suggested he wasn't sure City Departments could be named as having violated the Sunshine Ordinance, rather than naming an individual who may have violated the Sunshine Ordinance.
The Ethics Commission had none of it with Pilpel's July 28 line of reasoning.
Instead, a nondescript, unprintable Enforcement Summary posting buried on the Ethics Commission web site notes that on July 28:
“The [Ethics] Commission found that John Rahaim, Director, Planning Department, non-willfully violated Sunshine Ordinance section 67.21(a). The Commission found that there was not sufficient evidence to support a finding that there was a violation of Sunshine Ordinance section 67.29-7. But the Commission ordered Director Rahaim to cease and desist from failing, without unreasonable delay, to permit public records to be inspected and examined. The Commission ordered [its] Executive Director [John St. Croix] to post on the Commission's website the Commission's finding that Director Rahaim violated the Sunshine Ordinance. The Commission ordered [its] Executive Director to issue a warning letter to Director Rahaim and inform the Planning Commission of the violation.”
The Ethics Commission can't have it both ways, ruling against Maionchi and rulingfor Ringel in two similar cases in which Department Heads had been named as responsible for Sunshine violations in Task Force referrals to the Ethics Commission.
Notice was received on August 15 that a second SIA complaint against Pilpel involving the Ethics Commission's July 28 hearing was dismissed by the Ethics Commission's Executive Director on August 13. In dismissing the second SIA complaint against Pilpel, St. Croix only cited Section III.A.1, “Activities that Conflict with Official Duties,” of the applicable SIA.
St. Croix made no mention in his dismissal letter of Section III.B.1 of the SIA, “Restrictions That Apply to Officers or Employees in Specified Positions,” which provides that certain activities are also expressly prohibited for individual officers and employees holding specific positions, notwithstanding Section III.A.1.
Section III.B.1 expressly prohibits officers and members of the Task Force from providing advice concerning Sunshine Ordinance complaints to other entities, such as the Ethics Commission. Section III.B.1 states:
“Unless otherwise expressly permitted by state or local law and regulation, no officer or employee may assist, advise or represent other persons or entities concerning Sunshine Ordinance complaints or concerning matters that may appear before the Task Force, regardless of whether the activity is compensated.” [emphasis added]
Because Pilpel has no way of knowing whether any given referral sent to the Ethics Commission for enforcement will be returned to his jurisdiction as a member of the Sunshine Task Force, he should not be providing advice to the Ethics Commission on a matter that may well end up subsequently appearing before him again.
Pilpel is clearly entitled to his own First Amendment rights to free speech on any other issue or matter outside the scope of his duties on the Task Force. For example, he is entitled to appear and testify before the Planning Commission as a private citizen on a matter that may affect his neighborhood. But when it comes to matters involving his duties as a Task Force member, he loses Free Speech rights to comment wherever he likes about matters that fall inside his Task Force duties, particularly when those matters may be returned to the Task Force for his further consideration as part of his duties.
Ex Parte Communications
St. Croix's dismissal of the second SIA complaint against Pilpel without considering SIA Section III.B.1, and without considering prohibitions against ex parte communications, is troubling.
The Sunshine and Ethics training provided by the City Attorney's office in the “Sunshine & Ethics Training Video” from 2014 on the City Attorney's web site that Mr. Pilpel is required to have watched as part of his annual and bi-annual filings, indicates that boards and commissions such as the Sunshine Task Force may act like an adjudicative court, and must protect the parties due process rights. Commissioners — and members of the Sunshine Task Force — must act like judges, including following procedural rules such as bans on ex parte communications.
Pilpel's ex parte communications to the Ethics Commission does not illustrate to Sunshine complainants that he is unbiased, nor do they illustrate that he will be a fair “judge” hearing current or future Sunshine complaints.
The Ethics Commission Executive Director's dismissal of the second SIA complaint also did not address prohibitions against ex parte communications.
To the extent that Pilpel testified to the Ethics Commission on July 28 regarding the Ringel vs. Planning Department Sunshine complaint — whether as a member of SOTF or as a member of the public — he was clearly engaging in providing advice to the Ethics Commission (as an entity) concerning a Sunshine complaint that may appear again before the Task Force, which is clearly a matter that falls inside the scope of his duties as a member of the Task Force.
Since the Task Force will, in fact, discuss how to respond to the Ethics Commission's request for “further factual information” on the Maionchi case at its September special meeting, Pilpel should rescue himself from the discussion and voting, given his April 28 ex parte communications to Ethics concerning a case returned to the Task Force that falls inside the scope of his duties.
When Pilpel testified on July 28, he appears to have either concealed information or possibly misled the Commission. Pilpel failed to inform the Ethics Commission on July 28 that during a Task Force committee meeting on January 13, 2014 he had voted in support of a motion to refer the Ringel case back to the full Task Force's jurisdiction, which passed 3 to 0. Pilpel also failed to inform the Ethics Commission on July 28, that on February 5, 2014 a motion was introduced during a full Task Force hearing to find John Rahaim, Director of the Planning Department, in violation of the Sunshine Ordinance for willful failure to comply with the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force's Order of Determination dated October 23, 2013, and to refer Sunshine Complaint 13-024 to the Ethics Commission on a vote of 7 to 1, with Pilpel being the lone dissenter.
Once the full Task Force had ruled to refer a willful violation to the Ethics Commission for enforcement, Pilpel should not have engaged in ex parte communications with the Ethics Commission on July 28 by arguing during his testimony that the wrong “actor” had been named by the Task Force in the Ringel referral to Ethics and seeking to substitute his minority opinion for the majority opinion of the full Task Force's decision.
Due to potential improprieties in St. Croix's August 13 dismissal of Pilpel's probable second SIA violation, an appeal of the dismissal will be submitted to the Ethics Commission at its September 22 meeting.
Censuring Pilpel
One former Chairperson of the Task Force who spoke on condition of anonymity noted: “I am more and more convinced that censuring Pilpel is something the Task Force should seriously consider. He appears to be attempting to sabotage the Task Force before the Ethics Commission.”
A second former Chairperson of the Task Force who also spoke on condition of anonymity observes:
“I find that Pilpel's conduct during the Ethics Commission meeting rises to the level of warranting censure by the SOTF. He clearly and without question held himself out to the Ethics Commission during a hearing on a Task Force referral as being able to represent how the Task Force had assessed the Sunshine complaint. Pilpel was directly interfering with the Task Force's referral to the Ethics Commission without authorization from the Task Force to do so. Censure is more than appropriate to ensure the integrity of Task Force findings, since censure is an option allowed under Roberts Rules of Order.”
It is thought the Task Force may soon consider whether to censure Pilpel. If they do, he will earn the distinction of being the sole member of the Task Force across its 20-year history to be considered for censure.
Starving the Sunshine Task Force
One of the quickest ways City government uses to silence its critics is to reduce budgets. That may explain why the Sunshine Task Force appears to function on a shoestring budget of less than $200,000 to $300,000 annually, which stands in stark contrast to the $2.2 million to $2.6 million Ethics Commission budget.[2]
So it came as little surprise when the City attorney assigned to the Sunshine Task Force, Deputy City Attorney Nicholas Colla, announced during the Task Force's July 22, 2014 meeting that beginning in August, his superiors were reducing his hours to provide legal advice to the Task Force, that he would no longer be attending the Task Force's occasional second “special meeting” in any given month, and would only attend the Task Force's regularly scheduled meetings, given budget concerns.
This sudden change came as a surprise to the Task Force members, and strangely, the news was not reported in the Task Force's July 22 meeting minutes.
But it's surprising, in part, because approximately two years ago, this reporter bumped into City Attorney Dennis Herrera in the lobby of City Hall while talking with Westside neighborhood leader George Wooding. When asked in 2012 whether he would work at strengthening the Sunshine Task Force, Herrera replied that the Task Force's biggest problem was its minuscule budget.
The Task Force does not have its own City budget. Instead, it relies on “work order” support from the Board of Supervisors for clerical and administrative support, and from the City Attorney's Office for legal advice. Ironically, efforts to obtain the actual budgeted dollar amount provided to support the Task Force have been stymied by the City Attorney's Office itself.
Although Clerk of the Board Angela Calvillo promptly responded on July 29 to a records request placed on July 27 by providing the requested budget data for the current year (FY 14-15) and the previous two fiscal years (FY 12-13 and
FY 13-14), the City Attorney's Office has failed to produce similar requested public records.
Despite seven e-mails to Dennis Herrera's press secretary, lawyer Matt Dorsey, beginning on July 27 and eight e-mails to Gabriel Zitrin — who has a City Job Classification code of 8150, Claims Investigator but uses a working job title of “Deputy Communications Director” for the City Attorney's Office — a complete response to a relatively simple records request remains incomplete six weeks after placing the initial request.
Zitrin's first response provided not budgeted data, but actual billed dollar amounts. When subsequently asked to provide budgeted hours and budgeted dollar amounts as initially requested, Zitrin eventually provided just budgeted attorney hours, with no information on how to convert the budgeted hours to budgeted dollars, and failed to include budgeted hours for
FY 14-15.
Based on calculating budgeted hours for the City Attorney, it appears SOTF's budget for FY 13-14 was just $156,253:
Zitrin and Dorsey provided no explanation regarding why the actual billed hours for both FY 12-13 and FY13-14 exceeded the budgeted hours significantly, and they failed to explain two months into the current FY that began July 1, 2014 why the City Attorney is reporting budgeted hours to support the SOTF as still “To Be Determined”:
Of interest, Table 2 shows, the City Attorney's actual billed dollar amount to support the Task Force dropped dramatically in FY 12-13 to just $68,576, in large measure due to the six-month period in which the Task Force was unable to meet because the Board of Supervisors had failed to appoint a disabled member to the Task Force. Zitrin and Dorsey provided
no information as to why the actual billed dollar amount for FY 13-14 jumped to $141,497, nearly $50,000 higher than in FY 11-12.
The Deputy City Attorney (DCA) assigned to the Task Force has two functions:
First, to attend Sunshine Task Force meetings. There was just one additional “special meeting” held in FY 13-14, in addition to the 12 regular meetings. There was no appreciable increase in the number of meetings between FY 11-12 and FY 13-14 to justify a $50,000 increase in actual budgeted hours for City Attorney advice to the Task Force.
The DCA's second function is to assess each Sunshine complaint filed and prepare an instructional memo for the Task Force outlining legal issues involved in each complaint prior to an SOTF hearing on a complaint. Additionally, the DCA is occasionally asked by the Task Force to research and report back on legal issues, but this function in rare.
Zitrin and Dorsey provided no information on why the actual billed amount for FY 13-14 suddenly jumped to $141,497, when based on just 225 budgeted hours, the budget should have been approximately $25,967, as shown in Table 1. They also provided no information on why the 225 budgeted hours for FY 13-14 soared to 658 hours, 433 hours higher than budgeted.
And Zitrin and Dorsey provided no explanation as to why the actual billed hours for FY 13-14 was 221 hours higher than in FY 11-12, or what required 658 DCA billed hours in FY 13-14.
Since announcing the reduction in hours he will be allowed attend Task Force meetings, DCA Colla has not attended the second meeting of the Task Force in August and probably won't in September, and has been observed during the Task Force's regular meetings on August 6 and September 3 to leave the meetings at around 9:00 p.m., prior to meeting adjournment. The cutback in his support to the Task Force appears to be restricted to approximately five hours per meeting.
The $50,000 increase in actual billed dollars between FY 11-12 and FY 13-14 to just $141,497 in City Attorney time to support the SOTF pales in comparison to the $41.1 million in total pay (including overtime) paid to City Attorney staff (excluding fringe benefits) in Calendar Year 2013. The $50,000 increase is a drop in Herrera's $41 million salaries bucket.
Rather than expanding the Task Force's budget, City Attorney Dennis Herrera appears to be starving SOTF's budgeted support. But why would he do that?
Analysis of Sunshine Complaints
One possible answer to why the City may be further starving SOTF's budget may be explained by the number of Sunshine complaints filed with the Task Force, even though the SOTF has no control over how many complaints against City departments are filed each year.
As the pie chart below shows, during calendar years 2012 and 2013 there were a total of 150 Sunshine complaints filed, 29 of which involved San Francisco Legislative Branch (Board of Supervisors) and six of which involved the Executive Branch (the Mayor and his various sub-departments). Between them, the Legislative and Executive Branches received nearly one-quarter of Sunshine complaints filed.
Add on to that the 14 Sunshine complaints filed against the City Attorney or the City Attorney's Office, which push the total to 49 complaints between the City Attorney and Legislative and Executive Branches, well over one-third of the complaints.
Then, another 30 complaints were filed against the MTA, MTA's Board of Directors, and five other City Departments who each had four or more Sunshine complaints filed against them.
Between the seven departments — the City Attorney's Office, MTA, the Public Library and its Library Commission, the City Controller's Office, the Community Housing Partnership, Department of Public Works, and the Recreation and Parks Department — plus the Legislative and Executive Branches, fully 79 of the 150 complaints (53%) were against approximately just nine City departments.
By way of contrast, the remaining 71 complaints (47% of 150) were spread across 30 other City departments.
Although the Task Force has no control over how many Sunshine Ordinance complaints are filed, or against which City departments, it appears the Task Force is being starved of budgeted resources to deal with the caseload of complaints.
While the Ethics Commission now seems to be taking back some of its oversight responsibilities and appear to be reigning in Mr. St. Croix somewhat, the problem of Task Force member David Pilpel violating ex parte communications restrictions remains. Both the Ethics Commission and the Sunshine Task Force need to reign in Pilpel, and implement Civil Grand Jury recommendations.
The City desperately needs to increase budgeted support to the Sunshine Task Force. After all, budgeting $200,000 to $300,000 to support the Task Force annually, while providing $2.6 million to the Ethics Commission, is clearly inequitable.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. He received the Society of Professional Journalists–Northern California Chapter's James Madison Freedom of Information Award in the Advocacy category in March 2012. Feedback: mailto:monette-shaw@westsideobserver.
[1] Government Code 34090 is contained in California's Title IV “Government of Cities,” Division 1 “Cities Generally,” Article 4, “Miscellaneous.”
[2] The Ethics Commission's annual budget hovers at $4.5 million, a significant portion of which is dedicated to public financing of campaigns; the Ethics Commission's actual operating budget for FY 12-13 was $2,256,239, and is $2,625,384 for FY 14-15.
September 2014
Laguna Honda Hospital: “Where Do They Go?”
The Big Squeeze: Dys-Integration of “Old Friends”
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
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Laguna Honda Dospital allowed the use of this photo of younger LHH patients as part oa a campaign mailer in 2006 to convince voters not to pass Prop "D" that would have preserved LHH for the elderly, since pshcho-social rehab patients were a priority. Eight years later, where's the City's concern about where the elderly will go? |
Are our “Old Friends” — the elderly and people with disabilities — being dys-integrated right out of San Francisco, along with other populations being squeezed out and displaced out-of-county? Where do they all go?
That's one question.
Other questions involve myriad problems at Laguna Honda Hospital, including broad service reductions. Then there's the question of why the City racked up $3.8 million dollars in City Attorney time and expenses pursuing a lawsuit that recovered just $15 million of $70 million in alleged design and construction errors in the rebuild of LHH's new facility, netting just $11 million after City Attorney time and expenses.
In 1999, when voters approved the bonds to rebuild LHH for our “Old Friends,”… those over the age of 75 was 52%. Not any more…"
In the Westside Observer's March issue, former Laguna Honda physicians Maria Rivero and Derek Kerr summarized Laguna Honda Hospital's (LHH) changing patient demographics, and posed thoughtful questions, including:
“What happens to ‘Old Friends' who can no longer care for themselves? Where do they go? And who checks whether the care they receive elsewhere is comparable to care provided in the new $595 million Laguna Honda [Hospital]?”
Kerr and Rivero's questions are astute, given news that San Francisco's Health Commission and the Department of Public Health are relying on a May 2011 analysis — now three years old, and out of date — prepared by Resource Development Associates, which DPH had commissioned, that projected then a shortage of 700 skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds in San Francisco just over 30 years from now. Given the analysis is sadly out of date, is the 700-bed shortage now much worse?
The report noted that the number of San Franciscans over the age of 75 is expected to increase by almost two-thirds over the next 20 years. Data presented to Supervisor David Campos on March 20 by the Department of Aging and Adult Services shows that just six years from now in 2020, San Francisco's population of residents over the age of 60 will increase by 37,761 — a 26 percent increase. During the same six years, San Franciscans over the age of 85 will increase by 24,600 (a 73 percent increase), representing two-thirds of the increase of those over the age of 60.
Factor in the current trend of conversion of long-term care SNF beds to short-term care SNF beds throughout California, exacerbating the shortage of long-term care SNF beds.
On March 20, the State of California's long-term care Ombudsman for San Francisco — who has jurisdiction involves oversight over skilled nursing facilities and residential care homes — Benson Nadell, testified to the Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee, saying:
“This is not just [about] giving people the option of not going to nursing homes, there aren't any [nursing homes]. In addition, there are not any low-income or affordable care homes in the City as well, and so the squeeze is on.”
As in: Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeze out-of-county.
Where will all of these people go, and how many will be displaced out-of-county? And what about reports of other troubling issues involving LHH?
Patient Demographic Shifts Displace Frail Elderly
In March, Kerr and Rivero reported that for the first time in memory, women and the elderly over age 75 have become minorities in LHH. In 1999, when voters approved the bonds to rebuild LHH for our “Old Friends,” fully 56% of LHH's residents were female. By 2013, female patients dropped by 15% to just 41%, while the percentage of male patients increased 15%, from 44% to 59%. The percentage of patients over the age of 65 dropped 20% between 1999 and 2013, from 67% to just 47%. In 1999, those over the age of 75 was 52%. Not any more, due to a variety of changes at LHH.
In January, the Department of Public Health finally announced that it would begin providing data on the number of Laguna Honda patients being discharged out of county beginning in 2014 and going forward. DPH reported in January that 12% of discharges from LHH between September and December 2013 were to out-of-county locations.
But it has adamantly refused to provide historical data on the number of patients discharged from, or diverted from admission to, LHH that were subsequently discharged or diverted out-of-county since 2003.
Just two weeks after Kerr's article in the March Observer, DPH and the Department of Aging and Adult (DAAS) services made a pitch before the Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee on March 20, requesting a $3 million increase in FY 14-15 to funding for the so-called Community Living Fund that was established to provide community-based “supports” to prevent placement in long-term care skilled nursing facilities, or provide services post-discharge from a SNF, or for those who choose to “age in place” at home. While Hinton and Garcia have been unwilling to release data on out-of-county discharges to Supervisor Campos for now going on three months, they nonetheless had the chutzpa to request $3 million in additional funding for the “Community Living Fund,” without telling Campos where the elderly are being discharged to.
Mayor Ed Lee — despite hobnobbing with billionaire backer Ron Conway — apparently didn't lift a finger and didn't request the $3 million increase for the Community Living Fund in his budget submission to the Board of Supervisors. Of the $23 million in adjustments the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee made re-arranging the Mayor's FY 14-15 budget, the Community Living Fund received an increase of just $200,000. Of $18.4 million in adjustments the Budget Committee made to the Mayor's second-year, FY 15-16 budget, the Community Living Fund received nothing.
Admirably, Supervisor David Campos peppered Director of Public Health Barbara Garcia and DAAS' Executive Director, Anne Hinton on discharge location data in an effort to learn whether patients are being “integrated” into San Francisco communities, or whether they are being “integrated” in out-of-county communities. Both Hinton and Garcia did their level best to claim they had no way of tracking discharge data by location and type of facility, and that the aggregate data (scrubbed of any patient identifiers) might be protected somehow under the HIPPA law protecting patient's medical records, a claim that is complete nonsense. DPH had already provided before March a limited amount of aggregate out-of-county discharge data for 2013, without violating HIPPA.
Hinton at first asserted during Campos' March 20 hearing that she would have no way of knowing any discharge or diversion data, until this reporter testified during Campos' hearing that under the Chambers settlement agreement, a Diversion and Community Integration Program (DCIP) was required by the U.S. Department of Justice. I testified that both DPH and DAAS have seats on the DCIP screening panel that reviews admission packets for requests for admission to LHH, a fact Hinton had to have known.
Hinton quickly changed her tune with Campos, creatively claiming she hadn't understood the question Campos had asked her. She remained disingenuous about availability of the discharge data.
Indeed, it turns out that it was DAAS that had contracted with a company named RTZ Associates to develop a database for the DCIP component. Since 2003, RTZ has been paid at least $5.6 million to develop 10 to 12 different components of the SF GetCare database. How Hinton claimed to Supervisor Campos that she would have no way of knowing this data, when it was her department that had contracted for the DCIP component and continues to pay annual maintenance fees, is not known, but she may have deliberately and intentionally mislead Campos.
Mere Trickle of Data
Following a month in which Supervisor Norman's Yee's legislative aide Olivia Scanlon proved to be not at all helpful in trying to obtain out-of-county discharge data from DPH and DAAS, on April 29 Campos' legislative aide Carolyn Goossen submitted a list of seven explicit question on behalf of Supervisor Campos to Hinton and Garcia seeking data on both discharges from LHH and diversion from LHH admission data between 2007 and May 2014. The seven-year period is significant since the Chambers settlement agreement was adopted in 2007.
True to form, Garcia and Hinton on behalf of DPH and DAAS dragged their feet. Kelly Hiramoto, the Acting Director of Transitions for DPH's San Francisco Health Network, finally responded 30 days later on May 29 to Campos on behalf of DPH. Hinton appears to have never responded to Campos. Hiramoto was ostensibly responding on behalf of Director Garcia, and perhaps Hinton.
Hiramoto claimed on May 29 that “The data that was collected is incomplete. The software program designed to capture the data did not work as designed.” When pressed for details, Nancy Sarieh, DPH's public information officer, wildly claimed on June 9 that the software that didn't work as designed was the SF GetCare database RTZ Associates has been paid $5.6 million to develop and maintain between 2003 and 2014.
If the software doesn't function as designed, why have DPH and DAAS continued to pay for annual maintenance and support to the tune of $5.6 million during the past decade?
Concerned about the potential for reputational harm to RTZ, I contacted RTZ's founder, Dr. Rick Zawadski — who is a nationally-recognized authority on long-term care policy — for comment. Zawadski said on June 23, “RTZ Associates stands behind the functionality and integrity of the software we have developed for the City of San Francisco. Any data fields related to LHH Diversions requested by the City of San Francisco are fully functional and work as designed.”
So much for DPH's nonsense that the software doesn't work.
DPH's Misinformation Presented to Supervisor Campos
For good measure, Hiramoto tossed into her May 29 response to Supervisor Campos, “We did not collect the data in a reportable manner for the years not included.” Hiramoto provided just three years worth of data to Campos, but excluded seven years of data, claiming the data wasn't in a “reportable” format. Hiramoto offered no explanation of how three years of the data could be in a reportable format, but the other seven years were not.
She did send Campos a three-inch, three-ring binder containing reports from the Targeted Case Management (TCM) program that was also required by the Chambers settlement agreement, and two LHH-Joint Conference Committee reports already provided to this columnist, claiming the binder covered the time period requested. That claim was also untrue, since the reports covered only January 2006 to May 2009, and excludes both data between March 2004 and December 2005 after the Targeted Case Management program was implemented, and excludes any data whatsoever between June 2009 and June 2014.
The data that DPH provided to Supervisor Campos' office only in hardcopy format included TCM monthly reports for eight months in 2006 (the May, June, October, and November monthly reports for 2006 were missing), nine months in 2007 (the May, October, and November monthly reports for 2007 were missing), 11 months in 2008, (the November monthly report for 2008 was missing), and just three reports for 2009, including one report for January, a quarterly report for January-February-March, and a third report for April and May 2009.
The hardcopy printouts supplied to Campos shows that between January 2006 and May 2009 there had been at least 143 TCM clients discharged from LHH and an untold number of non-TCM program discharges. Luckily, historical trend-line graphs embedded in the limited reports provided to Campos do show that between March 2004 and May 2009 there were a total of 671 TCM admissions and a total of 262 TCM discharges. And the reports show that in just the two-year period between February 2007 and January 2009 there were another 188 SFGH patients diverted from admission to LHH.
There was no data provided showing diversions from LHH from hospitals and other facilities other than SFGH, but since the TCM and DCIP programs are thought to have tracked referrals from other referring facilities, and patients requesting LHH placement from their homes, there had to have been other diversions from LHH admission between 2007 and 2009, in addition to the 188 SFGH patients diverted from LHH admission that we know about.
And Hinton and Garcia provided no data whatsoever about the number of SFGH or other referring facility “diversion” from LHH admission during the ensuing five-year period between 2009 and 2014.
Between the total TCM discharges and the SFGH patients diverted, we're talking about at least 452 patients that DPH and DAAS are unwilling to admit how many were discharged out of county. As Kerr and Rivero asked, where do these patients go? If the Targeted Case Management program and the Diversion and Community Integration Programs were so successful at placing patients back into the community, why are DPH and DAAS so desperately trying to hide the out-of-county discharge data from both San Francisco's citizens, and our very Board of Supervisors we expect to make informed policy decisions?
Could it be these patients are not being “integrated” into San Francisco communities, but are being integrated into out-of-county communities?
Can it be, as observers suspect, that LHH patients and diverted patients are being dumped out-of-county along with the vast displacement of long-term San Franciscan's displaced out-of-county caused by the hot real estate market? How many people were diverted from admission to LHH over the past decade? Where did they go?
As of the end of June, DPH continues to refuse providing even a simple list of the field names included in the SFGetCare, TCM, and DCIP modules of RTZ's database systems custom-developed for DPH and DAAS, claiming there were “no responsive records” to a request for the underlying “data dictionary” listing the field names. That's hogwash, too, since every database worth its salt has an easily-printable data dictionary underlying the database architecture, as any first-year information technology student knows is true.
RTZ's Robust System Components
On June 9, Nancy Sarieh, Public Information Officer (PIO) for DPH replied to a follow-up public records request that “the software program involved that did not work as designed is SF GetCare.” It appears Sarieh didn't know what she was talking about, and just grabbed spin control out of her PIO kit-bag, clueless.
In October 2003, DPH first contracted with RTZ Associations to streamline Laguna Honda Hospital's discharge planning processes and increase access to community-based services, by developing a software application called “SF GetCare” that initially included a core discharge planning module rolled out in 2003.
Enhancements implemented across the past decade have been vast, and significant. It has evolved into a comprehensive, robust, data information system to coordinate services across various San Francisco county programs, in collaboration with both the Department of Public Health and the Department of Aging and Adult Services.
“SF GetCare” was expanded to include a DPH housing placement component, a component upgraded in FY 09-10, again in FY 12-13, and apparently upgraded again in FY 13-14. The component includes a searchable directory of housing resources for the Department of Public Health's “Direct Access to Housing” program. An optional upgrade for hospital discharge planners and community-based case managers to allow on-line applications for the Direct Access to Housing program was developed, but it is not known whether the Direct Access to Housing application form was added in FY 13-14 to the housing placement component currently used for other components of DPH-supported housing programs.
Another component of SF GetCare is an SFGH placement component to support the identification and disposition of discharge-ready patients to allow nurses, social workers, psychiatrists, eligibility and placement staff, and others to manage the discharge of patients from SFGH, and identify discharge placement settings to meet patient needs and preferences.
During FY 09-10, RTZ designed, tested, and deployed a module at its own expense as an in-kind contribution, an “Administrator on Duty” component for LHH to support hospitalwide communications across the three shifts of staff. LHH has since assumed responsibility for support of this module, but RTZ continues to provide bug fixes until funding for the full features for this component is found.
In July 2008, the Department of Aging and Adult Services contracted with RTZ to develop an information system to support the operational needs of the then newly-developed “Diversion and Community Integration Program” mandated by the Chambers settlement agreement against the City and LHH, and to meet reporting requirements, presumably reports to the U.S. Department of Justice to monitor compliance with the Chambers settlement agreement. The DCIP component includes a discrete sub-system within SF GetCare that pulls information from LHH, Targeted Case Management, and Community Living Fund datasets to create an integrated client management systems. During FY 10-11, RTZ enhanced the DCIP component.
In September 2009, the Department of Aging and Adult Services again contracted with RTZ to develop the California GetCare system to meet local data collection and management needs around state and federal reporting for three specialty-funded services. In FY 10-11 RTZ began developing an intake and assessment (I&A) module to expand the initial features of SF Get Care.
By May 2012, DAAS had determined it needed to expand the I&A module to eliminate duplication of assessments and data entry activities. The new system, launched in March 2013, allows DAAS to complete a single assessment for consumers who need to receive multiple community-based services, including transitional care, community living fund services, home-delivered meals, and in-home supportive services. Phase 1 of a system to allow consumers, caregivers, and discharge planners to create personal accounts to complete intake applications for these multiple community-based services was launched in April 2013.
DAAS had RTZ add a new “case management” component to SF GetCare for community-based case managers to track progress notes, various client assessments, service plans, and medication management, which may have been added to the contract with RTZ.
In April 2012, DAAS contracted with RTZ to develop a “Transitional Care Program” system to support the operational needs and reporting requirements to track “coaching” and care coordination services for patients being discharged from acute-care hospital settings for “Transition Specialists.” A “list bill administration” enhancement was added to this component to ensure that DAAS receives reimbursement from vendors approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for each case.
An optional, already-implemented, or a pending enhancement to the RTZ suite of system components includes a new component to assist managing “behavioral health” — formerly known as “mental health services” — services that may have been included in the City's contract with RTZ Associates during FY 2013-2014.
Ms. Hiramoto's and Ms. Sarieh's claims the RTZ software didn't “work as designed” is nonsense, in part because of the robust components added to the SFGetCare database over the past decade.
Reasonable observers are now wondering whether the Community Living Fund might have received its full $3 million requested increase, had DPH and DAAS not stalled so long being completely evasive about out-of-county discharge data.
Pathetic Resolution to a $70 Million Lawsuit
In 2011, the City of San Francisco filed a Superior Court case against Anshen + Allen and Stantec Architecture alleging $70 million in defective performance, and design and construction errors on the rebuild of Laguna Honda Hospital. The case was subsequently transferred to Alameda County when the architects' lawyers claimed they couldn't receive a fair trial in San Francisco.
On November 19, 2013, the Board of Supervisors considered an initial proposed settlement with Stantec estimated to recover just $19 million of the alleged $70 million in design and construction errors. By May 2014, the proposed settlement agreement shrank to just $15 million, representing just 21 percent of the $70 million in deficiencies the City had initially alleged.
On October 3, 2013, City Controller Ben Rosenfield advised the Citizen's General Bond Oversight Committee (CGOBOC, pronounced “go-bok”) that if debt service on a bond measure is not paid off, and if “surplus funds” of a bond measure (perhaps recovered during lawsuits) subsequently surface, it may become a policy matter for the Board to determine how to use surplus funds, rather than returning them to the City's General Fund. Rosenfield noted that if there is outstanding debt, remaining balances can be applied to reduce debt service. If the debt service is paid off, the surplus can be applied to the General Fund. Trouble is, the LHH rebuild bond measure debt has not been paid off.
The $15 million purportedly recovered as a result of the lawsuit should have more appropriately been applied to a) Paying down the debt on the general obligation bonds voters approved to construct the new LHH; b) Use to correct remaining construction problems at LHH, or to re-instate elements of the proposed rebuild that were eliminated from the project scope during “scope reductions,” including the ADA-accessible pathway on the top half of the hill to the old main entrance the LHH's now administrative wings that has still not been constructed; or c) Reserving the funds for building desperately-needed assisted living facilities promised to voters in the November 1999 voter guide when voters approved Prop A to rebuild LHH.
The Department of Public Works project manager for the LHH Rebuild project, John Thomas, testified during the October 15, 2013 meeting of the Health Department's LHH-Joint Conference Committee, that the City's lawsuit against Stantec Consulting Services Inc. and Stantec Architecture Inc. to recover $70 million in design and construction errors from the architects hired to design the LHH replacement facility — Anshen + Allen, which was subsequently acquired by Stantec Consulting — was moved to Alameda County Superior Court, with the lawsuit being “fronted” using funds from the LHH Rebuild bond measure.
Thomas' testimony was a shocking revelation that bond money for a capital improvement project was being diverted from actual construction to legal costs instead, an accounting switcheroo that observers believe is not permitted under bond financing rules. Legal fees for lawsuits should come from subaccounts set up in the General Fund to handle legal cases.
After Mayor Ed Lee finally signed the Board of Supervisors ordinance passed June 10 on a “second reading” to settle the lawsuit, the City Attorney's Office admitted on June 24 that it had spent $3.8 million in City Attorney time and expenses — including 11,400 hours of City Attorney time between 2001 and 2014 — mounting and pursuing the lawsuit.
One remaining question is whether the $3.8 million legal tab “fronted” from the bonds to rebuild LHH was restored to the LHH rebuild project budget. Another question is whether the October 2013 proposed settlement of $19 million was reduced to just $15 million, in order to set aside the $3.8 million in City legal costs.
After all, any legal fees diverted from the bond to cover this lawsuit should also be returned to the project budget to restore features to the replacement hospital that were eliminated during scope reduction.
Settling for just 21% of the design and construction errors is a slap in the face to San Franciscans, who are in effect being asked to shoulder over $50 million in design and construction errors on this replacement project, as if $50 million is chump change and not of concern to voters. Surely, Anshen + Allen / Stantec have more culpability for the additional $50 million variance in design and construction errors than it acknowledged.
It appears that the Board of Supervisors took no action and allowed the $15 million settlement to be placed into the General Fund.
Broad Service Reductions at LHH
Service reductions at Laguna Honda have been underway for at least a decade, when the hospital began focusing on short-term care, rather than on long-term care. Since moving into its replacement facility in December 2010, LHH's focus on short-term care has accelerated.
As Ombudsman Benson Nadell testified to Supervisor Campos on March 20:
“There is a crisis. We don't have enough nursing home beds. They are gone. Most of the nursing home beds now specialize in short-term rehabilitation, including San Francisco's Jewish Home and Laguna Honda. The push is to get the people out.
For the past ten years, most of [the Ombudsman's] case [load] has to do with discharge planning and the people being pushed out and returned to the community with inadequate services and inadequate discharge planning.”
Nadell added that there are many patients who cannot participate in the Department of Public Health's system centered on providing services in the community rather than at Laguna Honda. Once patients are discharged from rehabilitation services, they often cannot participate in programs created to supplant care at LHH.
As noted at the beginning of this article, Nadell testified: “This is not just [about] giving people the option of not going to nursing homes, there aren't any [nursing homes].”
Short-Term 60-Day Rehabilitation
Data presented to the Health Commission on January 28, 2014 illuminates LHH's focus on short-term care. Commissioners were informed that LHH has just 49 short-stay skilled nursing facility (SNF) physical medicine rehabilitation beds.
In the three-year period between 2011 and 2013, the focus on “get 'em in, then get 'em out” resulted in an increase of new admissions to the hospital from 380 admissions in 2011, to 449 admissions in 2013. The behind-the-scenes operating philosophy of the physiatrists — a physician specialty focusing on physical medicine rehabilitation — has been for over a decade-and-a-half, “the patient is walking, get them out.”
It's a philosophical mind-set often dismaying to LHH clinicians in other specialties who believe that many patients who had re-learned to walk still had significant unresolved rehabilitation needs, such as upper-body rehabilitation or speech pathology needs to prevent choking while eating, and were being discharged prematurely, potentially leading to re-admission or poorer post-discharge outcomes.
It is not known whether LHH's Chief of Rehabilitation Services, Dr. Lisa Pascual, and LHH's physiatry physicians are permitted to determine during medical records of review of rehabilitation admission referrals whether patients who exceed the 60-day short-term (or formerly, the longer 90-day) rehab length of stay may be denied admission, and whether they have, in fact, denied admission of patients needing longer rehabilitation courses of treatment.
But what is known, is that at least one patient at SFGH who had sought admission to LHH for rehabilitation services was denied admission in recent memory, told that he needed “too much” rehabilitation. He languished for months on an acute-care SFGH unit at acute-care hospital billing rates until he was discharged to Antioch to a skilled nursing facility specializing in dementia patients, socially and culturally isolated from friends and family, and with nobody to communicate with, given the number of dementia patients.
Across fiscal year 2012–2013 to fiscal year 2013–2014, acute rehabilitation admissions to LHH's Rehab Services Department dropped from 40 to just 26.
No data was presented to the Health Commission indicating what becomes of patients who require long-term rehabilitation longer than 60 days, and whether those rehab patients are diverted to the few remaining facilities that provide longer-term rehabilitation. Where do patients who have suffered traumatic brain injuries and need 90-day rehab care go? Out of county?
Functional Maintenance Program Moved to Nursing
Leading up to 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division investigated reports of neglect and premature functional decline of patients on LHH's long-term care wards.
As a result, LHH hired three rehabilitation therapists, one each in Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Pathology, who were charged with developing a “functional maintenance program” (also known as “restorative care”) to address the DOJ's concerns about patient neglect and premature physical decline.
Following a year researching best practices and developing a staffing proposal, four Rehabilitation Therapy Aides were hired in 2000 for a Restorative Care Level I program centralized in the Rehabilitation Services Department, supervised by licensed rehabilitation therapists. A separate, but companion, Restorative Care Level II program was created in the Nursing Department to provide unit-based daily therapeutic modalities supervised by nurses.
The restorative care program implemented was successful, and the DOJ closed its Civil Rights investigation. The Restorative Care Level I program was expanded over the years, and currently has seven Rehabilitation Therapy Aides.
But that's suddenly about to change, when the Therapy Aides are transferred from the centralized Rehab Services Department to the Nursing Department on July 1, 2014 and will be based on the wards (“neighborhood” units”).
It is not yet clear whether the aides will continue providing Level I rehab treatments as a ward-based program under the supervision of licensed physical medicine clinicians, whether Nursing staff will provide the Level I supervision possibly in violation of State law, or whether those Level I rehab treatment modalities will be eliminated, potentially angering the DOJ's Civil Rights Division and bringing on a new investigation of LHH.
As if preventing premature functional decline of the elderly is no longer of concern to the DOJ, or no longer a core mission of Laguna Honda Hospital.
Health Commission's Failure Preventing SNF-Bed Crisis
Across the past decade-and-a-half, the Health Commission has held several hearings to consider the negative impact on the reduction of skilled nursing beds by private hospitals in San Francisco. St. Mary's, St. Francis, CPMC and other hospital-based skilled nursing facilities have either reduced the number of their licensed SNF beds, or have converted them to short-term rehabilitation rather than to longer-term rehabilitation or long-term care.
Yet the Health Commission has never adopted resolutions asserting that the loss of those beds would have — and already have had — detrimental impacts on the health of San Franciscans. Of course there have been negative impacts, including an untold number of out-of-county discharges.
Indeed, the Health Commission never held a public hearing to assess the detrimental impact of eliminating 420 of LHH's SNF beds from the rebuild of LHH's replacement facility. Instead, during a closed session of the Health Commission on January 22, 2008, the Health Commission voted to accept the Chambers lawsuit settlement that eliminated LHH's 420 SNF beds, and did so without any open-session public discussion of the probable detrimental effects such bed elimination would cause throughout San Francisco.
Now six years later, DPH's Deputy Director and Director of Policy and Planning, Colleen Chawla, presented the Health Commission with an analysis of CPMC's newest proposed reduction of skilled nursing beds sprung on the City after its Cathedral Hill Hospital project was approved and a deal cut to preserve St. Luke's Hospital in the Mission District.
Chawla presented Commissioners with a compelling analysis dated June 12, 2014 that projects a shortage of 700 skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds in San Francisco just over 30 years from now, and the detrimental impact the closure of CPMC's SNF beds will have on San Franciscans.
Chawla astutely notes that a 2012 report issued by San Francisco's Department of Aging:
“… affirms concern regarding San Francisco's ability to meet the long-term care needs of seniors and adults with disabilities. … The number of Medi-Cal funded beds in the City's SNF's has dropped dramatically. As a result, many seniors and persons with disabilities who require long-term care are forced to move outside the city, away from family and friends, becoming socially and culturally isolated in the later years of their lives.
Despite the focus on increasing community-based long-term care as an alternative to institutional care, data from the Health Care Services Master Plan indicates a clear and increasing need for SNF beds in San Francisco. … the industry trend toward conversion of long-term beds to short-term beds means that any reduction of SNF beds, regardless of type, creates an overall capacity risk for San Francisco and is likely to have a detrimental impact on health care service [to San Franciscan's] in the community.”
Although some of Chawla's data are out of date, she's clearly right that there will be a detrimental impact.
Hopefully, the Health Commission will finally pay close attention to Ms. Chawla's dire predictions:
Ombudson Nadell's Other Concerns
As noted above, Skilled Nursing Facility Obudsman Nadell presented oral testimony to the Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee on March 20 that there aren't any nursing home beds remaining. Although Resource Development Associates' May 2011 report for DPH reported that by 2050 San Francisco will only have 1,619 SNF beds, Nadell presented his analysis to the Board of Supervisors reporting different data.
He asserts that of 2,225 current long-term care SNF beds, approximately 40% have been converted to short-term rehabilitation beds for reasons of cost, taking long-term care beds “off-line.” He notes 920 Medi-Cal certified SNG beds were reassigned to additional rehabilitation utilization. The adjusted total is just 1,305 Medi-Cal beds, not the 1,619 Resource Development Associates calculated three years ago would be available 36 years from now in 2050..
Nadell reports that over the past 20 years, San Francisco has lost over 900 long-term care Medi-Cal beds.
Nadell included the following vignette in his report:
“In February 2014 Mission Bay nursing home in the Potrero District [closed], with a [loss] of 50 available Medi-Cal beds in the community. [The] remaining residents — all mono-lingual Cantonese speakers — [were] being transferred to nursing homes in the East Bay, where most staff do not speak Cantonese.
So the trend into the future in San Francisco is the increased loss of Medi-Cal nursing homes beds. This is part of the expensive real estate market in [San Francisco].”
The projection that San Francisco will be short 700 skilled nursing beds by 2050 — which Resource Development Associates may not have analyzed three years ago — ignores a key issue involving the number of licensed beds, and the number of beds actually “staffed” or utilized.
DPH's Director of Policy and Planning, Colleen Chawla, presented her June 12, 2014 analysis to the Health Commission, in which she notes that “licensed beds” are the maximum permitted under each facility's license; “available beds” are those that physically exist and are available for use; and “staffed beds” are those that are set up, staffed and being used.
Chawla did not include for Health Commissioner's edification a table of 14 hospitals in San Francisco a list of how many of the total licensed 1,586 hospital-based skilled nursing beds are actually “available” beds' vs. “staffed beds,” but she did provide as one example that of 212 currently licensed SNF beds across CPMCs four campuses, it has just 99 “staffed beds,” which CPMC seeks to slash by 24, to just 75 staffed beds. (This is after CPMC cut additional SNF bed capacity earlier in 2014.)
CPMC admits two amazing facts: First, of its current 99 staffed SNF beds, CPMC's “average daily census” includes just 68 patients, despite having a license for 212 SNF beds. This is a common practice in hospital-based skilled nursing facilities: To keep the average daily census as low as possible.
Second, CPMC testified to the Health Commissioners on June 17 that CMPC's SNF patients among its average daily census have an average “length-of-stay” of 14 to 15 days — just two weeks — far shorter than the 60-day (two month) short-term rehab at Laguna Honda and far shorter than the previous industry standard of 90-day rehabilitation stays.
It is not yet known whether any of the three problems — the lower number of overall staffed beds, the average daily census issue, and the average length of stays — were factored in to the Resource Development Associates analysis projecting a shortage of 700 SNF beds just 30 years from now, or whether those three problems may push the 700-bed shortage far higher.
Exacerbating issues further, Nadell notes, is the loss of bed-and-care beds in the City, also fueled by the hot real estate market. Other types of long-term care facilities are also being scaled back.
Following Nadell's report to Supervisor Campos on March 20, news surfaced that the University Mound Ladies Home —a 72-bed Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE) located in San Francisco's Portola neighborhood at 350 University Street that has operated for over 130 years — is evicting its 53 residents, most of whom are in their late 80's or early 90's.
University Mound's Board of Trustees — whose president of the Board is Mary Louise Fleming, Laguna Honda Hospital's former Director of Nursing — issued eviction notices to residents, family members, and other representatives in early May, indicating the closure was due to insurmountable debt. The board informed residents that the building was closing, citing debt load, and an imbalance of revenue and expenditures.
At a rally in Civic Center Plaza on May 30, San Francisco Supervisor David Campos shared his support for University Mound residents, saying “the city has an obligation to step in.” Campos indicated he is working with the mayor's office to add $300,000 to this year's budget to keep University Mound open for at least another year, saying that if it closes, it will send the wrong message to the elderly. Campos said he is working to rescind the July 10 eviction deadline.
The Board's Budget Committee adjustments to the Mayor's budget doesn't list any funds to keep University Mound open.
The squeeze is on, all over the City.
CPMC Suddenly Reconfigures St. Luke's
After Mayor Lee proposed a really rotten deal in 2012 granting CPMC permission to build's its “destination hospital” on Van Ness Avenue and build just an 80-bed hospital at St. Luke's in the Mission District, the Board of Supervisors balked at the initial 80-bed agreement the Mayor had negotiated. They balked, in part, because although CPMC had pledged to keep St. Luke's open for 20 years, the original agreement with the Mayor also contained a trigger that would allow CPMC to close St. Luke's if CPMC's systemwide operating margin fell below one percent for two years in a row.
Back in June 2012, the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported that Supervisor Malia Cohen had “criticized CPMC as an untrustworthy negotiating partner. ‘CPMC has an interesting corporate culture,' she said, noting that the company has repeatedly misled supervisors and community leaders, accusing it of being ‘disingenuous in its negotiations'.”
The Bay Guardian reported that Campos had serious concerns of his own, reporting:
“Campos said this latest episode only added to his suspicion that CPMC will play games with its finances to shutter St. Luke's – whose construction must be completed before CPMC can build Cathedral Hill Hospital – once it gets the lucrative regional medical center that it really wants.
How do we know they aren't transferring money out of CPMC into Sutter in order to shut down St. Luke's?, Campos said, adding that he wants to see a clear guarantee that St. Luke's will remain open as a full-service hospital.”
Lead by Supervisors David Campos and Mark Farrell, and assisted by Boudin Bakery co-owner and civic leader Lou Giraudo, who led mediations for the revised agreement, a compromise was announced on March 5, 2013, indicating that the Sutter Health affiliate will scale back the size of its planned Cathedral Hill Hospital from 555 beds to 274, and expand the capacity of a rebuilt St. Luke's Hospital in the Mission District from 80 beds to 120.
Fast forward to 2014, and suddenly CMPC resurfaced, apparently continuing to play its games.
On May 1, 2014 CPMC's CEO, Warren Browner, MD, suddenly notified San Francisco's Health Commission that CMPC intends to “realign our skilled nursing facility services. Browner creatively claimed that the realignment did not “trigger” requirements under Proposition Q that the Health Commission would be required to hold a hearing to consider the potential detrimental impact on health care services to San Francisco, wrongly claiming that “skilled nursing facility services” are not covered by Proposition Q. He's wrong, because the November 1998 ballot measure passed by voters requires under Prop Q that private hospitals in San Francisco provide public notice prior to closing hospital inpatient or outpatient services, eliminating or reducing the level of services provided, or selling or transferring management of any hospital services.
Since CMPC's SNF beds are tied to its hospital license, reducing those services automatically qualifies under Prop Q, no matter what Browner creatively claims.
As Chawla's June 2014 memo to the Health Commission notes, CMPC proposed on May 1, 2014 to eliminate all 46 of its staffed SNF beds on its California campus by transferring 18 of the SNF beds to St. Luke's and 4 to its Davies campus, eliminating the other 24 SNG beds altogether. CMPC admits that if the Health Commission approves CPMC's newest proposal, its next step will to petition the State to permanently reduce its total SNF bed license.
CPMC's May 1 proposal will increase St. Luke's SNF beds to a total of 77 SNF beds — 37 of which will be SNF beds, and 40 will be designated as “subacute care” beds. Subacute care is defined as skilled nursing beds for patients who don't require care in an acute hospital, but require more intensive skilled nursing care that is typically provide to the majority of patients in a SNF. Subacute patients are typically medically fragile and require specialized nursing services such as tracheotomy care, IV tube feeding, complex wound management, or inhalation therapy.
What now alarms activists who had worked long and hard to ensure a new, full-service hospital of 120 beds would be built for St. Luke's will be changed to having just 40 acute care hospital beds and 77 SNF beds, a switcheroo CPMC waited to announce until just last May. Reasonable people understand that you can't run a full-service acute-care hospital with just 40 acute care beds.
Activists remain concerned about what other unannounced plans CPMC may have to reconfigure St. Luke's 120 beds after St. Luke's and CMPC's Cathedral Hill Hospital both open their new facilities, and whether this is just the beginning of converting the new St. Luke's from a full-service hospital to other uses.
All of this flies in the face of the Health Care Service Master Plan (HCSMP) developed by the San Francisco Planning Department and the Department of Public Health that was adopted in October 2013. The HCSMP plan indicated a clear and increasing need for SNF beds in Fan Francisco.
CPMC's sudden proposed “realignment” in use of St. Luke's runs counter to the HCSMP, which warned that any reduction of SNF beds, regardless of type, will create an overall capacity risk for San Francisco, and will likely have a detrimental impact on health care services in the community.
Consider your own potential community dys-integration. Don't just ask “where will they go?”
Ask yourself: “Where will I, or a family member, go?” Or ask, “What about me?”
Unless you have the resources to afford $10,000 monthly for long-term skilled nursing care at high-end private facilities such as the San Francisco Towers, The Sequoias in San Francisco, or The Heritage, you should probably plan to begin your search of where you will go, by looking first at out-of-county facilities.
Then start praying for the best.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. He received the Society of Professional Journalists–Northern California Chapter's James Madison Freedom of Information Award in the Advocacy category in March 2012. Feedback: mailto:monette-shaw@westsideobserver.
July/August 2014
Déjà vu: Jerry-Built Appointments to the Sunshine Task Force?
Board of Supervisors Continue Sunshine Retaliation
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Photo: Luke Thomas - FogCityJournal.com |
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
Nearly two years ago to the day, San Francisco Supervisors Scott Wiener, David Chiu, and Mark Farrell engineered throwing off the only disabled member on the Sunshine Task Force, Mr. Bruce Wolfe, in clear retaliation.
They wrongly assumed Wolfe had single-handedly engineered a referral against four members of the Board of Supervisors — Board president David Chiu and Supervisors Eric Mar, Malia Cohen, and Scott Wiener — to the Ethics Commission alleging official misconduct regarding last-minute amendments to the Park Merced development deal withheld from the public.
The Board of Supervisors needs to stop playing politics with appointments to the Sunshine Task Force, and let Task Force members get on with their job of adjudicating disputes between citizens and City officials who skirt the Sunshine Ordinance"
As payback, Mr. Wolfe was thrown off, and the Task Force was unable to meet for six months, between May and November 2012.
Three toadies appointed to the Task Force in 2012 — Louise Fischer, Todd David, and David Pilpel — set out, but were unable, to quell 19 additional complaints against the Board of Supervisors, its various subcommittees, or individually-named Supervisors lodged against the Board between 2012 and 2014 during the two-year terms of the toadies appointed in 2012. That represents at least 16% of complaints filed with the Task Force over the intervening three-year period. Farrell and the Board aren't happy that Sunshine complaints against them keep rolling right in.
In 2012, the City Hall Family also wanted to quell complaints against the Mayor's office, which racked up 10 complaints between 2012 and 2014, for 5.1% of complaints following installation of the toadies.
The City Attorney's Office had 18 Sunshine complaints filed against it during the same timeframe, for 9.2% of the total. MUNI faced 8 complaints. And the Arts Commission gobbled fully 20.5% of all Sunshine complaints, with a staggering 40 complaints. Combined, 55% of complaints filed between 2012 and 2014 involved just five prominent City departments, nearly half of them against the Executive and Legislative branches of City government. No small wonder Scott Wiener and David Chiu remain pissed off, and in search of toadies.
On Tuesday, June 10, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors are scheduled to consider six more appointees to San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, after the Board of Supervisors left several appointments to the Task Force vacant for over two years in a fit of pique. Of 11 seats on the Task Force, as of June 4, 2014, three were vacant and unfilled.
This has proven to be disastrous for citizens seeking to have their complaints regarding access to public meetings or access to public records heard in a timely manner before the very Sunshine adjudicatory body voters approved be established over 20 years ago.
The mainstream media have failed to report this ugly affair and the Board of Supervisors failure to make appointments to this watchdog body.
On May 20, the Board of Supervisors re-appointed the three weakest possible candidates to the Task Force; the three incumbents re-appointed are considered by open government advocates as fawning, “controllable” toadies. On June 5, the Rules Committee advanced the names of six more applicants to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration and appointment, which it should have done a month ago on May 15.
And still not decided, is which of two applicants who are disabled will be recommended by Rules to the full Board for consideration, since that matter was continued June 5 to a future Rules Committee meeting.
On June 6, the San Francisco Bay Guardian published an article on its blog regarding the Rules Committee's June 5 hearing in which it advanced the recommendations for six of the remaining eight seats on the Task Force.
Dr. Derek Kerr posted insightful comments to that blog noting:
“Everyone wants to turn the page on this sad chapter, but re-writing history won't work. Bay Area journalists, the ACLU, League of Women Voters, government watchdogs and hundreds of engaged citizens know what happened.”
What follows are details about the back story of skullduggery by members of the Board of Supervisors hoping to curtail open government, so corruption can run rampant dancing up and down the halls at City Hall. This article seeks to preserve recent history leading up to the June 10 hearing, since it is expected that there will be a floor fight over some of the six recommended appointees, and a probable continued fight over which applicant will be appointed to the Task Force seat reserved for a member having a physical disability.
Skullduggery? Supervisor Tang comes to mind, along with Supervisor's Chiu and Wiener. Take a peek:
San Franciscans should again be alarmed by continued efforts of the Board of Supervisors to rig appointments to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force (SOTF), a quasi-judicial body charged with adjudicating disputes between citizens versus City officials and City departments regarding access to public meetings and public records.
On May 15, when the Rules Committee met to consider new appointments to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, there were then 13 applicants for the 11 seats. That's when Katy Tang took up the drumbeat asking for more “divesrsity” on the Task Force.
By May 30, when the Board of Supervisor's June 5 agenda was first posted on-line, suddenly a new “diversity” applicant — one Mr. Obia Rambo, a rising African-American supplicant in San Francisco's political circles — suddenly applied for appointment to the Task Force, but quickly withdrew from consideration before June 5, perhaps after he may have learned of the time commitments of volunteers serving on what is essentially, a citizen's oversight body. Rambo may not have wanted to devote so much time away from his other pursuits.
Only three applicants were advanced and recommended for re-appointment to the full Board of Supervisors on May l5 — David Pilpel, Louise Fischer and Todd David — the most questionable of all applicants, given their history, credentials, and competency while serving on the SOTF between 2012 and 2014. The remaining 10 applicants who were not advanced on May 15, but delayed for another round of consideration, were all better qualified to serve in the best interest of the public's right to know laws and the Sunshine Ordinance.
As observers remember, in 2012 the purge of Task Force members by Board president David Chiu — with an assist from Chiu's cohorts, Supervisors Scott Wiener and Mark Farrell — used bogus allegations that previous Task Force members had violated the City's charter in adjusting the Task Force's voting threshold.
Fast forward to May 27, 2014, when once again Wiener raised the same bogus allegations to the full Board of Supervisors, and raised a question about “hold-over” appointments of Task Force members who were not re-appointed, but continue to serve until replacements are appointed. Deputy City Attorney Jon Givner, who advises both the Board's Rules Committee and the full Board, appears to have replied to Wiener without hesitation that the Task Force did not come under any laws under the Charter with regard to holdovers. Thus, if the SOTF is not governed by the holdover rules, then the same may apply for all other rules including the voting threshold, which the Task Force may have been fully within its legal rights to change in 2011, but which is incessantly used against them to justify the 2012 purge, and is the basis for Supervisor Tang's new litmus test of Task Force applicants.
Astute observers suspect that Chiu may have been preventing Task Force appointments for as long as possible so as not to stain his June 3 primary election for California's Assembly. Chiu and others seeking election in November 2014 may fear that if certain applicants are appointed to SOTF membership, their behind-closed-door antics and lack of transparency may be exposed and reported in the media, explaining why Chiu may want to stack SOTF appointments to preserve his secrecy.
As the Westside Observer reported in “Who Killed Sunshine?” (July 2012), Supervisor Scott “The Tinkerer” Wiener single-handedly killed open government by shutting down our local Sunshine Task Force for six months and five days in 2012, leaving San Franciscan's without any citizen oversight of access to public meetings and access to public records, and leaving City Hall wide open for corruption to run rampant.
Along comes déjà vu. Now Wiener, along with District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang and Board President David Chiu, appear to be staging a repeat of attempts to jerry-build appointments to all 11 seats on the Sunshine Task Force using whatever is handy, or whoever is malleable.
To support his false claim that the Sunshine Task Force had engaged in official misconduct of its own and had undermined transparency in government, Wiener failed to provide any evidence and lied at least four times during a full Board of Supervisors meeting on May 22, 2012.
As Dr. Derek Kerr noted in written public comments submitted to the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee for its May 15, 2014 hearing on new appointments to the Sunshine Task Force, two years ago Supervisors Scott Wiener, David Chiu and Mark Farrell led a campaign to purge members from the Sunshine Task Force in 2012. It's painfully clear that Supervisor Scott Wiener is continuing his vendetta against the Sunshine Task Force again, two years later, over the SOTF's ruling in 2011 that he and three other Supervisors had engaged in official misconduct regarding the withholding of Park Merced amendments until just before voting on the Park Merced development deal.
Wiener appears to remain clearly unhappy that his resume or curriculum vitae was besmirched by the Task Force's official Order of Determination referring him to the Ethics Commission for official misconduct in 2011. Aspiring politicians such as Wiener and David Chiu clearly don't want an “official misconduct” charge blotching their records, and their “legacies.”
The 2012 Pretext to Purge SOTF
The four Supervisors fomented a pretext in 2012 to purge Task Force members over an innocent revision to the Task Force's bylaws as their pretext. Wiener went so far as to request a biased and surreptitious audit of the Task Force to justify the purge. Compliant candidates — such as Louise Fischer and Todd David — were recruited at the last minute, resulting in stacking the Task Force with members whose commitment to open government laws were more controllable. In 2012, candidates nominated by the Society of Professional Journalists, the League of Women Voters, and New America Media, were dismissed or not appointed, along with then-incumbent SOTF member Bruce Wolfe, a highly-qualified candidate who was the sole applicant from the disabled community. Supervisor Farrell alienated many people, claiming he was merely seeking “fresh blood” for the Sunshine Task Force.
As a result of Wiener's political vendetta, the Task Force couldn't meet to conduct the business of citizens for over six months in 2012 because, lacking a disabled appointee, the SOTF violated its own bylaws. Following the Great Purge of 2012, the Board of Supervisors never appointed a nominee from the Society of Professional Journalists to Task Force Seat #l reserved for a lawyer, because the City Hall Family did not want the Task Force to receive legal advice from anyone other than a Deputy City Attorney.
And as the Observer reported in “Wiener Out of Control” (September 2012), Wiener went after the Sunshine Task Force because he was clearly peeved that the Task Force had referred him — along with Board President David Chiu, Supervisor Eric Mar, and Supervisor Malia Cohen — to the Ethics Commission for official misconduct over the Park Merced development deal.
Wiener wrongly claimed on May 22, 2012 that the Task Force had exempted itself from the San Francisco Charter, and wrongly claimed the Task Force had said “How dare you shine sunlight on us?,” when the Task Force had never claimed any such thing. Wiener claimed he asked for an “audit” of the costs of compliance with the Sunshine Ordinance, when in fact he asked for a “survey.” Wiener also inflated the average number of times City employees had to attend hearings to resolve Sunshine complaints.
And on May 20, 2014, Wiener signaled he remains perturbed that members of the Sunshine Task Force “had a really problematic history in terms of violating the [City] charter,” when in fact the Task Force had just disagreed with advice from a low-level Deputy City Attorney. It's clear Wiener has enlisted Supervisor Tang to carry his water for him, given that she has repeatedly stated she is concerned the Task Force has gone against advice from the City Attorney's Office.
Flaws in the Glass: SOTF Annual Report
On May 15, 2014 when the Rules Committee considered applicants to the SOTF, Supervisor Norman Yee may have abused his discretion by allowing former Task Force chairperson Kitt Grant to make a presentation — with no notice on the Rules Committee agenda indicating that any presentation was being scheduled. Ms. Grant had by that point already resigned her seat on the Task Force and no longer represented the SOTF, but was apparently invited to make introductory remarks before the hearing got underway, remarks that appeared designed to affect the Rules Committee's deliberations on new appointments to the Task Force.
Grant presented her remarks not so much as a member of the public exercising her First Amendment rights to free speech, as she presented them in her former capacity as a member of the Sunshine Task Force. To the extent Grant passed herself off as speaking in her former official capacity, rather than as a private citizen, she, too, may have violated the same prohibition in the Board of Supervisors Statement of Incompatible Activities that applies to Task Force members, as just-reappointed Task Force member David Pilpel arrears to have violated, discussed below.
Remarkably, Grant essentially presented a draft version of the SOTF's annual report, which has not been approved yet by the full Sunshine Task Force.
We know her remarks were lifted, almost verbatim, directly from the unapproved Annual Report, because a subsequent public records request uncovered a “script” prepared for and used by the 65-year-old Rules chairperson, Supervisor Norman Yee, as a guide on how to conduct the hearing. The Script reads:
“We would like to invite Ms. Kit [sic] Grant, Chair of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, to share a brief presentation on the progress of the Task Force's Annual Report.”
Although Yee cleverly didn't read that part of the script into the audio recording of the hearing to alert the public of the source of data Grant presented, the script reveals Grant would be delivering an unauthorized, unapproved annual report without the consent of the full Task Force, and without any advance notice to the full Task Force that Grant was going to “leak” the draft annual report. Another problem is, Grant had already resigned and was no longer Chair of SOTF, and as noted, the draft Annual Report has not been approved by vote of Task Force members. It was clear she was there to bias and influence Rules Committee members by presenting inflammatory, and inaccurate information contained in the draft report.
Grant's testimony before the Rules Committee, appears to report almost verbatim, the draft version of the SOTF's Annual Report that still has not been authorized, or approved.
Indeed, the draft Annual Report suggests that the SOTF appointees during the Great SOTF Purge of 2012 have not been as “efficient” as they wrongly boast being. Over their two-year terms, there should have been two separate annual reports. Instead, four of the Purge appointees — Ms. Grant, David Pilpel, Louise Fischer, and Todd David — have been so hell bent on holding Task Force meetings to the shortest amount of time period, given their busy private lives, that over their two-year terms, they've been unable to complete even a single annual report — the draft annual report Grant had no business presenting to Supervisor Yee until it had been approved by the full membership of SOTF.
Grant' s Flawed Annual Report Data
The pathetic eight-page unapproved draft SOTF Annual Report for 2012–2014 that Kitt Grant presented to the Rules Committee without authorization on May 20 was riddled with misinformation, in stark contrast to the Task Force's 24-page Annual Report for 2010–2011 that was issued on January 31, 2012 by former Task Force chair Ms. Hope Johnson, a paralegal that many observers view as having been the most effective Task Force chairperson across its 20-year history.
Grant asserted only a handful of complainants file multiple Sunshine complaints. Between calendar years 2012 and 2014 (to date), there have been 195 Sunshine complaints filed, by a total of 65 complainants. Fully 17 of the 65 complainants filed more than one Sunshine complaint. While it is true that the 17 people who filed multiple complaints filed 147 — or 74% — of the 195 complaints, the 17 people are by no means “a small handful,” as Grant alleged.
Complaining that many requests come from just a few people is a red herring to distract from information often eventually revealed with persistence. People who file multiple complaints typically have good reason to do so and are determined to uncover the truth when suspicious City officials misbehave.
Take for example the complainant Grant bitterly complained had filed 28 complaints. That complainant — most probably Paula Datesh — had joined with another street artist, William Clark and his twin brother, in filing 40 complaints between 2012 and 2014 alone, and many other complaints prior to 2012, against the San Francisco Arts Commission. As a direct result of their complaints and Sunshine requests for public records, the director of cultural affairs of the Arts Commission, Luis Cancel, may have been forced to resign.
A San Francisco Bay Citizen article on June 29, 2011, reported that Sunshine Task Force member Rick Knee had stated “The Arts Commission staff has shown a pattern of dodging or evading public information requests, and when they do comply they might give some information that is not exactly what the requester asked for.” The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force submitted a letter to the Board of Supervisors — with a copy to Mayor Ed Lee — advising that City officials should give careful scrutiny to the San Francisco Arts Commission's spending policies and practices, and to its requested budget for the forthcoming fiscal year. The Bay Citizen reported Knee didn't recall the Task Force ever having sent a similar letter during his seven-year tenure on SOTF.
At the time, the media reported that Cancel had potentially made some personnel changes and a whistleblower complaint was filed against him for his frequent trips to his second home in Rio de Janeiro. After Cancel resigned, it's not clear what became of an investigation of his activities as a senior member of the Arts Commission. San Francisco's Civil Grand Jury reported that the City Controller had found improper transfers of funds and that the Street Artists Program needed better accounting practices. Both the Grand Jury Report and the Controller's report sounded like sugar coating of improper handling, and potentially misappropriate, of money.
Or take the complainant Grant bitterly complained had filed 24 complaints across the three-year period, more than likely Ray Hartz, Jr. Hartz, along with Library User's Association Executive Director Peter Warfield who has filed just six Sunshine complaints during the same time frame, helped expose along with former Task Force chairperson James Chaffee's research assistance, that City Librarian Luis Herrera had failed to report to the Ethics Commission gifts from the Friends of the Library to the City Librarian on Herrera's Form 700 Statements of Economic Interest over a three-year period. While the asleep-at-the-wheel Ethics Commission predictably took no action against Mr. Herrera wanting to help out members of San Francisco's “City Hall Family,” California's Fair Political Practices Commission did take action, fining Herrera for failing to disclose his gifts from the Friends of the Library.
Grant implied that the complaints by the “core” group of complainants are filed against a handful of City departments, which may be untrue. Of the 195 Sunshine complaints submitted between 2012 and 2014, they involved 56 City departments, the legislative and executive branches, and a host of various policy bodies. Grant completely withheld in either the draft Annual Report, or in her oral remarks to Supervisors Yee and Tang on May 15, that fully 15% — 29 complaints — were filed against the Board of Supervisors, various Board subcommittees, individually-named Supervisors, and the Mayor and various sub-entities of the Mayor's office. Clearly, members of the public are very concerned by the antics of the legislative and executive branches of City government.
Another 9.2% — 18 complaints — of the Sunshine complaints were against the City Attorney, or City Attorney's Office, who is the one offering inaccurate advice to a whole host of City departments on how to evade compliance with the Sunshine Ordinance. Grant left out these messy details, appearing to prefer to fawn before Yee and Tang.
In addition to the complaints filed against the executive and legislative branches and the City Attorney's Office, there were another nine City departments and agencies — including the Arts Commission, City Controller, Community Housing Partnership, Department of Public Works, Municipal Transportation Agency, Planning Department, Police Department and Police Commission, Public Library and Library Commission, and the Recreation and Park Department — who along with the executive and legislative branches and the City Attorney's Office racked up a staggering 152 of the 195 complaints filed between 2012 and 2014 — representing 78% of all complaints filed.
Yet Grant wasted not one word on whether the Task Force has even bothered evaluating why just nine City agencies — plus the Office of the Mayor, various entities of Board of Supervisors, and the City Attorney's Office — were responsible for the lion's share of complaints and citizen's concerns.
More of Kitt Grant' Flawed Annual Report Errors and Omissions
First, Grant brazenly admitted that the Task Force has attempted to restrict hearing only about five Sunshine complaints per full Task Force meetings, a sure-fire way of creating a backlog of complaints heard within the required 45-day period after complaints are filed. Rather than efficiently hearing as many cases per meeting as possible, an artificial limit has been placed on how many will be considered during each meeting.
Grant claims that in order to be “more efficient” the Task Force limits its meetings to extend only until 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. But fully 60% of Task Force meetings — 12 of 20 —held under her tenure between 2012 and 2014 have been adjourned by 8:55 p.m. And fully 35% have been adjourned before 7:50 p.m. The goal of the Task Force's “efficiency” has been to start its meetings late, and end them early, potentially in order to create more “efficiency” for Task Force members to attend to their private lives, not to public service.
To be fair, the Task Force did extend four of its 20 meetings between 2012 and 2014 until between 10:00 p.m. and 11:35 p.m. Although those four late-hour meetings represent 20% of its meetings, by stark contrast the Task Force has adjourned before 8:00 p.m. 35% of the time. It's not as if the late-hour adjournments aren't offset by the early-hour adjournments.
More judicious middle-ground adjournments may have gone a long way towards clearing up the artificially-created complaint backlog, or hearing cases within the required 45-day window. Perhaps Grant didn't want to bother Tang's and Yee's pretty little heads about this point.
Ms. Grant wrongly claimed “mediation” has been a great boon to the Task Force. She testified 15 complaints had been mediated in 2012, 17 in 2013, and 7 in 1014, for a total of 39 cases mediated — just 19.8%. She neglected to mention to Yee and Tang that the remaining 80% of cases may have had merit and were forwarded for consideration by the full Task Force.
She provided no detail on just how the cases had been mediated, whether in favor of the complainant or respondent, let alone a summary of how the cases were resolved. But a preliminary analysis of Sunshine Task Force Administrator reports for 2013 shows that of 89 cases reported as “mediated,” a total of 15 (16.9%) cases were “resolved” disposed of during mediation, and another 15.7% (14 cases) were either closed or withdrawn, which may or may not happened without “mediation” interventions.
That leaves on the Administrator's reports for 2013 that of 89 cases “mediated,” fully 68% were either advanced to a full Sunshine Task Force hearing, or were pending a decision about whether a hearing would eventually be held.
Grant completely failed reporting to Tang and Yee that Deputy City Attorney Jerry Threat had notified the Task Force as early as April 2013 that if complainants request a hearing, they are entitled to be granted one (discussed below), thwarting the very “mediation” Ms. Grant and SOTF Vice Chair Louise Fischer apparently felt entitled to force upon Sunshine complainants.
Then, Ms. Grant complained about the backlog of cases, indicating there are still a total of 61 cases backlogged from 2012 to 2014, fully 31% of all cases filed. She offered little in the way to justify the backlog, and didn't mention that prematurely adjourned Task Force meetings may have contributed to the “efficiency” problem.
Grant also alleged that the Task Force lacks jurisdiction over many Sunshine complaints, but didn't quantify, let alone describe, how many cases may be beyond jurisdiction of the Task Force. An analysis of how many of Sunshine complaints eventually heard by the Task Force is also underway, but not yet completed.
Ms. Grant Alleged Sunshine Ordinance “Out of Date”
Grant not only alleged that the Task Force's bylaws may be out of date, she also she implied the Sunshine Ordinance itself may be out of date. Later during the Rules Committee's May 15 hearing, Ms. Fischer pretty much asserted the same thing.
The Sunshine Ordinance adopted in 1999 and subsequently amended by voters at the ballot box, is not out of date. It was drafted with the assistance of leading experts, including Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition, and Terry Francke of CalAware. Our Sunshine Ordinance is the strongest in the nation, and was used to help draft both San Jose's and the City of Berkeley's Sunshine ordinances. Our ordinance is a rock-solid ordinance that has survived the test of time for over 20 years.
But admittedly, the Ordinance may need an update to include a prohibition of use by City officials of their personal e-mail addreses, and private cell phones, neither of which existed 20 years ago when the Sunshine Ordinance was first adopted. Times have changed with the advent of technology, which even Supervisor David Chiu seems all too eager to misuse to his advantage (see below).
Katy Tang's Appointee Litmus Test
Back in 2012, Mr. Wiener falsely claimed the Task Force purported to exempt itself from the San Francisco Charter. The Task Force had done no such thing, and it did not set out to purposefully ignore City Attorney advice. It just reached a different interpretation of the law. That's not stopping Supervisor Katy Tang from now floating the dead-horse idea the Task Force had ignored City Attorney advice back in 2011.
In a San Francisco Bay Guardian blog posting by Steven T. Jones on May 20, Tang asserted she would personally “have liked to see stronger applicants” for current openings on the Sunshine Task Force. She claimed that 10 of the 13 applicants “didn't seem to have a good understanding of the Sunshine Ordinance.” Tang also invoked an alibi that there wasn't sufficient ethnic diversity among SOTF applicants.
But what Tang really means is that what she considers to be “weaker applicants,” are applicants who may be unwilling to swear a loyalty oath to the City Attorney's “advice,” and may hold differing interpretations of applicable law.
Supervisor Katy Tang deployed a new litmus test for applicants to the SOTF at the May 15 Board of Supervisors Rules Committee meeting, namely, a new test of absolute subservience and undying fealty — a feudal tenant's or vassal's sworn loyalty to a lord — to what she apparently believes is inviolate City Attorney “advice.” This suggests SOTF applicants may be required to submit to and defer to whatever rotten “advice” is issued by whichever Deputy City Attorney is currently, or was previously, assigned to the Sunshine Task Force. Tang's litmus test clearly violates the spirit of the Sunshine Ordinance, and may violate the law behind it.
Tang's new litmus test appears to require applicants to swear a loyalty oath to the City Attorney — as if he and his advice are 100% infallible, 100% of the time — before she'll grant her seal of approval to any given SOTF candidate.
“Knowledgeable as attorneys are — whether City Attorneys or private attorneys — they are essentially advocates,” says Dr. Derek Kerr who was wrongfully terminated from City employment for whistleblowing. “If attorney's were infallible, there would be no need for Judges, Courts, or the Sunshine Task Force. If San Francisco's City Attorney holds legal supremacy, there would be no need for the Task Force, and all sunshine complaints could be adjudicated by the City Attorney. The trouble is, voters didn't want that kind of ‘efficiency',” Kerr observes.
It's not yet known whether Tang's new litmus test will be applied to appointees of all City boards, commissions, and “transparency” oversight bodies, or whether the new test will only be selectively applied solely against the Sunshine Task Force.
What is known, is the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported May 20 that Tang asserted she won't support any applicants seeking appointment to the SOTF who had taken part in a controversial vote in 2011 concerning a [probably legitimate] change to SOTF's bylaws regarding the number of members present during any given meeting to rule on Sunshine complaint cases being heard.
More of Tang's Nonsense
Supervisor Wiener is now using additional pretexts in 2014 to claim that the Task Force in 2011 had “violated” the charter. Newbie Supervisor Tang is also beating the same dead horse, telling the San Francisco Bay Guardian on May 20 that the Task Force had acted against the advice of the City Attorney and had defied the City Attorney's Office. In 2012, Wiener wrongly asserted the Task Force had engaged in official misconduct.
Now in 2014, Ms. Tang claimed to the Guardian the Task Force had engaged in “improper” conduct.
Which is it? Improper conduct? Or official misconduct? Either one are complete nonsense.
As testified to Ms. Tang during the Rules Committee's hearing on May 15, 2014, the City Attorney's “advice” is often wrong.
First, there's the problem with City Attorney “advice” involving wrongful termination and discrimination cases brought by City employees against the City. If the City Attorney's advice were inviolate, why would the City have been forced to pay out $12.1 million between 2007 and 2012 to settle 105 cases of discrimination, wrongful termination, and other prohibited personnel practices, and spent another $8.3 million in City attorney billable time and expenses fighting these lawsuits every step of the way, for a combined total of $20 million, had the City Attorney's “opinions” not been found in the end to have been bad legal “advice”?
Second, why is the Board of Supervisors considering settling with Anshen + Allen / Stantec for just $15 million, after the City Attorney used his “advice” to file a lawsuit against the architectural firms alleging $70 million in design and construction errors during Laguna Honda Hospital's (LHH) rebuild? If the City Attorney's “opinion” and advice about the LHH lawsuit had been correct, why isn't the City recovering the full $70 million in alleged defects? Could the City Attorney's so-called “advice” concerning this lawsuit have been shot down by the Appellate Court as fatally-flawed legal advice? Our City Attorney? Wrong again?
Third, as recently as this Spring, some bonehead on the City's bargaining team negotiating MOU's (contracts) with City labor unions, pushed across the table a proposal to prohibit SEIU Local 1021 union members from being able to file discrimination complaints under local, state, and federal law, a proposal SEIU bargaining team members flatly rejected, since local law cannot “trump” federal anti-discrimination laws. Which of the City Attorney's 174 lawyers in the 8177 to 8183 job classification codes that cost taxpayers $28 million in salaries alone in 2013 was boneheaded enough to even “advise” the City's negotiating team that they could even “propose” eliminating federal anti-discrimination protections?
As if a mere labor agreement could somehow “trump” federal laws.
Does DHR have no Deputy City Attorney's assigned to it well versed in labor law to know that such City Attorney “advice” or “opinions” should never have even been proffered, but once proffered made the City the newest laughingstock across America? What kind of “San Francisco values” would the City Attorney be espousing through legal advice to City labor negotiators with such a ridiculous proposal? Notably, although SEIU members rejected this rotten City proposal, nobody is proposing that the SEIU members had “ignored” City Attorney advice, or had “exempted” themselves from such crappy City Attorney advice.
Highly Qualified Applicants
On May 15, the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee considered 13 applicants for the 11 seats on the Task Force. The pool of applicants included at least seven with impeccable credentials to serve:
- Mark Rumold, nominated by the Society of Professional Journalists for Seat #1 as an attorney. Rumold is a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation that litigates Freedom of Information Act cases at the state and federal level concerning access to public records.
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One of two long-vacant seats, Seat 1 is reserved for a citizen-lawyer nominated by the Society of Professional Journalists. But the Seat has been purposefully unfilled by the Board of Supervisors for fully two years. That seat was designed by framers of the Sunshine Ordinance to counter potentially conflicted City Attorney advice, who may not be as well-versed in open government state and local laws. The Board of Supervisors under David Chiu's “leadership” has kept Seat #1 vacant for fully two years, in part to prevent the Task Force from having its own member-lawyer to provide them with legal advice, and to keep the Task Force subservient only to advice from the City Attorney, or advice from the Deputy City Attorney assigned to the Task Force. Chiu's failure over two years to schedule a Rules Committee hearing to fill this seat is seen as an abuse of his powers. [Note: On June 5, Rumold finally received the Rules Committee's recommendation for appointment and will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors on June 10.]
- Ali Winston, also nominated by the Society of Professional Journalists for Seat #2 as a journalist. Winston is an independent journalist who has published in the San Francisco Weekly, KQED, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. [Note: On June 5, Winston also finally received the Rules Committee's recommendation for appointment and will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors on June 10.]
- Josh Wolf, was the only applicant for SOTF Seat #3, which is reserved for a member of the press. Wolf has been a working journalist for a decade, and has published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the San Francisco Public Press (an independent nonprofit, noncommercial news organization dedicated to producing important local public-interest news), and is an editor-at-large for Journalism That Matters (an online combination of blogs, working groups, and social networking advocates). Wolf was chosen as Journalist of the Year by the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2006 “for upholding the principles of a free and independent press.” He was the campaign coordinator for Berkeley's Sunshine Ordinance ballot measure. [Note: On June 5, Wolf finally received the Rules Committee's recommendation for appointment and will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors on June 10.]
- Allyson Washburn, who holds both a Master's degree and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from John Hopkins University, served as president of San Francisco's League of Women Voters for two terms in the mid-1990's, and was president of the board of the Elder Women's League. She has served on the Task Force for six years, and is highly regarded as thoughtful, fair, and non-partisan. [Note: On June 5, Dr. Washburn also finally received the Rules Committee's recommendation for appointment and will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors on June 10.]
- Samuel McCormick, a San Francisco State University professor. He holds a Master's degree in, and has PhD training in, Rhetorical Theory. He's trained to help with public relations and public image issues. His first book — on local citizens interacting with public officials — won two national book awards. He's working on a new book on local citizen participation in public meetings. McCormick was appointed by Supervisor Eric Mar to Seat 1 of the Graffiti Advisory Board. He's a copy editor of the Richmond Review in the Sunset Beacon newspaper.
- Lee Anthony Hepner, a civil rights lawyer and a community organizer with the Harvey Milk Democratic Club. His legal practice focuses on freedom of expression. Since Hepner is affiliated with the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, he's probably great anathema to Supervisor Scott Wiener, who all but controls the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, and wields great influence over the Democratic County Central Committee in San Francisco. [Note: On June 5, Hepner finally received the Rules Committee's recommendation for appointment and will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors on June 10.]
- Bruce Wolfe, who had previously served for seven years on the Sunshine Task Force between 2005 and 2012, and as the Task Force's vice chair, holding the seat reserved for members of the public who are disabled.
- [Note: On June 5, a fight broke out between Rules Committee members over whether to recommend Mr. Wolfe, or current holdover incumbent Bruce Oka, who is also disabled. Oka has wanted off of the Task Force since early July 2013, and had not even applied for re-appointment to the Task Force in 2014 until Wednesday, June 4, after the Rules Agenda had already been publicly posted that did not list Oka as having applied for re-appointment; see further discussion below.]
At the conclusion of the Rules Committee's May 15 hearing, only three applicants — all toadies favored by Wiener to do his bidding — were forwarded to the full Board of Supervisors to jerry-rig composition of the Task Force. Shockingly, none of the seven highly-qualified applicants were referred for appointment to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration on May 20, although on June 5 five of them finally secured recommendations from the Rules Committee.
Three Hand-Picked Toadies Advance
On May 15, the Rules Committee divided the agenda item, forwarding three applicants to the full Board of Supervisors, postponing recommending the remaining 10 applicants to the eight remaining seats on the Task Force. On May 20, the full Board of Supervisors passed, and appointed, the three applicants referred to them by the Rules Committee.
Just two members of the Rules Committee — Supervisors Yee and Tang, since Supervisor Campos was out of town — ended up recommending to the full Board of Supervisors stacking the SOTF with three fawning candidates who had answered “Yes” to Tang's new litmus test question about blind obedience to City Attorney “advice.” The three nominees recommended by Rules were approved by the full Board of Supervisors on May 20, and are now pending appointment by the Mayor, include:
SOTF Incumbent David Pilpel
Re-appointed to SOTF during the Purge of 2012, Pilpel has resumed his role carrying water for City officials named in Sunshine complaints heard by the SOTF. Pilpel is notorious for researching arcane issues in order to find exculpatory reasons to let City officials named as respondents in Sunshine complaints off of the hook, at the expense of complainants. Pilpel seeks to preserve secrecy in City government. He certainly is not an open government or Sunshine “hero.”
He was appointed in 2012 to help City officials wiggle out of Sunshine violations, and his service made him a shoe-in for re-appointment in 2014. But as just one example of why the Rules Committee should not have reappointed him involves Pilpel's penchant for showing up at Ethics Commission hearings — lacking any authority to do so — to scuttle deliberations of Ethics Commissioners involving Sunshine complaints referred to Ethics for enforcement.
Pilpel's Qualifications Presentation During the May 15 Rules Hearing
Pilpel testified on May 15 that he's on his third nonconsecutive term on the SOTF, which would be six years, but said he's served for ten-and-a-half years out of the 20 years the Task Force has existed. It's unclear whether Pilpel has a problem with basic math.
Although he claims he supports meaningful public participation and open government, he looks for “practical solutions” with City agencies. Pilpel asserted the Task Force is not perfect, and he is interested in having fewer complaints brought to the Task Force.
He testified that he's less interested in resolution of Sunshine complaints — more than likely music to the ears of Rules Committee members considering his re-appointment — and would rather the Task Force be more proactive. Pilpel testified that he wants, and would like, the Task Force to be more involved in legislation going before the Board of Supervisors and legislators in Sacramento, even though the Sunshine Task Force was not created to focus on legislation.
Pilpel claims he has proposed changes to the SOTF bylaw procedures — which changes have neither been discussed in open meetings of the Task Force during the past two years, nor adopted — and wants to focus on “things that matter,” rather than focusing on adjudicating complaints, that by inference he apparently doesn't believe matter. He testified that he believes portions of the Sunshine Ordinance need to be rewritten.
For her part, Supervisor Tang noted that because Pilpel was seeking re-appointment, she wanted to ask him the same question about the SOTF complying with the Deputy City Attorney who staffs the task force, and how much Pilpel values the attorney's role in conjunction with the Task Force itself, in terms of opinions and advice the City Attorney may provide to Task Force members.
Pilpel responded by asserting he absolutely values Deputy City Attorney's opinions and understands fully the role of the City Attorney under both the Sunshine Ordinance and the City Charter, particularly Charter Section 6.102. He asserted the Task Force is subject to the Charter in terms of board and commission voting requirements [although Pilpel may be completely wrong on this point]. He acknowledged that a complaint the Task Force sent to the Ethics Commission last month was sent back because the Task Force had failed to name the right person, and it may happen again next month. Pilpel asserted that the Task Force has not understood where “due processes” attaches.” Had to be music to Tang's ears.
But there's a small problem: Although Pilpel blabbed on May 15 at the Rules Committee hearing that members of the SOTF didn't understand where “due process attaches,” Pilpel withheld telling Supervisors Yee and Tang on May 15 that just 17 days earlier when Pilpel raised the “due process” issue during a Sunshine complaint hearing before the Ethics Commission, Deputy City Attorney Josh White, who advises the Ethics Commission, had to interject and inform the Ethics Commissioners that “due process” didn't apply. Pilpel appears to have misled both the Ethics Commissioners, and 17 days later, members of the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee. Pilpel creatively forgot to mention to the Rules Committee that DCA White had dismissed the idea that “due process” had been applicable, and kept spouting the “due process” nonsense even after DCA White advised Ethics Commissioners that Pilpel was barking up the wrong tree.
It appears it is Pilpel himself who doesn't understand due process. And he also appears not to understand that the only laws the SOTF is charged with enforcing are the Sunshine Ordinance and by extension violations of California's Public Records Act. This appears just one way in which Pilpel goes fishing for exculpatory excuses to let City Officials — in this case Recreation and Parks Department head Phil Ginsburg — off of the hook on allegations of willful misconduct.
Pilpel also appears to have creatively withheld from telling the Ethics Commission on April 28 that he, Pilpel, had, in fact, seconded a motion during the Task Force's September 4, 2013 meeting to continue hearing complaint number 12-058 against Recreation and Park Department's Phil Ginsburg (RPD's department head) to its October 2 meeting in order to submit and provide adequate notice to Ginsberg that he was being requested to attend on October 2. The motion passed 7 to 0 — including Pilpel's affirmative vote — with two Task Force members absent from the September 4 meeting. Pilpel absolutely had to have known — given that he had seconded the motion on September 4 — that Ginsburg had, in fact, been afforded due process “notice” and that the Task Force had not deprived Ginsburg of due process. Pilpel appears to have intentionally misled Ethics Commissioners and the Board of Supervisors on this point.
Potential Violation of the Board of Supervisors Statement of Incompatible Activities?
On May 29, Dr. Derek Kerr posted a germane comment about Pilpel's shenanigans to former San Francisco Bay Guardian Bruce Brugmann's blog article titled “The anti-sunshine gang intensifies its attacks on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force in City Hall” posted earlier on May 29.
Dr. Kerr commented on SFBG's blog:
“At the April 28 Ethics Commission meeting (1:31:30 on video) Mr. Pilpel presented himself as an emissary from SOTF rather than a private citizen. [Pilpel] warned [Ethics Commissioners] of a ‘procedural problem' in a case referred by the SOTF to Ethics that ‘does not tell you the full story.'
Contrary to the SOTF findings, [Pilpel] asserted that the violation reported was ‘not willful' and that the due process afforded to the respondent wasn't ‘sufficient.' He lamented the SOTF's lack of ‘clarity on what steps needed to happen' before referring a case to Ethics and pleaded to the Commissioners:'I'm fighting a losing battle over there' [at the SOTF]. He went on; ‘I've spent a huge amount of time preparing findings and explanations that I think would have been helpful as part of the referral that the Chair (Kitt Grant) elected not to use.'
Therefore, he declared, [the referral for enforcement] his SOTF peers sent to Ethics ‘was not helpful.' At the Board's Rules Committee meeting on May 15, Mr. Pilpel re-iterated that the SOTF did not seem to understand ‘where due process is attached.' Magic words for re-appointment,” Dr. Kerr noted. [emphasis added]
Pilpel did not explicitly state he was at the Ethics Commission's April 28 hearing as an “emissary” of SOTF, but he clearly introduced himself, and noted he is a member of the SOTF at about 52 minutes and 14 seconds into the Ethics hearing video, when he introduced his public comments saying “David Pilpel. SOTF member.” He didn't qualify his remarks that he was speaking as a private citizen.
The Ethics Commission had not invited Pilpel to its April 28 meeting in order to make a formal presentation about a case on the Commission's agenda that day. By inference, it was clear Pilpel was deliberately trying to make himself look good, tattling on his fellow SOTF members in order to make them look bad. Everything he reported to Ethics was insider information about a matter the Ethics Commission was discussing. Pilpel was not authorized to speak on behalf of the full Task Force to present his personal “minority opinion.”
The timing of Pilpel's tattling to Ethics just 17 days before SOTF appointments were to be considered by the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee on May 15 appears to be more than just mere coincidence in timing. He may have wanted to paint a picture of other SOTF members in order to make them look bad prior to appointment consideration at Rules.
Indeed, both the Board of Supervisors and the full membership of the Sunshine Task Force should consider censuring Mr. Pilpel for his unauthorized appearances at public meetings of the Ethics Commission, during which Pilpel presents his personal, “dissenting opinions” regarding votes adopted by the full Task Force, intentionally to undermine — and adversely impact — the full Task Force's “majority opinion” being deliberated by the Ethics Commission for enforcement. Pilpel may feel he is entitled to engage in this type of subterfuge by virtue of his seat on the Task Force.
Pilpel is not authorized to present his personal opinions under the guise of his SOTF membership regarding a concluded SOTF Order of Determination referring a given Sunshine complaint referred to Ethics for enforcement, during testimony to Ethics as any sort of “emissary” from SOTF.
The Statement of Incompatible Activities (SIA) for San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Clerk of the Board, Youth Commission, and Sunshine Ordinance Task Force unequivocally prohibits Pilpel from acting as any sort of “emissary” from the SOTF.
The Board of Supervisor's SIA applicable to Sunshine Task Force members states in Section IV, Restrictions on Use of City resources, City Work-product and Prestige, Sub-Section C, Use of Prestige of the Office, paragraph 3, “Holding Oneself Out, Without Authorization, as a Representative of the Board, Clerk of the Board, Youth Commission or [Sunshine] Task Force”:
“No officer or employee may hold himself or herself out as a representative of the Board, Clerk of the Board, Youth Commission or Task Force, or as an agent acting on behalf of the Board, Clerk of the Board, Youth Commission or Task Force, unless authorized to do so.
Example:
An employee who lives in San Francisco wants to attend a public meeting of a Commission that is considering a land use matter that will affect the employee's neighborhood. The employee may attend the meeting and speak during public comment, but should make clear that he is speaking in his private capacity and not as a representative of the Board, Clerk of the Board, Youth Commission, or [Sunshine] Task Force. [emphasis added]
This Board of Supervisor's SIA is adopted under the provisions of San Francisco Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code (“C&GC Code”) Section 3.218. Engaging in activities prohibited by a governing SIA may subject an officer or employee to discipline, up to and including possible termination of employment or removal from office, as well as to monetary fines and penalties. All City employees and appointees to City boards, commissions, task forces, and advisory bodies are required to re-read their applicable Department's unique SIA's annually.
Pilpel must surely be aware of this annual requirement, and that he is prohibited from holding himself out as a member of SOTF at Ethics Commission meetings, since neither the SOTF nor the Board of Supervisors have authorized him to do so.
The SIA does provide that Task Force members may request an exemption to SIA requirements in writing, by submitting a description either to the Board of Supervisors or directly to the Ethics Commission of proposed activities a member might want to be exempted from, and an explanation of why such activity would not be incompatible under the governing SIA. Any such written request must describe the proposed activity in sufficient detail for the decision-maker to make a fully informed determination whether it is incompatible under this Statement.
Pilpel has neither applied for nor been granted an SIA exemption known as an “Advance Written Determination” from either the Board of Supervisors or directly from the Ethics Commission at any time during his term on the Task Force between May 2012 and today. The Board of Supervisors confirmed on June 2 that Pilpel has never applied for an advance written determination, and the Ethics Commission confirmed on Friday, June 6 that it, too, has no record of Pilpel ever submitting, or having been granted, an advance written determination request from Ethics.
Pilpel's probable clear violation of the Board of Supervisors SIA at Ethics on April 28 should have been sufficient evidence for the Rules Committee to deny recommending him for re-appointment to the Sunshine Task Force, and sufficient evidence that the full Board of Supervisors should not have re-appointed him on May 20. But the full Board of Supervisors did re-appoint Pilpel, despite what appears to be a potential violation of the SIA governing Task Force members.
SOTF Incumbent Louise Fischer
Ms. Fischer's apparent sole qualification for appointment appears to be her involvement and possible membership in the Alice B. Tolklas Democratic Club, a political club under the thumb of Supervisor Wiener, the lead architect along with Board President David Chiu of the 2012 Purge of the Sunshine Task Force. She was brought in to help out Wiener in 2012, and has done nothing on the Task Force in her first two years to warrant re-appointment in 2014.
Indeed, her folksy style as evidenced by her presentation at the Rules Committee on May 15 reminds this author of the folksy style of former U.S. Presidential candidate Sarah Palin that clearly belied Palin's intelligence quotient.
Fischer's Qualifications Presentation During the May 15 Rules Hearing
Fischer was all over the map in a rambling presentation of her qualifications on May 15 that made little sense, and demonstrated little justification for re-appointment to the Task Force. Supervisor Yee had to ask her to wrap up her rambling when she clearly exceeded time limits.
Fischer testified that she is currently the acting chairperson of the Task Force, since former chair Kitt Grant has resigned completely. In her folksy style, Fischer claims she “knows how the sausages are made.”
Fischer claims her first question to Sunshine complainants is whether they received whatever documents they had requested, and if not, she then asks the respondents why they didn't provide the materials. Observers who regularly attend Sunshine Task Force meetings report that they have rarely heard Fischer ask any such line of questioning, so she may have bamboozled Supervisors Yee and Tang on May 15. She may have made this claim up, as she rambled along.
Anticipating Supervisor Tang's question about the City Attorney's role, Fischer said the first thing the new members did in 2012 was to reverse the six-vote rule because it was a violation of the City charter. She claimed it was ironic that the SOTF is in charge of enforcing open records rules, but had violated a rule in the Charter. Fischer suggested that by combining similar complaints into one hearing, the Task Force can become more “efficient.” Echoing Kitt Grant's opening presentation of the un-approved draft Sunshine Task Force annual report, Fischer also complained about three complainants who file too many complaints.
Fischer says she would like to see changes to the SOTF's bylaws, and believes mediating complaints should be the first solution the Task Force considers to lessen the number of cases the Task Force needs to hear during its regular meetings.
Fischer — and a handful of other Task Force members — has all but ignored the fact that Deputy City Attorney Jerry Threet had avised the Task Force that rather than forcing complainants into mediation, complainants are entitled to a hearing if they so request one.
As early as April 16, 2013, then administrator of the Sunshine Task Force, Angela Ausberry announced that “in an attempt to mediate and stave off hearings before the full Sunshine Ordinance Task Force,” the respondents in this author's Sunshine complaint number 13-021 involving the Department of Public Health should respond to a mediation attempt within five business days to avoid having a hearing before the Task Force. After this author responded to Aubsberry the next day on April 17, 2013 that a full hearing, not mediation, was being requested, DCA Threet advised Ausberry — and by extension, advised the full Task Force — also on April 17, 2013, that “If the Complainant [requests] a full hearing [before the full Task Force], they are entitled to [request and be granted] it.”
That has not stopped the current SOTF Administrator, Victor Young, nor stopped either Ms. Fischer or the full Task Force, from trying to force complainants to enter into mediation by dissuading them from obtaining a hearing by the full Task Force, despite City Attorney “advice” to the contrary. Apparently the double-standard involving selectively ignoring City Attorney advice has been completely lost on the hapless, albeit folksy, Louise Fischer.
It appears that Ms. Fischer and a handful of other members of the Task Force believe that they are entitled to ignore the very City Attorney advice that landed the Task Force in trouble with Supervisors Wiener, Farrell, and Chiu in 2012. And stupidly, Supervisors Tang and Yee recommended Fischer for re-appointment to the Task Force on May 15, and the full Board of Supervisors in fact re-appointed Fischer to her seat on May 20, despite Fischer's apparent willingness to ignore Deputy City Attorney Threet's professional advice, by forcing complainants into mediation, in a completely misguided attempt at feigned improvement to the Gods of “Efficiency.”
On May 15, Fischer also testified that she still wants to limit how many times similar complaints can be heard over and over, apparently even if doing so would violate the due process rights of members of the public to file complaints as they see fit, again ignoring DCA Threet's advice that if complainants request a hearing, they are entitled to one, even in Sunshine complaints involving similar issues. That potentially means several separate hearings, one for each complaint.
Notably, Supervisor Tang asked no questions of Fischer, even though Tang had indicated she would ask the same questions of each candidate seeking re-appointment. And if Tang's litmus test demands undying fealty to City Attorney advice, it's more than a tad ironic that Fischer was granted re-appointment, despite being oblivious to Threet's advice.
SOTF Incumbent Todd David
Before getting to Todd David's May 15 Rules Committee presentation regarding his qualifications to be re-appointed to the SOTF, let's get out of the way two issues Mr. David failed to address on May 15, which Supervixsors Yee and Tang must have surely known about, but chose to ignore.
Todd David's Form 700 Failure and an FPPC Warning Letter
A chronology of David's appointment to the Task Force in 2012 is in order.
Supervisor Scott Wiener pulled Todd David out of a rabbit hat during the May 22, 2012 full Board of Supervisors meeting, kicking Bruce Wolfe off of the Sunshine Task Force island. David had not applied through customary avenues, but to Wiener, directly. Mr. David appeared to have had no qualifications to serve on the Sunshine Task Force back in 2012, and his 2012 application listed no qualifications to serve.
In 2012 Mr. David's Form 700, Statement of Economic Interests — a document required as part of SOTF's application process — failed to include the pre-printed form, Schedule B, Interests in Real Property. Instead, he submitted a written statement in lieu of Schedule B in which he neglected to report the appraised value of a multi-family residential property he owns at 384 Eureka Street appraised in 2012 at $2.1 million, and neglected to report rental income he receives from the multi-unit property.
Notably, although the Rules Committee only considered David's typed statement in 2012, rather than the required Schedule B, the Rules Committee did not recommend Mr. David for appointment to the Task Force in 2012. It was Wiener who chose to substitute Todd David during the subsequent May 22, 2012 meeting of the full Board of Supervisors in place of the Rules Committee's recommended disabled candidate, Bruce Wolfe.
Although David applied for a single seat in 2012 (SOTF Seat 9), Wiener's substitution assigned Mr. David to Seat 8, the seat the Board of Supervisors had historically advertised as reserved for a physically-disabled member.
Neither the Board of Supervisors nor San Francisco's Ethics Commission took action in 2012 on David's substitution of a written statement in lieu of Schedule B. So a complaint was filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) regarding Mr. David's substitution in lieu of Schedule B. The FPPC did take action, and determined David had violated California's Political Reform Act by failing to disclose his interests in real property. The FPPC issued a warning letter to Mr. David on August 22, 2012 after he submitted an amendment including the proper Schedule B.
But because David was then seeking, and continues to seek funding of over $4 million in City funds for his pet project, the Noe Valley Town Square, Wiener engineered appointing David to the Task Force. Since then, both the Mayor and Wiener have been reported in the press as being supportive of the Noe Valley Town Square raid of the Open Space fund.
Is Todd David Campaign Manager for Supervisors Scott Wiener's and Eric Mar's “Surgary Soda Tax Ballot Measure”?
ChooseHealthSF is the “sugary soda” tax measure working its way to the November San Francisco ballot hoping to raise $30 million in funding to benefit kids and parks, and DPH by imposing a tax on sugary-laced sodas popular with children. Supervisors Scott Wiener and Eric Mar have been working on placing such a tax measure before the voters.
But even before it may — or may not — be officially accepted as a Board of Supervisors-sponsored ballot measure later in July, it's a little disconcerting that Mr. David's Linked-In page says:
“The tax will combat type 2 diabetes while funding education and active recreation programs in San Francisco's public schools, Rec and Parks, and Dept of Public Health.”
Googling the phrase “Todd David and ChooseSFHealth,” Google reports that Mr. David is not merely listed as a “Campaign Consultant” as he may have artfully reported to the Elections Department. Instead, Google reports on his Linked-In profile that Mr. David is ChooseHealthSF's ballot “campaign manager,” not merely a campaign “consultant.” Hopefully, the Elections Department and the Ethics Commission will note Mr. David's possible duplicity shielding that he's really a campaign manager carrying yet more water for Supervisor Wiener, not a mere consultant.
What we have here, is the cart before the horse. David claims to be campaign manager for a ballot measure that is not yet placed on the ballot.
David may clearly want a portion of the soda tax to reach the Recreation and Park Department, or at minimum to reach recreation programs for busy parents such as himself who have trouble attending SOTF meetings due to their child-rearing responsibilities, recurring SOTF meetings on the first Wednesday of each month be damned.
Or, Mr. David may be hoping some of the sugary-soda tax revenue will reach the group edMatch that he founded to raise matching funds for schools, a group with its own spotty track record and lack of public accountability regarding how, or even whether, it has actually disbursed matching funds to schools.
And at question may be the propriety of City Board and Commission appointees being involved with ballot measures as a named ballot campaign member, given restrictions on “electioneering” by City employees and agents of the City. If nothing else, it illustrates that Mr. David gets involved in partisan politics, and may not be an unbiased member of the Sunshine Task Force.
Todd David's Absence Record and False Testimony About SOTF Meeting Schedules
It's totally sad that Supervisors Breed and Yee were snookered — by believing — both Todd David and other Sunshine Task Force members who may have misled both Supervisors that the Task Force was not meeting regularly. Observer's wonder whether that was with SOTF Chairperson Kitt Grant's and Co-Chair Louise Fischer's help.
In the absence of checking the Task Force's by-laws (which clearly state the Task Force's regular meeting pattern), all Yee and Breed — or their respective legislative aides earning $100,000 a year in salaries — had to do to ascertain the veracity of Task Force member Todd David's outrageous absentee record during his first two-year term on the Task Force was key in 20 meeting dates of the Task Force into Microsoft Excel. Right-mouse clicking on a column of data in Excel permits formatting of dates to display as both day of the week + date of the month, which shows clearly that the SOTF has a pattern of meeting on Wednesday's.
Then Breed and Yee would have known that the Task Force has a set date-specific pattern for its regular meetings on Wednesdays. By comparing a printout of Excel's automatic formatting of dates to that age-old device known as a hardcopy printout of monthly calendars, Yee and Breed would have quickly learned that full Task Force meetings are typically held like clockwork on the first Wednesday of each month. Yet neither Breed nor Yee sought to verify independently bullshit claims raised by Todd David and his backers that the “Regular Meeting” dates were chaotic.
Indeed, of 20 Regular meetings of the Task Force since it resumed meeting in November 2012, fully 15 (75%) were actually held like clockwork on the scheduled date-certain pattern of the first Wednesday of each month. Of five regular meetings cancelled and rescheduled, four of the five were due to conflicts with official City holidays. The four cancelled and rescheduled meetings represent 20% of the 20 meetings. The remaining regular meeting cancelled was due to a lack of quorum.
Prior to the start of Rules Committee's May 15 hearing, I advised both Supervisor Tang and Supervisor Yee that I would be testifying that Todd David had missed 46% of 13 SOTF meetings in just over the past year documented in the SOTF's absence records, documentation of which I provided to Rules supervisors Yee and Tang prior to the start of the hearing.
After Mr. David presented his qualifications to serve on the Task Force, Supervisor Yee raised a follow-up question to Mr. David regarding David's attendance record. Blatantly, Mr. David responded that the Task Force had been unable to meet for “a couple of months” following the appointment of Task Force members in 2012, and “then we were kind of were shifting around [meeting] dates.” This is patently untrue for a number of reasons.
First, it was not just a “couple of months,” as David falsely testified that the Task Force had been shut down. It was fully six months — fully half a year — between May 2 and November 7, 2012 when the Task Force was forced into not meeting, due to being out of compliance with having a disabled member appointed to the Task Force, a feat engineered by Supervisors Wiener, David Chiu, and Mark Farrell.
Second, Mr. David signaled his upcoming absences by skipping attending the very second meeting of the Task Force (December 5, 2012) after it resumed meetings on November 7, 2012. The first meeting David skipped was scheduled for the typical pattern of the Sunshine Task Force's first-Wednesday-of-the-month date-certain scheduled meetings, and his first absence was not because — as David falsely asserted — that the Task Force had begun “shifting around meeting dates.” Nor was that first absence due to David's further false allegation to Supervisor Yee's follow-up question during the Rules hearing May 15 that there was no way to “easily predict when regular meetings would be scheduled.”
What part of the regular, recurring pattern of full Task Force meetings regularly held the first Wednesday of each month enumerated in SOTF's by-laws did Mr. David not understand? The Task Force has clearly not shifted its Regular Meeting dates at all, since Mr. David was sworn into office.
Mr. David could have “predicted” when he would be required to attend regularly-scheduled meetings, had he just read and understood the Task Force's bylaws. It appears he may not have read them. Had he read them, then he may have been able to negotiate with his wife assumption of child-rearing duties he claims were more important to him than attending meetings at which members of the public expected he would faithfully attend. Todd David's claim I had a sick child my wife couldn't deal with doesn't cut it with members of the public who believe oversight bodies have a special obligation to protect the public interest, the very “transparency” Supervisor Tang claims is important to protect the public.
Then David further brazenly testified to Supervisor Yee in an attempt to justify his own absences from regular Task Force meetings that “sometimes” the Task Force met more twice a month. The Task Force has not. An analysis shows that the full Task Force has held just seven “Special Meetings” since it resumed meeting on November 7, 2012. Of the seven Special Meetings, only one actually involved the full Task Force meeting more than once per month, since subcommittee meetings have never counted towards meetings of the full Task Force.
The full Task Force has only met twice in a single month just once, the second month after Purge appointees were sworn in in 2012.
Five of the Special Meetings were replacement dates for five cancelled Regular Meetings. Just two of the Special Meetings were to have been for an additional meeting in a given month, but one of the Special Meetings was subsequently cancelled due to a lack of quorum. The full Task Force has only met more than once in any given month a single time — in November 2012 — for a single “additional meeting” during the 19-month period since it resumed meetings in November 2012.
The full Task Force has not met more than once a month after the new Purge appointees were installed in 2012 — except once in December 2012 during the second month of their tenure. Since then, during the intervening 18-month period they have made no sustained effort to meet more than once a month. Subcommittee meetings don't count, as noted, since there have always been subcommittee meetings during the 20-year existence of the Task Force.
The Task Force has made no effort to do so again, since December 2012. So much for the nonsense that the 2012 Purge appointees tried to clear up Sunshine complaint backlogs by holding multiple meetings in any given month.
So-called “Special Meetings” of the Task Force have posed no undue burden on Task Force members, as Task Force Chair Kitt Grant, Co-Chair Fischer, and member Todd David may have knowingly misrepresented to Supervisors Yee, Tang, and Breed. It's complete nonsense. Shame on Yee, Tang, and Breed for believing any such nonsense.
Then Mr. David may have falsely testified (under oath?) to Supervisor Yee during the Rules hearing that his (David's) absences were due to being unable to attend meetings that were rescheduled to other dates. Of the five cancelled meetings rescheduled, Mr. David attended four, illustrating he was actually able — not unable, due to child care responsibilities — to attend rescheduled meetings. Indeed, Mr. David's additional six (of seven absences) all occurred on Regular Meeting dates that all followed the same recurring, and clearly predictable, pattern on the first Wednesday of each month.
That Supervisor Yee accepted David's lame, false testimony during the Rules hearing on May 15, and then subsequently at the full Board of Supervisors hearing on May 20, is one problem. Another problem is that Supervisor Yee further asserted that after asking around, “different [Task Force members] confirmed that they moved committee meeting dates [around],” and “didn't have regular meetings on a [date-]certain calendar date.” That's complete nonsense, as Yee's staff could have easily researched for him and included in the “script” prepared to help bumbling Yee conduct the Rules Committee hearing on May 15.
For her part, Supervisor Breed also brazenly stated during the May 20 full Board of Supervisors hearing that her “understanding” was that they [the Sunshine Task Force] don't [sic] have a regular meeting day and regular meeting [dates] changes [sic] consistently … for example — ‘we [the Board of Supervisors] meet every Tuesday,' …. And [regular SOTF meetings] are very random, which makes it difficult for some [Task Force] members to attend.” Supervisor Breed mis-spoke, or was lying: There are no quantitative data, at all, that suggests Sunshine Task Force meetings are held “randomly.” Instead, its meetings are held consistently, not randomly. How could Breed be so wrong?
Were Breed, Tan, Wiener, and Yee so tied up in meetings with SOTF “lobbyists” David, Fischer, and Grant, that the four Supervisors had no time left over to independently very the veracity of the lobbyists' false claims?
Additionally, Deputy City Attorney Jon Givner, who advises multiple Board of Supervisors and its various subcommittees, claimed he didn't know what the Task Force's recurring meeting schedule is. Givner claimed he wasn't familiar enough with the Task Force's bylaws to know what the regular date-certain meeting schedule is. (Givner, if he were worth his salt, could have easily and quickly Googled and pulled up the Task Force's bylaws to ascertain the Task Force's recurring regularly-scheduled meeting pattern during the Rules Committee's May 15 hearing, but chose not to.)
This is comical precisely because Article V, Section 2 of the Task Force's bylaws specifically states that the SOTF's meetings that were previously held on the fourth Tuesday of each month were moved to the first Wednesday of each month. Not only did Givner fail to read this key provision in SOTF's bylaws, it appears so, too, did Member Todd David.
Just as Member Pilpel may not have read and understood the Board of Supervisors Statement of Incompatible Activities that prohibits him from attending other City oversight body meetings and potentially misrepresenting that he is speaking as an “emissary,” rather than speaking as a private citizen.
The meeting date analysis disproves the misinformation presented by Todd David and his supporters. The analysis involved data that Supervisors Yee, Tang, and Breed or their respective staff's could have easily researched and uncovered, as the Westside Observer has — without much effort. The three Supervisors and Supervisor Wiener have much more resources at their disposal to investigate policy matters of concern to San Franciscans, and to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, than do this reporter or the Westside Observer.
After all, the meeting date analysis was gleaned from meeting postings on SOTF's web site available to the four supervisors, coupled with data from a public records request for Mr. David's absences obtained from the SOTF's Administrator, an employee who is appointed by the Clerk of the Board, Angela Calvillo. If the Observer can easily sift through this data and place a records request, so too could these four miscreant Supervisors have researched prior to casting their votes to reappoint Mr. David, who has grossly abused the SOTF's absence-from-meeting bylaws rules to deal with his child-care issues.
Tang's Double-Standard of Ignoring City Attorney “Advice”
Things just get curiouser, and curiouser.
If Supervisor Tang's new litmus test for appointees to City boards, commissions, and “transparency” oversight bodies is that as a condition of appointment, applicants must swear undying fealty — a feudal tenant's or vassal's sworn loyalty to a lord — to inviolate City Attorney “advice,” as of May 28 Supervisor Tang may now have a big problem on her hands involving two Ethics Commissioners who on May 28 appear to have trotted down the road of ignoring City Attorney “advice” from the Deputy City Attorney assigned to attend Ethics Commission meetings during an open-meeting session.
On the Ethics Commission's May 28 agenda, item #4 claimed it would vote on whether the Ethics Commission should to go into closed session to receive attorney-client advice from the City Attorney involving litigation against the Ethics as the “defendant” in the Grossman v. John St. Croix, Executive Director and San Francisco Ethics Commission lawsuit languishing in the Appellate Court. One problem is, the Ethics Commission is now not the defendant, but the Petitioner.
Following over an hour of public testimony combined between the general Public Comment period and the comment period for Agenda Item #4 on May 28, the Deputy City Attorney advising the Ethics Commission suggested that after hearing public comments, he was concerned that the Commission had, in fact, not provided members of the public with documents that had been provided to the Commissioners prior to the meeting. In, and of itself, this was another violation of San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance. On the spot, Deputy City Attorney Josh White advised the Ethics Commission to continue and re-calendar the agenda item to a future Ethics Commission meeting, in order to comply with Sunshine Ordinance requirements and perhaps state law.
But immediately, Ethics Commissioner Paul Renne — former City Attorney Louise Renne's husband — suddenly snapped awake, after worried observer's had noted his drowsiness and possible sleep deprivation throughout the meeting. Renne argued to continue hearing the matter right on the spot, despite advice from the Deputy City Attorney who had advised against doing so.
Then, newbie Ethics Commissioner Peter Keane — professor of law and Dean Emeritus at Golden Gate University Law School, who was appointed to the Ethics Commission by his pal, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, hoping Keane will do Herrera's bidding, and was sworn in as an Ethics Commissioner on October 21, 2013 — also quickly argued on May 28 to change the closed-session meeting noticed on the published agenda into a suddenly open-meeting agenda item that the public had not been notified they could attend, if interested.
Keane appeared not all interested in hearing the Deputy City Attorney's advice to the Ethics Commission to postpone and re-calendar the agenda item to a future meeting. Keane sought to ignore the City Attorney's advice, and wanted the Ethics Commission to discuss the item without adequate public notice, also right there on the spot like Commissioner Renne.
Luckily, Ethics Commission president Ben Hur ruled to continue the agenda item to the Commission's June meeting.
SOTF's “Disabled” Member Requirement and Incumbent Bruce Oka
Although Mr. Oka has done a good job as a member of the Task Force, he has long sought to be replaced, and initially chose not to apply for re-appointment in 2014. He appears to some observers to now be providing cover to the Supervisors who implemented the Purge of Task Force members in 20112.
In July 2013, Oka was invited to re-apply to the SOTF and was provided an application form Supervisor Chiu's legislative aide, Judson True. Mr. Oka replied on July 12, 2013 that he was not going to fill out the application since he didn't want to continue serving on the SOTF.
Another analysis of 14 e-mails Oka exchanged with Chiu's aide, Judson True, over the course of 2013 asking to be replaced on SOTF is revealing. Notably, Oka asked at least eight times to be replaced on the Task Force, and asked to be replaced ASAP. Oka had met with True as early as February 2013, just four months into his appointment to the Task Force to discuss Task Force “matters ASAP.” It's not known whether Oka had expressed to Mr. True as early as four months into his Task Force assignment a desire to be replaced.
The e-mails exchanged were obtained by a strong Sunshine advocate who placed a records request to Supervisor Chiu on May 16, the day after the Rules Committee had only forwarded the three recommendations for Pilpel, Todd David, and Fischer to the full Board of Supervisors. Mr. True, responded to the records request by attaching the e-mails on May 27.
It's clear from the e-mails that Oka doesn't want to serve on the Task Force any longer. Elsewhere there are reports Oka may be planning to resign from SOTF by the end of the 2014, before the term expires in April 2015. To that extent, Oka appears to be re-applying for an appointment he doesn't really want, and in the process is blocking the appointment from going to someone who really does want to be appointed: Namely, Mr. Bruce Wolfe.
Notably, as early as July 23, 2013, Supervisor David Chiu e-mailed Supervisor Mark Farrell, asking Farrell:
“Did you ever have a chance to meet with your constituent re: Sunshine Task Force? Bruce Oka wants to step down, and we need to replace him asap.”
The candidate Chiu was referring to was Kate Williams. Ms. Williams had e-mailed Chiu at Chiu's private e-mail address on gmail.com. Attached to the e-mail was a one-line entry from a Google calendar showing an entry for a meeting between 3:30 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. on April 11, 2013 that read: “RSVP: Kate Williams, Sunshine Ordinance Task Force – Office.”
It is not known whether the Google calendar was from Ms. Williams' Google calendar, but observers suspect it was more likely a calendar entry from David Chiu's Google calendar, given that it notes “Office” as the meeting location. This suggests that Supervisor Chiu may be conducting City business using both a Google calendar rather than his City Hall official calendar, and using a private e-mail account on gmail.com on which to conduct official City business.
Since Oka is, in fact, a holdover on the SOTF, and the term of appointment to seat #11 will only run through April 2015, many observer's find it unacceptable that he threw his hat into the ring seeking re-appointment only the day before the June 5 Rules Committee hearing since there are reports he may plan to resign from the SOTF before the end of this year.
Oka wound up on the Task Force in 2012 only after Mayor Lee was unwilling to re-appoint him to an SFMTA transportation committee. There may have been no surprise there, as Oka may have irritated the Mayor over one MUNI issue or another. It appears to have been up to the Mayor to make a formal nomination to re-appoint Oka to the SFMTA committee, and up to Supervisor Chiu to move it forward, but neither of them advanced Oka's clear interest in an SFMTA re-appointment.
At the time, the Mayor rudely didn't have the courtesy to inform Oka beforehand that he had not been re-appointed to the MTA committee. Oka learned of it only when he showed up for an MTA meeting and found the new appointee sitting in his chair. Observers wonder how Oka might continue to believe that magically the Mayor may somehow change his mind and re-appoint Oka to the MTA committee he wants to serve on, the very committee Lee had unceremoniously thrown Oka off.
Surprisingly, although the Rules Committee's agenda published on Friday, May 30 did not include Mr. Oka as an applicant for re-appointment on Thursday, June 5, someone apparently assisted Mr. Oka on June 4 to complete and submit an eleventh-hour application for consideration, too late for consideration the next day, given restrictions on modifying the agenda at the start of the Rules June 5 hearing.
It is unclear why Oka would have submitted — or who talked him into submitting — an application for re-appointment just 24 hours before the scheduled hearing, after Oka has begged for almost a year to be replaced and relieved of his Task Force appointment, leading some to speculate who may have pressured Oka into submitting a last-minute application, and why.
Many observers believe the honorable thing for Oka to do is to officially withdraw his eleventh-hour June 4 application on Monday, June 9 so that Mr. Wolfe can be fairly considered for a seat that he clearly wants, which Oka clearly doesn't want.
Oka has served admirably on SOTF, despite his clear requests to David Chiu since at least July 2013 — nearly a year ago — to be replaced. It's time Oka move on.
It's highly unlikely that Supervisors Katy Tang and Norman Yee did not know of Oka's repeated appeals to be replaced on the Task Force.
Because Mr. Oka has long been a reluctant “holdover,” the failure to appoint a willing and qualified applicant like Mr. Wolfe is indefensible.
Indeed, during the public comment period on June 5, Mr. Oka testified that he believes Bruce Wolfe should be picked by the Rules Committee and recommended to the full Board of Supervisors to fill the Task Force's disabled seat. Oka's recommendation of Wolfe for the seat doesn't appear in the closed captioning transcript posted on SFGOV TV, perhaps because he used the wheelchair-accessible alternate microphone, not the microphone at the speaker's main podium. But Oka's endorsement of Wolfe is clearly audible on the audio recording and in the video recording posted on SFGOV TV.
As well, Supervisor Campos supported the application of Bruce Wolfe during the June 5 Rules hearing, stating, in part:
“I guess [Bruce Oka] has [re-]applied and … just spoke here and basically said that he's [Oka] supportive of someone who is already before us and that's Bruce Wolfe, and so I have a great deal of respect for Bruce Oka and I know he has done a great deal of work, not only on the MTA before [serving on] the Sunshine Task Force. …
But I think he's [Oka is] right, that Bruce Wolf brings to the table the kinds of background, qualifications and expertise that you want, and I say this as someone who, you know, has disagreed with him [Wolfe] at times including a disagreement with him and [Task Force] members as to if they can ignore the [City] Charter and to the extent they were allowed to do that, but I do believe he [Wolfe] will be an important and a really critical addition.”
Campos testified that he thought it was important to move forward Bruce Wolfe's application that day, on June 5.
Unfortunately, despite the endorsements of Bruce Wolfe by both Supervisor Campos, and Bruce Oka, Supervisors and Yee stubbornly refused to consider Wolfe on June 5. Instead Tang and Yee prevailed on a motion to continue consideration of Seat 11 (for either Oka or Wolfe) to a future meeting. Lamely, they moved consideration for Seat 11 to the Call of the Chair or a date-certain date, and then qualified it to say they'd consider the continued item “within the next two meetings,” which could lead to another one- to two-month delay before completing appointment recommendations for both Seats 4 and 11. Yee and Tang are expert at stalling.
Following the Rules Committee's June 5 hearing, Oka gave this reporter permission to approach Supervisor Tang to tell her that the only reason Oka had applied the day before was because he was led to believe Supervisor Yee wanted multiple candidates for each vacancy, and Oka had applied solely for that reason, but wants off of the Task Force.
Oka also requested meeting with Ms. Tang prior to June 10, which Tang confirmed following the hearing that she's open to doing. We'll have to see if Tang brow-beats Oka into remaining an applicant, despite his insistence he doesn't really want to be re-appointed to the Task Force, or whether Tang will honor the wishes of Mr. Oka without brow-beating him.
Conclusion
How is it that Ethics Commissioners can openly seek to ignore City Attorney “advice” using an alternative interpretation of law and advice presented during an open meeting, but the Sunshine Task Force is held to a different standard?
If Supervisor Katy Tang's new litmus test is designed to exclude appointees who don't support City Attorney advice, does that mean the Board of Supervisors will stage a coup, and purge the Ethics Commission of appointees like Renne and Keane who appeared all too willing on May 28 to ignore City Attorney advice?
If not, isn't that a double standard? Can one oversight body — Ethics Commissioners — freely and openly ignore City Attorney “advice,” while another quasi-judicial body — SOTF — cannot, and is held out for retribution and punishment? How might this double-standard play, in, say, Peoria?
Does Supervisor Tang have different “litmus tests” in play for different City oversight bodies? With some appointees being purged from their seats due to litmus tests, while others are not? Or am I missing something in the mixed messages being sent from City Hall?
How does this double-standard play with Supervisor Scott Wiener? Is Wiener OK with Keane and Renne ignoring DCA “advice,” but simultaneously holds SOTF to a different standard?
One thing is painfully clear: The Board of Supervisors needs to stop playing politics with appointments to the Sunshine Task Force, and let Task Force members get on with their job of adjudicating disputes between citizens and City officials who skirt the Sunshine Ordinance.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. He received the Society of Professional Journalists–Northern California Chapter's James Madison Freedom of Information Award in the Advocacy category in March
June 2014
City Hall Insiders Encouraged As Appellate Court Denies Friend-of-the-Court Brief
City Attorney's War on Sunshine Escalates
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Allen Grossman receives the Society of Professional Journalist's Award |
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
In a surprising development in the Allen Grossman v. John St. Croix and Ethics Commission case languishing in the Appellate Court. On April 16, the Appellate Court denied the request of the First Amendment Coalition [FAC] for permission to file a brief as amicus curiae. The Appellate justices offered no explanation.
Essentially, Grossman's case involves whether a voter-approved ballot initiative in 1999 to strengthen our local open records law — the Sunshine Ordinance can require release of public records that the City Attorney consideres confidential attorney-client communications."
Grossman's lawsuit against the Ethics Commission and its Executive Director, John St. Croix, involves the public's right to know what advice City Attorney Dennis Herrera has been providing to the Ethics Commission regarding access to public records.
Essentially, Grossman's case involves whether a voter-approved ballot initiative in 1999 to strengthen our local open records law — the Sunshine Ordinance can require release of public records that the City Attorney consideres confidential attorney-client communications. "The Sunshine Ordinance stipulates that such communications are public records when they deal with sunshine or ethics-related matters," says Richard Knee, a current member of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.
Alternatively, the First Amendment Coalition has indicated that at issue in Grossman's case is "whether San Francisco's experiment in [public records] transparency will be cut short by restoration of secrecy for its lawyers." As the Westside Observer reported last March, the Superior Court initially ruled in Grossman's favor on October 25.
In stark contrast, as the Observer has reported, Deputy City Attorney Andrew Shen has filed on behalf of the City and St. Croix — but not on behalf of the Ethics Commission, since it never formally approved to appeal Grossman's Superior Court victory.
Six days after the Appellate Court rejected FAC's request, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 22 in Schuette vs. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Active, a case involving Michigan's voter-approved initiative banning race-based college-admission preferential treatment. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: "Courts may not disempower the voters from which path to follow," declining to overturn the voter initiative on a 6-2 vote of the Supreme Court. "Courts lack authority to interfere with political decisions made by voters," Justice Kennedy noted.
Application Denied The First Amendment Coalition (FAC) applied to the Appellate Court for permission to file an Amicus curiae — friend-of-the-court — brief in support of Allen Grossman. FAC is a California-based non-profit organization dedicated to freedom of speech and public access. FAC assisted in drafting SF's Sunshine Ordinance in 1999, and has both a keen interest in, and expert-witness knowledge of, the subject matter.
In its three-page application, FAC noted that when voters adopted the Sunshine Ordinance in 1999, it reflected public dissatisfaction with the California Public Records Act (CPRA) that, in some instances, gives local agencies considerable discretion in deciding whether to disclose requested public records.
FAC's application noted that although the City wants the section that deters City agencies from seeking the City Attorney's advice on how to circumvent state and local open records laws. That section included a provision that requires SF agencies and officials to disclose — notwithstanding other attorney-client privilege protections — only a very narrow category of communications: Advice from the City Attorney's Office on how to circumvent CPRA and the Sunshine Ordinance.
FAC noted in its application to the Court that voters are entitled to adopt such a limitation.
The City Attorney has suddenly raised a new claim, never raised at the Superior Court level, or in multiple briefs he filed to the Appellate Court, claiming it is the City itself, not the City Attorney, who is permitted to invoke attorney-client privilege. In fact, that privilege rests solely with clients, and in this case rests solely with citizens, not their attorneys. Voters , Grossman maintains, are the ultimate "clients" of the City Attorney. The City Charter wastes not one word — either explicitly, or implicitly — on any definition or assignment of, attorney-client privilege to any City officers, or on the City itself.
Courts are bound to uphold municipal ordinances and bylaws, unless they manifestly transcend powers conferred on enacting bodies. The City Attorney continues to argue that the duty of "confidentiality" is expressly conferred, or "inferred" by in the language as "additional powers and duties prescribed by State law."
This is a summary of an article posted on the www.westsideobserver.com
Monette-Shaw open-government accountability advocate, James Madison Freedom of Information Award recipient from the Society of Professional Journalist'sin 2012
monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
May 2014
On the Mayor's Seven-Point Housing Plan
Affordability Mayor: A Housing Bait-and-Switch?
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
To believe Mayor Ed Lee's pledge to build 30,000 housing units in San Francisco over the next six short years, you'd also have to believe P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every minute." [It wasn't Barnum who said it; Wikipedia indicates several sources attribute the aphorism to various con men.]
…voters in November 2012 authorized the Mayor's new Housing Trust Fund to receive just $36.8 million in diverted-from-the-General-Fund appropriations during the same six-year period. How do you divide $36.8 million in fish and loaves, and come up with $500 million?"
For openers, although the mainstream media reported January 17 details of Mr. Mayor's seven-point plan to solve the City's number one crisis (affordable housing), the media failed to note the Mayor's bloviated claim to issue 2,500 down-payment-assistance loans during the next six years — and increase each loan to up to $200,000 — may end up costing a half-billion dollars. The media didn't report, and apparently didn't bother asking, where the Mayor plans to come up with a cool $500 million in order to hand out 2,500 interest-free loans within six years.
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Photo: Luke Thomas /fogcityjournal.com |
Will Google, or Twitter — or Ron Conway, and Danielle Steele's ex-hubby, Tom "Don't Persecute Billionaires" Perkins — donate upwards of $450 million out of their collective "tech" deep pockets to make these interest-free loans happen?
After all, the enabling legislation passed by voters in November 2012 authorized the Mayor's new Housing Trust Fund to receive just $36.8 million in diverted-from-the-General-Fund appropriations during the same six-year period. How do you divide $36.8 million in fish and loaves, and come up with $500 million? Using bloviated fish? By cracking open a magnum of a City Hall mixologist's "infused" wine?
Unfortunately, public safety employees in San Francisco — and particularly, citizens who vote — appear to have been played for a sucker over the Housing Trust Fund approved by voters in November 2012, a fund administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development.
The Housing Trust Fund appears to potentially be a bait-and-switch all of its own.
Proposition "C" approved by voters on the November 2012 ballot permitted the City to divert $20 million annually from the City's General Fund towards constructing housing (without explaining what General Fund programs would face the chopping block to free up $20 million annually). The City will add an additional $2.8 million annually to the Housing Trust Fund on a compounded basis for the next 11 years, until 2024-2025.
By the time 2025 rolls around — just 12 years into this program — the General Fund will be tapped for $50.8 million annually for this Housing Trust Fund (again with no mention of what else will be cut from the General Fund). By 2025, a combined $424 million will have been diverted from the General Fund to the Housing Trust Fund.
Between 2025 and 2043 (since it's a 30-year program), the annual allocation to the Trust Fund will be based on the prior year's appropriation that will ostensibly start at $50.8 million, adjusted plus or minus an unspecified percentage of change to the City's General Fund Discretionary Revenues. By 2043 — assuming a flat contribution of $50.8 million annually in each of the next 18 years — an additional $914.4 million will be generated, bringing the total 30-year contributions to the Housing Trust Fund to a staggering $1.34 billion promised for a wide variety of housing, not just down-payment assistance loans.
Raising $500 million for down-payment assistance loans is scheduled to take at least 14 years, not the six years reported in the media. And that would assume that the first $500 million in General Fund contributions to the Housing Trust Fund would be used solely for down-payment assistance loans, and all other housing programs would receive nothing during those 14 years.
In the next six years, will we be any closer to having any of the housing built promised by the Mayor and his Housing Trust Fund? Probably not. Just take a look at the dismal performance of the Housing Trust Fund so far. But first, take a look at the Mayor's recent past for some context.
Mayor Lee Whipped at the Ballot Box
You wouldn't know it from the dearth of post-election news analysis by our major media, but there were a number of significant losers in San Francisco's municipal election last November.
When voters rejected Proposition "B" on the November 2013 ballot by a whopping 63 percent, they rebuffed the developers of luxury condos who had asked voters whether the City should allow development at 8 Washington Street. Mayor Lee was among the official proponents of the ballot measure. The same voters also rejected Proposition "C" at the same time, which was a referendum on whether the Board of Supervisors spot-zoning height increase for 8 Washington should take effect. More emphatically, over two thirds of voters — 67 percent — cast "No" votes.
The biggest loser over Propositions "B" and "C" was Mayor Lee — who lost any hope that his "legacy" project of the Warrior's stadium planned to be built on the Bay exceeding height zoning would survive voter scrutiny, forcing Lee to go in search of his next "legacy."
Other losers included the Board of Supervisors, trounced by referendum of the people against the Board's flagrant use of spot-zoning height increases along the waterfront. The twin losses for Lee and the Supervisors so rattled them, that none of them dared to become the official opponent of the upcoming Proposition "B" on the June 2014 ballot that would require each project proposed for development on the waterfront that would exceed current height restrictions to obtain project approval by voters at the ballot box, beforehand.
A poll conducted for the Harvey Milk Club last December shows 75 percent of likely San Francisco voters favor this June 2014 ballot measure, which will probably pass handily. Also listed in the 2012 voter guide as proponents of the 8 Washington ballot measure, Supervisors Mark Farrell and Scott Wiener suffered an embarrassing loss at the ballot box. No wonder there were no takers to be the voter guide opponent on June's Prop "B." Wiener and Farrell hate losing.
And finally, the losers include the California State Teachers Retirement Fund (CalSTRS). As the Westside Observer reported in September 2013, an October 30, 2008 letter to the San Francisco Port Authority pledged that CalSTRS would make an equity contribution in the range of $100 million for project rights to 8 Washington. A February 19, 2009 Port Authority memo stated CalSTRS would have a 99 percent ownership interest in 8 Washington. As of September 2013, CalSTRS had invested $42 million in the 8 Washington project.
It isn't clear how much the teacher's pension fund lost when 8 Washington went down to double defeat, but it is known that CalSTRS lost over $100 million in a failed attempt to convert Stuyvesant Town — 11,250 middle class rent-controlled apartments in New York City's Peter Cooper Village — into high-end luxury housing. Not to be outdone, the California Public Employees' Retirement System lost $970 million it had paid to Lennar Housing in 2007 for part of a stake in Newhall Land Development Company's "Newhall Ranch" deal north of Los Angeles that went bankrupt when the housing market crashed in 2008.
You have to wonder why Major Lee is cavorting with Lennar Urban's massive housing development in the Bayview Hunter's Point project and Lennar's development on Treasure Island, given that Lennar's Mare Island project was reported in July 2013 to also be in bankruptcy. Hopefully, Lee's legacy will not be "the bankruptcy mayor."
Housing Trust Fund Components
The November 2012 voter guide stratified how the $20 million Housing Trust Fund would be put to use, terms of which were to determined by the sole discretion of the Mayor's Office of Housing. First, the voter guide indicated an unspecified amount would be used to create, acquire, or rehabilitate rental and home ownership for households earning up to 120 percent of Area Median Income (AMI), including acquisition of land. The AMI amount as of January 2014 is $67,950 for a one-person household, and $104,850 for a five-person household; 120 percent translates to $81,550 and $125,800, respectively.
Second, the 2012 voter guide indicated that no later than July 2018, the City would appropriate $15 million from the Trust Fund for down-payment loan assistance programs of up to 120 percent of AMI — ostensibly for non-first responders — and an unspecified percent of AMI for public safety first responders. The percentage of AMI for first responders was to be set at the sole discretion of the Mayor's Office of Housing, but Supervisor Mark Farrell infused himself into the "sole discretion" discussions. Farrell is just one of City Hall's creative mixologists infusing the wine.
Third, the voter guide reported that also by July 2018, the City will appropriate another $15 million from the Trust Fund for use as "assistance to reduce the risk to current occupants of a loss of housing," and for use in making their homes safer, more accessible, energy efficient or "more sustainable" under a "Housing Stabilization Program" component of the Trust Fund for residents earning up to 120 percent of AMI.
Fourth, the Trust Fund would be permitted to use funds to operate and administer a "Complete Neighborhoods Infrastructure Grant Program" to accelerate the build-out of public realm infrastructure needed to support increased residential density. The Infrastructure Grants would be used only for public facilities identified by California's Community Facilities District laws, and would give priority to residential development "project sponsors, community-based organizations, and City departments" for public realm improvements associated with proposed residential development projects. Funding would be restricted to no more than $2 million annually, or 10 percent of appropriations in any given year. [By 2025, 10 percent of the $50.8 million annual contribution to the Housing Trust Fund translates to $5.8 million for infrastructure grants.]
Fifth, the voter guide indicated the City could allocate an unspecified, but "sufficient amount" to cover legally permissible administrative costs of the Fund, including legal expenses and, ostensibly, personnel costs.
But the voter guide never told voters that up $1.34 billion would be provided to the Housing Trust Fund over the 30-year legislation. Still, lured by the smell of money, voters passed Proposition "C" all but ignoring that it contained a poisoned pill buried in the legal text of the initiative: For certain residential projects beginning after January 2013, the City would be required to reduce by a staggering 20 percent the current on-site inclusionary housing obligations of developers to develop "affordable" inclusionary housing.
The voter guide also stipulated that as of January 2013 the City would not be allowed to adopt any new land use legislation or administrative regulations that would require project sponsor's to increase their inclusionary housing cost obligations beyond those required on January 1, 2013, including the 20 percent reduction.
You'd need to be a land-use attorney to understand which sections of the Planning Code would be subject to the 20 percent reduction to inclusionary housing requirements, which appears to be a reward to developers for not opposing Proposition "C" at the ballot box. After all, the developers are anxious to milk the $1.34 billion Housing Trust Fund.
To the extent Prop. "C" was backed by the Mayor, you have to wonder about his claims concerning "affordability," given the poison pill in the November 2012 Proposition "C" that reduced affordable inclusionary housing by 20 percent in order to placate developers and investors.
The Eligibility Feeding Frenzy
Within two months of his stinging defeat over 8 Washington, the Mayor's social media spin doctors had created a new persona for him: That as the "affordability mayor" pushing an "affordability agenda."
The ensuing food fight that broke out over use of the Housing Trust Fund was nasty. Back in July 2013, just after the City adopted its fiscal year 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 budget, a coalition of advocates tried to broker an agreement that not only would teachers and nurses be eligible for the down-payment loan assistance programs (DLAP) along with police, firefighters, and sheriff employees, but all City workers would be eligible, too.
In particular, public safety dispatchers who dispatch 9-1-1 calls to police officers and firefighters had sought to be included in the first round of loan funding, but were rebuffed, as were the teachers and nurses. Supervisor Farrell fought bitterly with the Mayor's Office of Housing (MOH) during negotiations regarding eligibility for the so-called "first responders" carve out from the DLAP funds. Farrell had initially wanted firefighters and police officers to be allowed to earn up to 250 percent of AMI, which would have equaled $169,875 for a one-person household, and up to $262,125 for a five-person household.
Supervisor Farrell's meddling prevented the 9-1-1 dispatchers from eligibility, and dispatchers may not have been informed they could apply under a separate non-first responder's down-payment assistance loan program, instead.
On July 30, 2013 Farrell spoke at a City Hall news conference flanked by Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, Police Chief Greg Shur, and Mayor Lee. Farrell announced that the DLAP loans would be restricted to public safety first responders, with a maximum down-payment loan assistance amount of $100,000. Farrell — like others — hope to entice public safety officers to move back into San Francisco from other jurisdictions. Fat chance.
According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle the next day, reportedly "more than 45" police, fire, and sheriff personnel had expressed interest in applying for the first responder DLAP loans. The Chronicle didn't report on whether Farrell mentioned during his news conference that a second DLAP program for non-first responders was also under development.
Farrell doesn't seem to get it — as most politicians don't — that without 9-1-1 dispatchers residing in the City and County, police, fire, and other first responders will have insufficient dispatchers directing them to 9-1-1 emergencies. After all, 9-1-1 dispatchers are the City's first, first responders.
Eligibility Conundrum: 9–1–1 Dispatchers vs. Public Safety vs. Others
The first-responders DLAP program was created in November 2012 to help entice public safety personnel to move back to San Francisco from outlying jurisdictions. Presumably, after the next big earthquake or other disaster, there are too many public safety officers residing out of county, and recovery efforts will be stymied by the inability of staff to get back into the City to provide public safety.
Data from the City's Department of Human Resources obtained in January 2014 shows that:
Of 2,161 employees in the Police Department, fully 75.5 percent live out-of-county
Of 1,386 employees in the Fire Department, 67.3 percent reside out-of-county
Of 809 employees in the Sheriff's Department, 76.6 reside out of county
Of the 147 Public Safety Dispatchers in job classification code 8238, 66.7 percent live out-of-county
Of Public Safety Dispatcher Supervisors in job classification codes 8239 and 8240, 77.4 percent live out-of-county, the highest percentage of first responders who do — since ultimately, dispatchers are our first first responders.
The number of police, fire, sheriff, and dispatchers who live out of county is a combined 73 percent, a figure that probably has disaster recovery planners and resiliency planners very worried. Why isn't Supervisor Farrell worried about reducing the number of dispatchers residing out-of-county? Does Farrell think the police and firefighters can dispatch themselves, given an insufficient number of 9–1–1 dispatchers who currently reside in-county?
And as far as the maximum income levels issue goes, if eligibility for one-person households earning up to 200 percent of AMI is currently set at $135,900, fully 94.4 percent of line-staff dispatchers would qualify and 96.9 percent of dispatch supervisors would qualify, as would 78 percent of Sheriff's safety personnel. This contrasts starkly to just 46.6 percent of police officers who would qualify, and just 22.4 percent of firefighters and paramedics who would, according to payroll data provided by the City Controller.
When it comes to maximum income eligibility levels for four-person households earning up to 200 percent of AMI currently set at $194,200, fully 100 percent of both dispatch line staff and their supervisors would qualify, as would 98 percent of police officers and Sheriff's staff, compared to only 75.9 percent of firefighters and paramedics who would.
But with all that said, there is no data available that could be requested from the City to analyze either: 1) How many potentially-eligible police, firefighters, Sheriff's deputies — or even 9–1–1 dispatchers — may have double- or total-household income levels (including spouses and any other income-earning members residing in their households) that would disqualify them from either the 120 percent or 200 percent of AMI restriction?; and 2) How many of the police, firefighters, and Sheriff's deputies versus the dispatchers already own homes, and, therefore, may be ineligible under first-time buyer restrictions.
That may explain why Flannery reported that there were just 12 first responders who were drawn in the first-year lottery for the DLAP loans: Their total household income may be far higher than the maximum percentage of AMI permitted, or they may already own homes, making them ineligible under either criteria.
Had dispatchers been eligible for the first-year lottery, perhaps more than four loans may have already been awarded. Or, had Farrell not infused himself as a mixologist during the eligibility food fight, perhaps by having opened up eligibility to nurses or teachers — or to all City employees — it may have yielded a better first-year use of the DLAP funds that remain unspent nine months into the current fiscal year.
Lack of Documentation
On December 29, this author placed a records request to Mayor Lee asking for a list of the first and last names, job classification codes, and City Department of each applicant who had applied for assistance under the Prop. "C" down-payment loan assistance program once the program began accepting applications in August 2013. Also requested was a second list of each applicant who had qualified, and a third list showing each applicant who had actually been awarded a down-payment loan and the amount of each loan awarded.
The next day, Eugene Flannery, an Environmental Compliance Manager in the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development, responded indicating his office needed to consult with other City departments before it could respond. On January 13, Flannery finally provided an initial list showing that of the 12 employees whose names had been drawn from a lottery, eight were firefighters, one was a Sheriff's Department employee, and three were police officers, but he neglected to include any information loan amounts awarded.
Flannery withheld the names of the City employees who applied for, qualified for, or were awarded assistance under the DLAP program. He claimed that for reasons of privacy, the City closely guards employee's home addresses and the "general rule" is that the City does not disclose them to the public, ignoring the fact that the records requested had not asked for home addresses.
[This is notable, since later, on March 19, Flannery finally released the non-first responders DLAP manual, which clearly stipulates that the names of DLAP recipients are public records, and the loan applications and all communications involved with the Mayor's Office of Housing concerning the loans, are disclosable public records.]
On January 22, Flannery provided a second version of his list, which indicated two of the "firefighters" are actually paramedics, and then included loan amounts. Shockingly, of the $1 million set aside for the first-responders DLAP program for July 2013 to June 2014, a total of just four loans had been issued as of January 13, 2014, seven months into the fiscal year. The four loans totaled $393,750, representing just 39 percent of the $1 million initially set aside in the program's first-year budget. The four loans represent just two percent of the full $20 million appropriated to the Housing Trust Fund on July 1, 2013.
And notably, the non-first responders DLAP component had also been budgeted $1 million for FY 2013-2014, but as of March 2014 — nine months into the current fiscal year — the program had not even launched and ostensibly had no applicants (even from nurses or 9-1-1 dispatchers), and no awards had yet been made from the second $1 million DLAP program for non-first responders. It took the Mayor's Office of Housing over 16 months to develop and issue the non-first responders DLAP manual between the time Proposition "C" was passed in November 2012 and when the manual was released in mid-March 2014. Wasted time during which no non-first-responder loans were offered, or issued.
On January 13, Flannery had responded to a first records request, saying that only 12 people had applied for the first responder DLAP loans, which came nowhere near close to the 45 public safety personnel the Chronicle had reported in July 2013 were "interested in applying." Flannery indicated four of the loans had closed; six were "allocated" funds, but had ostensibly not been able to "secure" a property and asked for and were granted extensions to accommodate their search for a home; and two were on some sort of waiting list. He indicated that when the extension period ended, applicants unable to secure a property would be removed from the reservation list and the freed-up slots would be made available on a first-come, first-served basis, with the two applications on the waiting list given priority over new, interested households.
[Editor's Note: Mayor Lee issued a press release on March 17, saying in part, "However, given the high cost of homes in today's market, a higher loan amount is need [sic] to enable low to moderate income [sic] borrowers keep up with market conditions."
The Mayor's press release also said the first responder's DLAP component had funded four loans "totaling nearly $500,000, with six other loans in process to close in 2014." First, the $393,750 issued as of late January for the four loans approach nearly $400,000, not the $500,000 bloviated.
Second, as of late January, Flannery had indicated the remaining six loans in process may not close before the end of June 2014. Assuming those loans close at all, they may not occur in the fiscal year intended, but may be rolled over into the first two quarters of a subsequent fiscal year. This suggest there may be some slippage to the timelines and goals for each fiscal year.
Alternatively, if the six loans don't close by June 30, 2014 in the first fiscal year these first responder DLAP loans were appropriated, they may simply be rolled over into a subsequent fiscal year's budget, making them more difficult to track across funding cycles.]
When asked on February 1 how his office would identify other employees who might potentially want to bid on the vacated or unused lottery drawing, Flannery started clamming up. He indicated two days later on February 3 that his office would make announcements regarding the remaining down payment assistance in the first-responders program in March. Here we are at the end of March, and it's unknown whether any new announcements have been pushed out to potentially-eligible public safety or first responder staff.
Flannery did provide a sample notification letter, but creatively failed to answer a follow-up question about who the sample letter had been sent to, or when. And he creatively claimed a day later on February 4 that there were "no responsive records" to a request for a "waiting list" of those who sought first responder loans in FY 2013-2014. First, Flannery used the term "waiting list" several times in January. Then he said in February no waiting list exists. Which is it? He hasn't explained.
When asked for program manuals for the overall Down Payment Assistance Loan Program required by Charter Section 16.110(d)(2) following passage of Prop. "C" in 2012, the manual for the "Housing Stabilization Program" required by Charter Section 16.110(d)(3), and any another other program manuals or policies and procedures for the Neighborhood Infrastructure Grant Program and the Affordable Housing Development program, Flannery provided four documents on February 14: A "Cal Homes" policies and procedure manual, a "Healthy Homes" write-up, a "Single-Family Tenant-Occupied Loan Program" write-up about providing affordable financing to rehabilitate one- to four-unit properties occupied by low- and moderate-income tenant households, and the first-responders DLAP manual.
While the Healthy Homes and rental rehabilitation programs are two of the 10 separate program components within the "Housing Stabilization Program," Flannery provided no other information regarding the other eight sub-components, and it appears that despite the 16 months since Prop. "C" passed in 2012, an over-arching manual for all 10 components of the Housing Stabilization Program may not have been developed yet, despite the Charter's requirement.
As far as that goes, Flannery provided no manual for the Complete Neighborhood Infrastructure component, or the Affordable Housing Development component of the Housing Trust Fund.
And Flannery provided no "manuals" or procedures regarding stabilizing at-risk rent-controlled units, or the Mayor's plan announced two weeks earlier during his State-of-the-City speech on January 17 promising to build only market-rate rental units. What? No procedures to help "affordable" or low-income renters at all?
Initial Two-Year Housing Trust Fund Budget
To his credit, Mr. Flannery did provide the two-year Mayor's Proposed Budget for use of the Housing Trust Fund in FY 2013-2014 and FY 2014-2015 authored by the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development. It paints a disturbing picture.
It shows that for the first year, just $2 million — just 10 percent of the initial $20 million diverted to the Housing Trust Fund — would be split equally between the separate first responders and non-first responders DLAP program components. The Housing Stabilization sub-program was budgeted to receive 14.1 percent, or $2.8 million. The Neighborhood Infrastructure program was budgeted to receive just one percent, a paltry $200,000. "Program delivery" — ostensibly including personnel, "overhead," and legal expenses — fared much better, at 5.8 percent, or $1.15 million of the initial $20 million.
Shockingly, fully 69 percent — $13.8 million — was budgeted for "affordable housing development," the same Affordable Housing Development component for which Flannery provided no program manuals or write-ups. Nobody has explained what the Affordable Housing Development component will do — or how over two-thirds of the first $20 million deposited into the Housing Trust Fund in July 2013 will be used.
When the City starts kicking in the additional $2.8 million in FY 2014-2015 on July 1, 2014 in the second year on top of the first $20 million required by Prop. "C," the allocation to each major sub-component shifts, ever so slightly. The non-first responders budget will double to $2 million (at the same time the initial two–year budget provides no increase to the $1 million set aside for first responders which will remain at a flat $1 million), so both DLAP components will rise to 13.2 percent of the $20.8 million; funding to the Housing Stabilization program will see a modest increase of just $300,000, dropping it to just 13.6 percent of the mix; the Neighborhood Infrastructure funding will quintuple from just $200,000 to a full million, jumping to 4.4 percent; and the Affordable Housing "Development" component will see a $700,000 increase to $14.5 million, but will drop to just 63.6l percent of the second-year budget.
Across the first two-year budget of $42.8 million for all uses of the Housing Trust Fund, this brings us to a two-year combined total of:
A mere $5 million across both DLAP programs ($2 million initially budgeted for first-responders, and $3 million for non-first responders), representing 11.7 percent of the initial two-year budget.
An also-paltry $5.9 million — 13.8 percent of the initial $42.8 million — for the so-called Housing Stabilization" program component.
Just $1.2 million — 2.8 percent of the initial $42.8 million — for the "Complete Neighborhoods Infrastructure Improvements" component.
A staggering $28.3 million — 66 percent of the initial $42.8 million — for the so-called "Affordable Housing Development" component, with no explanation whatsoever of what the Mayor's Office of Housing intends to use those millions for, when, and with whom.
[Editor's Note: Just before the Westside Observer went to press for this issue, Flannery provided the second two-year Housing Trust Fund proposed budget for Fiscal Years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, too late to fully analyze for this article. It shows however, that in the third year of the Housing Trust Fund's existence, the Mayor's Office of Housing had proposed awarding the "affordability housing development" component another $14.87 million, while the Controller's Office also provided an apparently revised budget for the same period showing an increase for the "affordability housing development" component to $17.3 million — bringing the three year total for affordability housing development use to an even more staggering $45.6 million, with no explanation for its use.
Rocky Road of Performance
Data from the City Controller's Office and the Board of Supervisors Budget and Legislative Analyst — Mr. Harvey Rose's outfit — paint a troubling picture of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development.
In response to a records request placed with the City Controller, it turns out that as of February 18, 2014 fully 92.8 percent — $17.5 million — of the total $20 million transferred from the General Fund to the Housing Trust Fund for its first year of funding remains unencumbered (unspent) fully nine months into the current 2013-2014 fiscal year.
Of the $1.15 million set aside for program delivery including personnel and legal expenses to administer the Trust Fund, fully 86 percent — $991,797 — remains unencumbered nearly nine months into the current funding cycle.
More shockingly, of the $20 million diverted from the General Fund to the Housing Trust Fund, the City Controller's data shows that either the Board of Supervisors, the Controller's Office, or the Mayor's Budget Office had tinkered with the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development's proposed budget submission for FY 2013-2014 by moving $1 million from loan assistance programs to "community-based organizational services." The Community-Based Service budget line item has encumbered about 42 percent of its revised budget to date in the fiscal year (after the Board of Supervisors tinkered adjusting its budget), the sole program to have encumbered a significant portion of its budget.
Which "community-based services" may have been recipients of this encumbered largesse, is not yet known.
But it stands in stark contrast to the Controller's data that shows not only that the line item index code for "loans issued by the City" was reduced from $17.8 million to just $16.8 million, with the reduced $1 million apparently moved to "community-based services," but also that $16.4 million of the remaining $16.8 million for loans "issued by the city" remains unencumbered, fully 97.6 percent of the funds the Controller said had been budgeted for "loans."
Not explained by the Controller's Office is why the Mayor's Office of Housing may have submitted a proposed budget listing five separate main components of the Housing Trust Fund, but the Controller's "index codes" for FY 2013–2014 and FY 2014–2015 contained just two major categories for "community-based organizational services," and "loans issued by the City," as if "neighborhood infrastructure" and "affordable housing development" projects have no separate index code to track their programmatic costs and can just be lumped together in a single index code apparently labeled "loans issued by the City."
[Editor's Note: Just after this article was submitted to the Westside Observer for publication, the Controller's Office provided an updated two-year proposed budget for the Housing Trust Fund for FY 2014–2015 and FY 2015–2016. It now provides separate breakouts for the two categories for contracts for Community Based Organizational Services (the "Complete Neighborhoods Initiative" and the "Housing Stabilization Program"), and now lists four separate breakouts for the various categories of loans (including the "First Responders DLAP," the non-first responders DLAP, a new "Housing Development Pool" and a "Small Site Acquisition/Rehab Program"). The "Housing Development Pool" loans — which Flannery provided no program description of — continues to receive the lion's share of funding, at $14.5 million in FY 2014–2015 and $17.3 million in FY 2015–2016.]
And the Controller's Office hasn't explained whether the $13.8 million requested in the Mayor's Office of Housing's proposed budget earmarked for "Affordable Housing Development" in the first year (FY 2013–2014) has been rolled into a single line item for $16.4 million for "loans issued by the City." The November 2012 voter guide made no mention of using any portion of the $20 million Housing Trust Fund for "Affordable Housing Development," but here we have the Mayor's Office of Housing's budgeting $13.8 million in the first fiscal year towards that purpose, while the City Controller's Office may have lumped any such expenditures into an index code designated as "loans."
Affordable Housing Development "loans"? To whom are these loans being shopped to? No explanation has been forthcoming from Flannery, or his boss Olson Lee.
If the $13.8 million in "affordable housing development" loans in FY 2013–2014 are not being disbursed to either first-responder or non-first responder loan applicants, who are the "loans" being awarded to? Or will that money just be rolled over into a subsequent fiscal year and spent later?
Mr. Flannery, and his boss Olson M. Lee (not a relative of Mayor Ed Lee), aren't saying. And they haven't provided a program manual or write-up describing any program to underwrite "affordable housing development" loans, terms of such loans, repayment provisions, or qualifications required to even apply.
Comparing the Mayor's Office of Housing's Proposed Budget for the Housing Trust Fund against the City Controller's line-item index codes, reveals a host of unanswered questions.
Take, for example, public records obtained from both the Mayor's Office of Housing and the Controller's Office after this article was submitted for publication.
Different public records show that for the two-year budget cycle for FY 2014–2015 and FY 2015–2016 now being hashed out at City Hall for adoption July 1, 2014, that although the Office of Housing had requested $14.87 million in FY 2015–2016 for the so-called "Affordable Housing Development" component, the City Controller's Office is now showing that component has been increased to $17.3 million, a $2.4 million increase over what had been requested by the Housing Office.
To do that, the City Controller's data is reporting the requested $2 million in the second year for the "Neighborhoods Infrastructure" has been reduced by half, to $1 million. Similarly the City Controller's data shows that the $3 million requested for "Small Site Acquisition/Rehab" has been reduced by one-third, to $2 million. Overall, the Controller's data shows the "Housing Stabilization" component has been reduced from the requested $4.45 million to $3.1 million, with the difference being squirreled away to fatten up "Affordable Housing Development," which will apparently take the form of "loans," but loans to whom, when, and for what purpose remains unexplained by Flannery and Olson Lee.
Again, it's unclear whether it was the City Controller, the Board of Supervisors, or the Mayor's Budget Office that moved funds around in the Mayor's Office of Housing's proposed budget.
When Harvey Rose Speaks, People Listen
In a development unrelated to the Housing Trust Fund per se, but closely related to the "affordability crisis" that has resulted from Mayor's Lee's focus on luring tech sector "jobs," and that has resulted in massive displacement in San Francisco, Harvey Rose — the Board of Supervisors Budget and Legislative Analyst — has weighed in, however unintentionally, on performance of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development.
In February 2014, Rose submitted an analysis to the Board of Supervisors who were considering a $2 million increase to an initial proposal to divert $2.5 million from the City's General Fund Reserve account to fund a new "Non-Profit Rental Stabilization Program," increasing the proposal to $4.5 million.
Rose noted such a decision might be premature, since the criteria for awarding stabilization funds to individual nonprofit organizations, any limitations on use of the funds, limits on the amount of funds to be awarded, and "administrative and selection procedures" had not yet been decided, and won't be until after a planned report from a so-called "Nonprofit Displacement Work Group" is completed and presented, presumably on April 11, 2014.
Rose claimed it was simply a "policy matter" for the Board to consider increasing the raid of the General Fund Reserve account, reducing General Fund reserves from $44 million to just $40 million, which the San Francisco Examiner later creatively titled a news article as being a "gift" to the City, albeit being a raid of the City's reserve coffers, not a philanthropic "gift."
Rose claimed this, after first admitting that way back in 2000, the Board of Supervisors had approved two ordinances to appropriate $1.5 million from the City's General Fund Reserve to provide rent subsidies to nonprofit arts organizations in immediate danger of being evicted or displaced by rent increases.
Rose reported on February 26, 2014, that the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development claims overall expenditures, including administrative costs of the arts rental assistance program, are "not currently available."
Wait! What? The Mayor's Office of Housing has no information available at all about how $1.5 million may (or may have not) have been spent?
Apparently, Mr. Brian Cheu, Director of Community Development in the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development advised Rose's team that "approximately" 12 grants for rental subsidies were provided under the arts rental assistance program during an unspecified time frame. More apparently, "approximately" was as close as Cheu could get, which Rose appears to have accepted and the Board of Supervisors appear to have later swallowed at face value.
A million-and-a-half dollars vanishes, and nobody knows where?
Rose's report provided to the Board of Supervisors noted that Mr. Cheu in the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development advised Rose that there was also "no information" about the $500,000 portion of the rent subsidies to nonprofit service and advocacy organizations. How's that for empty (as in bloviated) record-keeping?
Surprisingly, Rose uncharacteristically included in his report a damning statement, saying, "… such that it appears that the City may have never implemented this portion of the program." Really? No implementation? And no records? Where's the money?
With record keeping like that in the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development, what else are they declining to disclose — or hiding? Perhaps its director, Olson M. Lee, knows.
More "Office of Housing" Nonsense
As recently as March 17, Mayor Ed Lee's director of the Mayor's Office of Housing, Olson M. Lee, was quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article saying that the Mayor's doubling of the down-payment assistance loans to $200,000, from $100,000 would be "a lot more helpful." Olson Lee was reportedly referring to market-rate housing.
For the first time, we have an admission via the Chronicle that the loans appear to be reserved for buyers of "market rate" homes, not "below market rate" or "affordable homes" buyers, and then only for those earning up to 120 percent of AMI.
A San Francisco Examiner article March 17 noted Mayor Lee had proposed a $15 million increase in "new contributions" from the city's "main spending account" [would that be the City's General Fund?] should be added over the next five years, ostensibly to the non-first responders DLAP funding.
After the Examiner reported that the maximum DLAP award would be increased to $200,000, and that $15 million in new contributions might accrue to the Housing Trust Fund, imagine this tenacious reporter's surprise after placing yet another records request.
Asked whether the proposed number of loans to be issued would be reduced from ten $100,000 loans to only five $200,000 loans, MOHCD director Olson Lee again clammed up, allowing Flannery's non-answers to go unanswered a second time.
[Editor's Note: Notably, Mayor Lee's March 17 press release contained spin control over the doubling of DLAP loans to up to $200,000 each loan, up from the first year's $100,000 loan limit. It appears the increase to $200,000 loans may well reduce the total number of loans to first responders from ten a year, to just fivc.
The Mayor's press release claims that in the first five years of the DLAP program for first responders and non-first responders "will help at least 100 households buy their first home." On close examination, the press releases' bloviated claim falls apart.
To date during the first year of the first responder loan program, just four loans have actually closed.
Because the second and third years of the first responder DLAP component remain flat-funded at $1 million annually, but the loan ceiling is raised to $200,000, this may portend that with the increase to $200,000 loans, only five loans annually may happen in Year 2 and Year 3, not the ten loans anticipated at $100,000.
If Year 1 yielded just four loans, and Years 2 and 3 net five loans at $200,000 each year, that gets us up to a not-too-staggering 14 loans, just for first responders.
Assuming Year 4 and Year 5 also stay flat funded at $1 million each year for first responders, perhaps another 10 loans may be made by the end of Year 5 (but don't bet on it), bringing the total to 24 loans for first responders over the initial five-year period.
Turning to the DLAP component for non-first responders, the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development dawdled for the first year, and it only belatedly launched the non-first responders DLAP program in March 2014. It's unlikely that any loans for non-first responders will close in the next three months before the end of the current fiscal year.
For the second and third years, the non-first responder's DLAP proposed budget stands at $2 million each year, suggesting a total of twenty $200,000 loans may be made across Year 2 and Year 3 (ten loans in each year). If Year 4 and Year 5 also stay flat-funded at $2 million each year, another twenty $200,000 loans may be issued to non-first responders. If that happens, it may bring the total of non-first responder loans to just 40 loans.
Between the first responders and non-first responders, that may bring the toal DLAP loans across five years to just 64 — not the 100 loans blabbed about in the Mayor's March 17 press release.
Unless the Mayor starts using bloviated fish-and-the-loaves, he stands no chance that 100 DLAP loans will be issued in just five short years, as his March 17 press release misleads the public.
After all, the Mayor's March 17 press release indicated that between the first responders DLAP program and the non-first responders DLAP program, it would help "at least 100 household buy their first home" within the next five years.
Let's do simple math. One hundred households who could each qualify for $200,000 would require the Housing Trust Fund to have $20 million available in these two DLAP component budgets during the next five years.
In Years 1 through 3, only a combined total of $8 million for DLAP loans has been presented in proposed budgets, which are headed towards being appropriated (raided from the General Fund) across both DLAP components. If the Mayor really expects to divide the fish-and-loaves, he's going to have to come up with another $12 million in Year 4 and Year 5 to reach a $20 million goal for the DLAP loans.
This probably isn't going to happen, because in Years 2 and 3, only $3 million has been allocated across both DLAP components. If Years 4 and 5 are flat-funded at the current $3 million level each year, Mr. Mayor is likely to be short-sheeted $6 million of the needed $20 million.
Unless Google and Twitter — and airBnB, Uber, Lyft, and "Tech Inc." — stop donating money to fund free MUNI rides for kids, and start kicking in "corporate giving" towards helping out the Mayor's troubled DLAP program to help solve the housing problem that has resulted from the Mayor's focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs" — mostly "tech" jobs.
Asked of Olson Lee on March 18 whether the Examiner's article was reporting a new $15 million increase over and above the already-pledged $20 million-plus annual allocation increases, or whether the so-called "new" $15 million increase is simply the same dollar amount increase of $2.8 million previously authorized to be accumulated during the same five-year period, Flannery inappropriately answered with a one-word "No," to what was an either-or question.
So it was unclear whether the Mayor plans to add $15 million to the Housing Trust Fund in new money beginning July 1, 2014 beefing up the pot, or whether his social media spin meisters are merely double-counting the annual $2.8 million increase in each of the next five years already required by Prop. "C" that will yield almost the same $15 million.
When Olson Lee was asked about Flannery's inappropriate answer of "No" to a clear either-or question, Mr. Lee had his deputy, Maria Benjamin, Director of Homeownership and Below-Market Rate Programs, reply on his behalf.
Ms. Benjamin further clamed up, saying that the Brown Act, California's Public Records Act, and Proposition 59 — and by extension, San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance — only require public agencies to provide existing documents. Not explanations.
In other words, Ms. Benjamin, Mr. Flannery, and Mr. Olson Lee collectively appear to be unwilling to simply answer either-or questions, implying they will produce only specific documents requested, not any explanations to specific questions involving elaboration about the Housing Trust Fund.
But the second two-year Housing Trust Fund budget this columnist received just as the Westside Observer was going to press for this edition, shows that through Fiscal Year 2015-2016 there is no new portion of a $15 million increase in the next two-year budget, suggesting that the $15 million increase being creatively spun as "new money" by the Mayor's press staff is actually the same pot of money from the $2.8 million increase times five years already budgeted.
So much for the "trust" side of the "in the public trust" equation.
Instead, we appear to have an Office of Housing and Community Development hell bent on hiding from the public, just how it is spending hundreds of millions of dollars meant to spur affordable housing development.
Housing in the Wild, Wild West
Although the mainstream media have reported Mayor Lee wants to issue up to 2,500 down-payment assistance loans of up to $200,000 each loan over the next six years — which may require funding as high as five-hundred million (yes, a half-billion in "loans" — nobody's talking about the fact that issuing just four loans per year (as the City did in the first year of the program), it will take 2,500 applicants a total of 625 years to perhaps receive loans, given the glacial speed of the Mayor's Office of Housing.
Bumping it up to even forty $200,000 loans per year will take the Mayor's Office of Housing a full 62.5 years to issue 2,500 loans, not six years. After all, if the Mayor really plans to issue 2,500 down-payment-assistance loans during the next six years, his Office of Housing will need to process, approve, and issue 417 loans each year, not four each year.
The Mayor would have to quickly come up with $500 million within six years that he hasn't explained to the electorate where such inflated spending will come from. And he may have to explain why the mainstream media have been reporting that DLAP loans appear to be restricted only to market-rate homes.
The Mayor's Seven-Step Plan reported in the media in January claims that 30 percent of the total housing goal would be reserved for lower-income residents, for example a family of four earning less than $50,000 annually. There's no mention in the program manuals provided by Flannery that the Housing Trust Fund will dedicate 30 percent of its total funding for four-person households earning less than $50,000 annually.
The media also reported in January that 25 percent of Lee's Seven-Step Plan housing goals targets middle income families of four earning between $100,000 and $150,000.
That brings the lower- and middle-income beneficiaries to just 55 percent of the housing goals. Creatively, the major media made no mention of the remaining 45 percent of the housing goals in Lee's Seven-Step Plan.
Presumably, fully 45% of the remaining housing goals will be targeted to four-person (or other) families earning more than $150,000 annually, presumably to upper-income residents.
In fact, there's no mention at all in the documentation Flannery provided — and no mention in the enabling legislation in the legal text of Proposition "C" passed by voters in 2012 — on how the Housing Trust Fund may be permitted to split percentages between lower-, middle-, and upper-income residents.
Five years ago, the San Francisco Bay Guardian carried a story titled "Lennar's housing scam, redux," reporting misrepresented promises by Lennar to build 32 percent affordability into its 10,500 homes being built in Bayview Hunter's Point. Observers noted back then that the main rationale for building so much market-rate housing is callously for the property taxes they will bring to the City's coffers.
This reporter also noted back in 2009 that there was nothing in the legal text of the 2009 Proposition "G" ballot measure awarding Lennar the development rights in the Bayview that guarantees any precise percentage of housing that will be designated as "affordable." Indeed, Lennar's development plan for Parcel "A" in the Bayview had initially promised low-income rental units. Lennar single-handedly changed the composition of the first 1,600 units to be built, all of which will be at market rate — with no low-income rental units. We've been warned: Lennar may end up building only market rate units.
The first 1,600 units are expected to each sell for San Francisco's then median price of $836,000 in 2008 dollars. That will net Lennar $1.38 billion in homes and condos on Parcel A. Every day of delay by Lennar is designed to drive up the median prices of housing in order to increase Lennar's profits.
Given apparent early failures of the Mayor's Housing Trust Fund, one wonders whether the Bay Guardian might now, five years later, write another article, perhaps titled "The Mayor's housing scam, redux."
After all, the 2012 voter guide indicated that the Housing Trust Fund would include "uses" for rental housing. Given that approximately 64 percent of San Franciscans are renters, it's troubling that the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development's first-year proposed budget for FY 2013–2014 and FY 2014–2015 included just $200,000 (or of $20 million) for rental eviction defense, and nothing from the Housing Trust Fund itself for rental unit rehabilitation. In the second year in FY 2014–2015, the Housing Trust Fund is budgeting to add $200,000 for rental unit rehabilitation, and will double that to $400,000 in FY 2015–2016.
Adding the $600,000 the Housing Trust Fund has budgeted for rental eviction defense across the three-year budget periods between FY 2013–2014 and FY 2015–2016 to the total of $600,000 budgeted in the second and third years for rental unit rehabilitation, the Housing Trust Fund appears to have budgeted just $1.2 million — just 1.75 percent — for any sort of rental assistance, out of the total $68.4 million that will be appropriated during the first three years of the Trust Fund budgets. In a City where over 64 percent of the residents are renters.
Despite City Hall's bleating that the Mayor would beef up rental eviction defense funding (following the 2013 Ellis Act eviction of Poon Heung Lee and Gum Gee Lee and their disabled daughter debacle), the eviction defense and prevention budget in the Housing Trust Fund's budget appears to be flat funded at $200,000 in each of the first three years. How many more Poon Heung and Gum Gee Lee evictions will there be, before the eviction defense fund is actually beefed up, not simply flat-funded?
This is despite a San Francisco Examiner article in October 2013 that Mayor's Office of Housing had increased funding for tenant counseling services "by 63 percent, to $700,000, bringing the total to more than $2.3 million in eviction prevention services." How do you inflate just $600,000 in Housing Trust Fund monies in public-record budgets for renter assistance programs, into $2.3 million? Is this more bloviated bread and fish, and infused wine?
Playing Voters for Suckers
Typically, San Francisco voters are a pretty savvy group. Voters appear to have been snookered in 2012.
After all, we passed a ballot measure in March 2002 creating the Citizens General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee to monitor use of hundreds of millions in general obligation bonds earmarked for a variety of capital infrastructure improvement projects. Voters also passed the same year in November, a measure creating a Revenue Bond Oversight Committee to monitor issuance of Revenue Bonds for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, given the billions at stake in various Hetch Hetchy, water system, and sewage system projects.
Although both oversight committees created in 2002 have had only marginal success, riddled with political appointees to both bodies, there is at least a perception of oversight. Not so with the Housing Trust Fund, which has no oversight.
Voters were played for suckers when Proposition "C" was put before them creating the Mayor's Housing Trust Fund. Without clearly being advised that the Housing Trust Fund would be managing upwards of $1.3 billion for a whole host of housing programs, voters weren't offered any opportunity to have an Oversight Committee established to monitor use of the Housing Trust Fund. Not only do voters have no oversight of use of the Housing Trust Fund, they also have no oversight of the $1.34 billion in cuts that will be made to the City's discretionary General Fund that will then be diverted to fund the Housing Trust Fund.
On January 17, the major media reported the Mayor claimed in his State-of-the-City address that 2,500 DLAP loans would be issued within six years — $500,000 million not even remotely available in his bank. Following numerous public records requests placed about the DLAP programs in January and February, Hiz Honor now seems to have changed his tune.
Just three months later, Mayor Lee's March 17 press release reduces DLAP loans to just 100 loans over five years — not 2,500 — still unsure whether he even has $20 million in this bank to cover such a commitment of funds.
Did Flannery, Olson Lee, or someone else at City Hall suddenly realize that bloviating 2,500 loans was just too far over the top, even using spin control, and that's when they de-blovitated expectations by re-christening 100 DLAP loans as the new 2,400 DLAP loans three months later?
This just adds insult to injury, since not only have voters been excluded from overall decision-making on how the Housing Trust Fund's money will be spent, they also appear to have been excluded from any decision-making regarding who the eligible applicants will be. They've also been excluded from any decision-making regarding how the trust funds will be split between low-, middle- and upper-income applicants, among other decision-making exclusions.
Although we're told checks and balances of our government are necessary to defend our democracy, there's no provision of any sort of checks-and-balances over this Housing Trust Fund. How do you provide the citizenry with trust regarding Housing Trust Fund trustees, when there are no checks or balances over the trustee's decision-making?
If I were a betting man, I'm not convinced I'd wager the Mayor's seven-point "housing affordability" plan will come to fruition. P.T. Barnum — or whichever con man came up with the aphorism — provided fair warning about not being played for a sucker.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
April 2014
City Attorney's Attack on Public Records Law
Sandbagging, Legal Fairy Dust, and Double-Speak
by Patrick Monette-Shaw
West Side residents are increasingly concerned about the City Attorney Office's disregard for San Francisco's public records Sunshine Ordinance, as are all San Franciscans. City Hall's machinations affect the West Side as disastrously as they do the rest of the City.
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Allen Grossman receives the Society of Professional Journalist's Award |
Consider the City Attorney's conclusion in the recent settlement of lobbying violations by former Board of Supervisor Michael Yaki. While City Attorney Dennis Herrera wanted to send "a strong message that the San Francisco Lobbyist Ordinance has teeth,"
the machinations of Herrera and his team to remove the teeth in San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance is extremely troubling. It's total double-speak.
Readers may also recall the scandal of the raid of Laguna Honda Hospital's (LHH) patient gift fund. Multiple public records requests uncovered that $350,000 in the patient's gift fund had been inappropriately diverted to fund staff perks. The hospital was eventually forced to reimburse the misappropriated funds.”
San Franciscans should be alarmed that the City Attorney's Office has appealed the Superior Court ruling in Allen Grossman v. John St. Croix, Executive Director, San Francisco Ethics Commission; and the Ethics Commission to the Appellate Court. The City's appeal aggressively seeks to strike down one or more key sections of our local open government Sunshine Ordinance. Apparently with City Attorney Herrera's blessing.
What follows is a discussion of the 222 pages of legal briefs filed to date in Grossman's case, and another 50 pages of open records regulations in our local Sunshine Ordinance and California's Public Records Act. Two final briefs —
one from each party to the case — had been scheduled to be filed in Appellate Court on February 21 and March 10. But on February 19, the City requested yet another three-week delay. The two final briefs are now due on March 7 and March 31. We'll be watching.
A number of recent issues facing West Side residents were exposed from public records requests placed by members of the public. Westside Observer readers may recall our coverage of the difficulties that George Wooding faced when he sought obtaining public records from the Recreation and Parks Department. Wooding is president of the Midtown Terrace Homeowners Association. Wooding's subsequent Sunshine complaint was inappropriately dismissed by the Ethics Commission.
Readers may also recall the scandal of the raid of Laguna Honda Hospital's (LHH) patient gift fund. Multiple public records requests uncovered that $350,000 in the patient's gift fund had been inappropriately diverted to fund staff perks. The hospital was eventually forced to reimburse the misappropriated funds.
Or consider the long-running dispute homeowners living on Dellbrook Avenue behind LHH faced regarding the ear-splitting external fire alarms on the roof of LHH's new buildings pointed directly at their homes. Their fight against the City involved several Sunshine records requests. Observer readers may also recall our coverage of West Side resident Rita O'Flynn's long-running legal dispute involving the City's deeply flawed lead-based paint remediation program. O'Flynn exposed the program's flaws following multiple public records requests.
Long before the feel-good Bat Kid flew in to San Francisco to save Gotham-by-the-Bay from its own devices, forces of darkness from our own City Attorney's Office had long sprinkled the City with legal fairy dust. Unfortunately, the chocolate Key-to-the-City that Mayor Ed Lee presented to the Bat Kid couldn't unlock the City's doors of secrecy. Doors slammed shut by Herrera and his staff. Then bolted for good measure.
Herrera has served for 11 years as City Attorney. He just won unopposed reelection. We're stuck with him for another four-year term, just as we had been stuck with his predecessor, Louise Renne, for 16 years when she served as City Attorney between 1986 and January 8, 2002. Just two City Attorney's over a 31-year period?
In the introduction to a so-called "Good Government Guide" written by Herrera for City department heads and senior managers, Herrera somewhat ironically quoted Franklin Knight Lane, San Francisco's City Attorney a century ago, from 1899 to 1900. Lane wrote, "No man should have a political office because he wants a job. A public office is not a job. It is an opportunity to do something for the public. And once in office, it remains for him to prove that the opportunity was not wasted."
Herrera ended his Good Government Guide introduction reminding employees "a public office is a public trust." He noted employees have a responsibility to conduct government functions in ways that are honest, open, and responsive to the citizens. But a cloud of legal fairy dust hangs over Herrera's leadership. His pattern of government secrecy, coupled with clear disregard of public records law, is troubling.
The City's appeal to overturn Grossman's Superior Court Sunshine victory represents an assault on our Sunshine Ordinance. Herrera suddenly wants a key provision of it struck down. Is this a sign Herrera is proving his opportunity to serve the public has been entirely wasted?
Desperate to Stop Grossman's Victory
As the Westside Observer reported in "Four Major Sunshine Victories" in our December–January issue, long-time open government advocate Allen Grossman — a Harvard University Law School graduate — obtained his second Superior Court victory against the Ethics Commission and its Executive Director, John St. Croix. Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled in Grossman's favor on October 25. Goldsmith ruled St. Croix and the City failed to meet their burden proving that records improperly withheld from Grossman are exempt under either the Sunshine Ordinance or California's Public Records Act (CPRA).
That should have ended the dispute. St. Croix should have produced the 24 improperly withheld records. He didn't.
The Observer reported in December that Deputy City Attorney Andrew Shen's 20-page Respondents Opposition to Petition for Writ of Mandate, filed on behalf of the City on October 9, 2013 was the worst legal filing this columnist ever had the displeasure of reading. The brief began by indicating Grossman's case "raises the question of whether a municipality's voters acting in their legislative capacity may, by ordinance, override the laws of attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine set forth in state statues and rules of professional conduct incorporated into a City charter." Of course voters can. Shen's brief went quickly downhill from there.
City's "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" Appeal
But that was before reading Shen's 42-page Petition for Peremptory Writ of Mandate and/or Prohibition filed in Appeals Court on November 22. It's even worse reading. The appeal — sprinkled with another heavy dose of fairy dust — attempts to overturn Grossman's Superior Court victory.
The subject matter of Grossman's records request — drafts of Ethics Commission procedural regulations that were being vetted as a legislative function, and the City Attorney's views on various draft provisions — epitomizes the type of legal advice that does not depend on confidentiality. Drafting of procedural regulations is akin to a legislative function. Shen knows this, or should. So does Dennis Herrera. So does the Appeals Court.
But St. Croix, Shen, and Herrera are hell bent on keeping the City Attorney's advice concerning the draft regulations totally secret. So much for Herrera's claim public office is a public trust. So much for his admonition the people's business should be conducted in an honest and open manner.
Shen beats the same drum, more loudly. He repeatedly claims the City's principal argument against Grossman is that the 1999 Sunshine "Ordinance is invalid because it conflicts with the [City] Charter." Shen asserts that it is "beyond dispute that an ordinance cannot trump the provisions of a city charter, any more than a state statute can trump the California Constitution." He asserts that if voters wish to withdraw the attorney-client and attorney work product privileges, voters "may only do so by amending the [City] Charter."
Grossman's lawyer, Michael Ng, asserts there is no such conflict. Shen appears to be wrong on the "trumping" issue.
For starters, the Sunshine Ordinance was adopted by the Board of Supervisors as an Ordinance in 1993, presumably "approved as to form" by then-City Attorney Louise Renne. Among other things, "approved as to form" means that an Ordinance has been reviewed by the City Attorney to ensure it is not "unconstitutional" with respect to municipal law, including the Charter.
Voters then approved the "New City Charter" as Proposition "E" in the November 1995 election. Voters did so based, in part, on a summary comparing the then-current charter to proposed charter changes that appeared in the 1995 voter guide. The summary comparison was authored by the City Attorney's Office, presumably with Ms. Renne's approval. In the "General Format" section at the start of the summary, voters were told that [voter] initiative ordinances contained in Charter appendices would "still be part of the Charter," and that "any changes to … the appendices would still require a vote of the people." Voters were also assured in the comparison that Article XIV of the Charter dealing with voter initiatives, that there would be "no changes of substance" to voter initiatives. Voters were told only that a few of the provisions would be moved to the Administrative Code. Voters were not told Ordinances would lose their hierarchical standing.
Then in 1999 — while Renne was still City Attorney — voters passed Proposition "G," the "Sunshine Ordinance Amendment" by a 58.4% margin. The 1999 voter guide's Digest describing proposed changes clearly informed voters the amendments would:
Eliminate the City's claims of "public interest" as a sole basis for withholding records.
Prohibit the City from withholding records solely because they reveal the "deliberative processes" of City officials.
Prevent the City Attorney from giving confidential advice to City officers or employees on matters concerning city government ethics, public records, and open meeting laws.
Had the proposed Sunshine changes been so violative of the City Charter, why would prominent San Franciscans — such as then-Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Leland Yee, and former Supervisor Angela Alioto, who is an expert lawyer — have supported the ballot initiative? For that matter, why would former Mayor Frank Jordan; prominent socialite Martha Benioff, then co-chair of the League of Women Voters; and the Harvey Milk Democratic Club have supported the initiative? [Of interest, then-Supervisor Michael Yaki opposed the voters' Sunshine initiative. Did he oppose it because he was planning to become a paid lobbyist after leaving elected office and didn't want to face greater Sunshine?]
Had these proposed Sunshine Ordinance amendments so violated the City Charter, then-City Attorney Renne should have prevented them from being put before the voters when she reviewed the proposed initiative to assign its title and summary before signature gathering could begin. Renne could have tried to prevent them from being enacted as "unconstitutional" with respect to municipal law. She didn't do that. Retrospectively, Herrera now seeks to overturn some of the 1999 Sunshine improvements, a decade-and-a-half later.
After all, when a proposed anti-circumcision ballot initiative qualified with sufficient signatures to be placed on San Francisco's 2011 ballot three years ago, the City Attorney's Office quickly marched into Court and prevented the question from even being put before voters, claiming the proposed anti-circumcision ban would be unconstitutional.
The City Attorney's Office also prevented a citizen's initiative regarding development at the Bayview-Hunters Point that had qualified with more-than-sufficient citizen signatures to be placed on the ballot from ever making it to an actual ballot. When a City Attorney wants to stop voters at the ballot box, he or she can figure out ways to do so.
Were multiple sections of our Sunshine Ordinance in such constitutional conflict-with-the-Charter for a decade-and-a-half, the City Attorney could have — and should have — stepped in long ago to straighten out any such "trumping" problem. But he didn't. Probably because there was no cause. Now we get fairy dust, instead.
Shen asked the Appeals Court to issue a peremptory writ of prohibition to compel Superior Court Judge Goldsmith to set aside and overturn his ruling granting Grossman's victory. Shen continues to assert on behalf of the City that Sunshine Ordinance §67.24(b)(1)(iii) — which simply states that any City Attorney communications providing "advice on, compliance with, analysis of, or an opinion" concerning CPRA, the Brown Act, San Francisco's Ethics Code, or the Sunshine Ordinance are public records subject to disclosure — is "invalid because it is in conflict with the Charter." Shen asserts that the attorney-client relationship applies to all communications with clients.
Shen then takes a lemming's leap of logic. He asserts that if Grossman's argument is accepted, it could prompt future efforts to prevent the City from invoking attorney-client privilege on every other "subject [area]" beyond just access to City Attorney communications seeking advice on disclosure of public records.
Goldsmith's October 25 ruling denied the City's request to strike down §67.24(b)(1)(iii). Goldsmith's Order indicated that issue had not properly been brought before the Court. Shen's Appeals Court filing quibbles with Goldsmith, claiming in a footnote that the City's request to "strike" that Sunshine Ordinance provision "is not precisely accurate."
Shen is playing a silly game of semantics. He now claims the City had only argued that the Superior Court should not grant Grossman's writ that sought production of allegedly "privileged" documents, because the Sunshine provision "purporting to abrogate the [attorney-client] privilege is trumped by the Charter." This represents Shen's fairy tale.
Shen clearly wants 67.24(b)(1)(iii) struck down. But he's reluctant to admit that's his end game.
It isn't clear how Shen's hair-splitting makes anything more precise or accurate. It's not even clear that the charter "trumps" the Sunshine ordinance. What is clear, is that the City and Herrera now desperately want §67.24(b)(1)(iii) struck down, simply because Grossman appears to be the first San Franciscan to have sought enforcement of its provisions in a court of competent jurisdiction.
But §67.24(b)(1)(iii) did not, as Shen wrongly asserted, annul or repeal attorney-client privilege with respect to whether the City Attorney could issue written communications to its clients concerning advice on compliance with open government laws. Instead, §67.24(b)(1)(iii) only stipulates that any such legal advice to City officials are, by definition, public records that must be disclosed. It doesn't prohibit the City Attorney from anything or alter the City Attorney's duties. It just disallows withholding from disclosure records involving a single, narrow subject area: providing City Attorney "advice" regarding open government laws. It didn't abolish attorney-client privilege on a blanket basis, as Shen's fairy tale would have a Court believe.
Shen continued to wail and rail that the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product protections "are presumed to be an integral part of the City Attorney's functions prescribed in the Charter [emphasis added]." For Shen — and presumably his boss, City Attorney Herrera — presuming that something be read into the Charter that isn't actually there, is good enough.
Shen asserts several times that §67.24(b)(1)(iii) is "void" because it conflicts with the Charter. Although Shen notes Grossman is correct that local governments are authorized under CPRA §6253(e) to adopt public records laws that provide greater access to records than prescribed by the minimum disclosure standards set forth in CPRA, Shen argues that does not mean cities are authorized to contradict their charters by adopting a "mere ordinance" [such as the Sunshine Ordinance]. Shen concluded by asking the Appeals Court to reverse Judge Goldsmith's Superior Court ruling in Grossman's favor. Shen requested a Peremptory Writ on November 22, which are relatively rare and limited to situations where the Petitioner's [Shen's] "entitlement" to immediate relief is clear cut. Of significance, the Appellate Court — on its own motion — converted the Respondents' peremptory writ filing to an alternative writ, which converts the matter into a "cause" and which requires the Court to hear further arguments. Apparently, the relief Shen initially requested may not be so clear cut.
After wading through reading Shen's false nonsense, Tiny Tim's eerie falsetto, ukulele-accompanied smash hit, "Tip-Toe Through the Tulips," instantly came to mind. One can only pray that the Appeals Court also heard Tiny Tim's falsetto and ukulele rhythm in Shen's fairy tale appeal.
City's Improperly Filed Appeal
As the Observer reported in December, in response to the misguided and rambling Opposition brief Shen filed on October 9, Grossman's lawyer Michael Ng submitted a brilliant 14-page rebuttal Petitioner's Reply in Support of Verified Petition for Writ of Mandate in Superior Court on October 15. In it, Ng noted voters are the ultimate authority and can exercise plenary power over the City's legislative affairs. He also noted that it's clear Sunshine §67.24(b)(1)(iii) says City Attorney communications regarding compliance with open government laws — from the outset — are not confidential. Communications not confidential when created cannot be deemed attorney-client privileged after-the-fact.
In response to the brief Shen filed in Appellate Court on November 22 in the City's attempt to overturn Grossman's Superior Court victory described above, Ng filed a 46-page Opposition to Petition for Peremptory Writ of Mandate and/or Prohibition response on December 23. Ng's Opposition brief packs a far greater wallop.
For starters, Ng notes that Shen's Appeal is more than likely void — and shouldn't even be considered by the Appeals Court at all. Ng bases this assertion on the fact that Shen's Appeal was "ostensibly filed on behalf of the Ethics Commission and its Executive Director," [John St. Croix]. Ng wrote, "The Ethics Commission has not, however, authorized this [Court] proceeding, and public records indicate that it may not even be aware it was filed." For that reason alone, Ng asserts Shen's appeal should be tossed out and not considered.
Ng notes that only the Ethics Commission itself — not Mr. St. Croix — has authority to decide whether to mount a lawsuit defense. Only the Ethics Commission can decide whether to waive the attorney-client privilege. Not St. Croix. When Grossman filed his initial complaint with the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force in November 2012 regarding the improperly withheld records, St. Croix should have placed on an Ethics Commission agenda a discussion of whether it wanted to produce the withheld records, respond to the complaint, or waive the attorney-client privilege. But no discussion of Grossman's Sunshine complaint was placed on any Ethics Commission agenda.
When the Sunshine Task Force issued its Order of Determination in Grossman's favor in June 2013 ordering St. Croix and the Ethics Commission to produce the records, St. Croix again failed to place an item on the Ethics Commission's agenda for discussion, even if only in closed session. Then, when it became clear that St. Croix was going to ignore the Order of Determination, the Sunshine Task Force referred the matter to the Ethics Commission for enforcement on September 4, 2013. Again, St. Croix placed nothing on the Ethics Commission's next agenda for discussion.
As a consequence, the Ethics Commission never had a chance to avoid Grossman's current lawsuit. The Commission never legally decided — independent of St. Croix — whether to waive attorney-client privilege. It failed to decide to legally authorize defending Grossman's lawsuit. It failed to bring its own lawsuit. And none of the required steps were taken. The Commission has remained utterly silent, 15 months later.
Shen claims that as its Executive Director, St. Croix is "generally" in charge of administration of the Ethics Commission. Shen asserts the Director's administrative responsibilities include making litigation decisions involving the Ethics Commission in consultation with — of all people — the City Attorney. Certainly, St. Croix has no authority to decide whether to defend a lawsuit or to commence an Appellate Court action that could significantly affect the public's constitutional rights of access to public records, without the Ethics Commission's explicit directive to do so.
Shen tells the Appellate Court that Grossman's allegation of procedural improprieties involving filing the City's Appeal is "inapt."
Sunshine Ordinance §67.12(a)(2) does NOT say that a policy body can delegate to a staff member decision-making to pursue litigation which a policy body is required to report out from closed session in an open session. St. Croix does not hold any "closed session" authority under his own right. Clearly, §67.12(a)(2) suggests that decisions to enter into litigation must, at minimum, be determined by a policy body — not by an Executive Director— and they're required to do so only during a properly-noticed, open- or closed-session meeting of the body.
Since the Commission itself never authorized the lawsuit, small wonder Ng asserted the Court should deny Shen's Appeal outright. Although Shen argues this doesn't make the case procedurally defective, of course it is.
And it's a big deal, because not only was Shen's request to strike down §67.24(b)(1)(iii) not properly brought before the Superior Court, Shen's Appeal on behalf of St. Croix was also not properly brought before the Appellate Court, either, due to the Ethics Commission's failure to authorize the Appeal. Shen's Appeal indicates it was filed in the name of St. Croix and the Ethics Commission, but the Commission did not actually bring it.
And it's a bigger deal still, that St. Croix's lists on his Superior Court and Appellate Court filings that five City Attorney's are representing him. It's clear that §67.21(i) prohibits the City Attorney's Office from acting as legal counsel for purposes of denying access to public records, but here we have the City Attorney representing St. Croix at both the trial court and appellate court levels. The Ordinance also provides that the City Attorney cannot give confidential advice to City officers regarding ethics and public records, but that appears to be what Herrera is doing.
The Ethics Commission should have obtained independent legal counsel to represent St. Croix, rather than turning to the City Attorney, who theoretically is prohibited from doing so. This may be yet more fairy dust.
Shen creatively asserts California's Brown Act only sets forth procedures to be followed if a local legislative body is actively taking action involving litigation. He asserts the Brown Act does not "interfere with decisions" about whether a legislative body such as the Ethics Commission must take action. Shen claims that the Brown Act has no division of responsibilities between Ethics Commission members and their Executive Director, hoping to confuse the Appellate Court about whether any decision to pursue litigation can be delegated to staff members such as St. Croix.
Shen uses this convoluted rationale to conclude that the Commission wasn't required to take a collective action to authorize defending the lawsuit because procedurally, St. Croix had ostensibly been authorized to take collective action on the Commission's behalf. The City's various boards and commissions, and the Board of Supervisors, routinely go into closed-meeting sessions to discuss anticipated litigation.
It is doubtful that any other board or commission in the City has delegated to their respective Executive Directors decision-making authority involving lawsuits against other City departments. Surely Shen and Herrera would not argue that the Board of Supervisors can delegate to its "Executive Director" — Angela Calvillo, Clerk of the Board — decision-making authority over whether to authorize lawsuits involving the Board or the City.
The 11-member Board of Supervisors would never delegate to Calvillo the authority to go into closed session with a Deputy City Attorney to approve defending or concluding a lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors or against the City. Nor would the Board permit Calvillo to do so without informing them every step of the way, progress in such a case.
Nor is it likely than Shen and Herrera would argue that Harlan Kelly, General Manager of San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission, could authorize litigation against the City or against the PUC without first obtaining approval from the PUC's own Commissioners in open or closed session.
Does Kelly not have the same authority to enter into litigation without his Commission's prior approval, that Shen asks us to believe has been "delegated" to St. Croix? Are we really expected to believe that the Ethics Commission has granted St. Croix such wide-ranging latitude typically not granted to other City departments and commissions?
Is Shen telling the Appellate Court that since St. Croix may have decided the collective-action "whether" side of the equation himself — making it unnecessary for the Ethics Commission to independently determine "whether" to collectively defend themselves on actual, not anticipated, litigation, since they were formally named in the lawsuit — that "whether" now somehow trumps "if"?
Are we really expected to believe the Ethics Commission is the single City commission that does not hold closed session meetings to approve filing actual litigation in a court of law?
In the end, what we have here is the City Attorney's Office wastefully running up legal costs on the taxpayer's dime in a case that was improperly brought before the Appellate Court. No two ways around it.
Is Sandbagging in Herrera's "Kit Bag"?
Ng notes that the Appeals Court should give wide deference to Grossman, since the City, Shen and St. Croix had not raised "the defenses on which they now rely until after Grossman filed a mandamus action in the Superior Court."
This is particularly true since the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force is a non-partisan, quasi-judicial body created to scrutinize compliance with open records laws. Even the Ethics Commission appears to have acknowledged the SOTF is a quasi-judicial body.
By the time the Sunshine Task Force issues an Order of Determination ruling on access to public records, hearings have already been held at which both parties in a records-access dispute have been afforded ample opportunity to present their cases. At the point an Order of Determination is issued ordering City agencies to comply with the Sunshine Ordinance, a complaint in dispute has been deemed meritorious by the Task Force. Due process has then already concluded.
Although the City concedes that the records Grossman requested fall within the scope of §67.24(b)(1)(iii), Shen and the City suddenly claim on appeal that this Sunshine provision is invalid because it conflicts with City Charter sections 6.100 and 6.102. Ng notes there is no such conflict. Ng suggests that if the Appeals Court tolerates such "sandbagging," it would encourage dragged-out litigation, encumbering the judicial system.
"Sandbagging" has a special meaning in legal contexts. Black's Law Dictionary defines sandbagging as "a trial lawyer remaining cagily silent when a possible error occurs at trial, with the hope of preserving an issue for appeal if the court does not correct the problem." Trial lawyers are not supposed to notice — but then not mention — possible trial errors in the hope of using the error as the basis to mount an appeal should they lose at trial.
Who knew the City Attorney's Office may use "sandbagging" as part of its legal kit bag?
Sandbagging is a well recognized legal term in Court briefs, and a word used by U.S. Supreme Court justices in their written opinions. Justice Antonin Scalia defined sandbagging as "suggesting or permitting, for strategic reasons, that the trial court pursue a certain course, and later — if the outcome is unfavorable — claiming that the course followed was a reversible error." Justice Thurgood Marshall noted that the Sixth Circuit's rules preclude appellate review of any issue not contained in objections, to prevent a litigant from "sandbagging" a district judge by failing to object and then appealing.
Didn't Herrera or Shen learn in law school that Appeals Courts hate sandbagging? How many plaintiff's have brought suit in San Francisco without realizing that Herrera's team may be all too willing to pull sandbagging out of their kit bags? Could any overworked Appeals Court judges have been sandbagged by Herrera's team and not been aware it may have happened?
Ng notes there is no conflict between the Sunshine Ordinance and the City Charter. The two laws can be read in perfect harmony, he says. Ng observes the Charter is "silent with respect to the confidentiality of communications with the City Attorney," and that no provision in the Charter mandates that such communications — or all communications — take place within the boundaries of attorney-client privilege. Shen and Herrera apparently want the Appeals Court to read into the Charter's silence, a new blanket requirement that all communications are confidential, even though the Sunshine Ordinance is not incompatible with the Charter's designation of privilege.
Ng notes that the Brown Act stipulates that when advice from an attorney is being sought or provided that does not concern pending litigation, the attorney-client communication must be in public. The California Legislature made it clear that the relationship between a municipal body and its attorney does not require confidentiality. Advice outside the context of pending litigation must be carried out in full view of the public. In Arkansas, the attorney-client privilege is not allowed as an exemption to the state's Freedom of Information Act.
Both Vallejo and Milpitas have local Sunshine laws like San Francisco's that included eliminating the attorney-client privilege with respect to public records access laws.
The Brown Act appears to be clear that "pending" litigation does not mean the same thing as "threatened" litigation, or the "risk of" potential litigation. Both of the latter could mean almost anything. "Pending litigation" is commonly understood as litigation actually pending in a court of law. Sunshine Ordinance §67.10(d)(1) defines pending litigation as when an adjudicatory proceeding before a court has been formally initiated [filed].
Everyone understands attorney-client privilege is necessary during "pending litigation." But everyone also knows, or suspects, that hiding behind the "risk of litigation" is commonly perceived to be misguided officials hoping that government secrecy might shield them.
In Grossman's case, the records he sought were not privileged from the outset. They didn't involve pending litigation. Shen's and the City's flawed argument that a lawyer's obligation to his client is to maintain confidences does not convert non-confidential communications into confidential ones. That's fairy dust.
The City has known for over 13 years that the Sunshine Ordinance adopted by voters specifically deemed that the types of records Grossman sought are not protected from disclosure. For nearly a decade and a half, Shen and Herrera had to have known they can't use magic dust to convert a non-confidential document into one rebranded confidential.
Neither State law nor the Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers mandate that all communications are privileged. The communications Grossman sought in this case are not "privileged." Neither State law nor legal professional guidelines create a privilege, where one hadn't otherwise existed.
Shen contends §67.24(b)(1)(iii) prevents the City Attorney from carrying out his duties. Ng notes this is a gross exaggeration. There is nothing in §67.24 that dictates any relationship between the City Attorney and his clients.
Ng notes that Dennis Herrera's own so-called "Good Government Guide" states that "The Sunshine Ordinance provides that notwithstanding any exemption [permitting withholding of records] provided by law, any written legal advice about conflicts or open government laws may not be withheld from disclosure in response to a public records request" [emphasis added].
Herrera's Good Government Guide admission is a signal Grossman is right on the law. Hopefully, the Appellate Court will take judicial notice that Herrera's Good Government Guide agreed 100% with Grossman on this point.
Importantly, while the City is now stridently pursuing having §67.24(b)(1)(iii) struck down, the City has not attacked other provisions in §67.24 that also exclude using other exemptions to permit withholding of documents. Inexplicably, rather than trying to strike down all of §67.24, the City is asking the Appeals Court to strike down only §67.24(b)(1)(iii). Ng asserts "it would be a gross expansion of the privilege doctrine and would undermine its structure by shifting the burden for proving confidentiality," should the Appeals Court agree with Shen.
Shadowboxing With Case Law
In an exercise of shadowboxing, Shen extols the virtues of protecting confidentiality as a justification for asserting an alleged privilege to withhold the documents. Ng notes none of the virtues of confidentiality require that every communication between an attorney and his client be [magically] deemed confidential. Nor do the virtues mandate that the communications at issue in this case —regarding advice involving access to public records — be deemed privileged.
Is Shen shadowboxing, practicing to stay fit?
Shen cited a number of lawsuits involving attorney-client confidentiality in the case law, including "Currieri v. City of Roseville," "Roberts v. City of Palmdale," "Citizens for Ceres v. Superior Court," "Welfare Rights Org. v. Crisan," "Domar Electric, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles," "Scott v. Common Council of the City of San Bernardino," and "Sacramento Newspaper Guild v. Sacramento County Board of Supervisors." Many of these cases do not really deal with issues Shen and Herrera claim they do. Several cases do not state what the City Attorney claim they do.
Ng notes many of the cases are inapposite — inappropriate, inapplicable, or irrelevant to the issues that are before the Court in Grossman's lawsuit.
Some observers have questioned whether the City Attorney truthfully interpreted the case law it cited to the Appeals Court. Hopefully, the judges will closely examine whether Shen truthfully presented the case law in the proper context, since Ng clearly demonstrated that many of these cases are inapt to the circumstances in Grossman's lawsuit.
The City and Shen cite the Currieri case hoping to convince the Appeals Court that courts have long recognized that when interpreting statutes "whatever is necessarily implied in a statute is as much part of it as that which is expressed" [emphasis added]. That's it. Shen would have the Court believe that this "rule of necessary implication" extends to city charters, and that voters who passed changes to San Francisco's City charter in 1995 must have impliedly intended to make all City attorney-client communications privileged and confidential — despite the fact that voters had not actually, explicitly, or even "impliedly" said so.
In fact, the 1995 City Charter changes didn't explicitly ask voters to weigh in on the issue. Shen's fall-back position is that voters must have intended — or implied — something they hadn't even been asked in the question put before them at the ballot box.
Despite the clear articulation in the Sunshine Ordinance adopted by voters in 1999 that the City Attorney is not permitted under §67.24(b)(1)(iii) to withhold disclosing the records in dispute, Shen argues that the Court should believe that an unstipulated "implication" in the City Charter passed by voters four years earlier can "trump" the very clear statement made by voters in the Sunshine Ordinance that says the exact opposite. For Shen and his boss Dennis Herrera, a Charter "implication" may be all that is necessary to "trump" more precise language contained in the Sunshine Ordinance.
The Roberts v. City of Palmdale case involved attorney-client privilege in the context of pending litigation. It is inapplicable here because there was no pending litigation involving the records Grossman sought. The Roberts case is also inapt, in part, because the question considered by the Court was whether city attorney advice distributed by mail prior to a meeting created an illegal closed-door meeting, thus waiving attorney-client privilege. There was no question in Roberts that attorney advice would have been confidential if it had been presented during a closed-session meeting. The question the Roberts Court decided was whether the advice distributed by mail created an illegal closed-session meeting that automatically waived the confidentiality privilege. Shen's reliance on Roberts completely misses the point of whether privilege had been created, which is the issue in Grossman's case.
The Roberts Court never considered the issues raised in Grossman's case, and Roberts has no bearing on the facts in Grossman's case. The scope of disclosure mandated by the CPRA is not at issue in his case. Instead, what is at issue in Grossman's case is the scope of disclosure required by the Sunshine Ordinance. While Roberts may provide that the records at issue in Grossman's case need not be produced under the CPRA, the Sunshine Ordinance states that they must be.
In Citizens for Ceres, the Court cautioned that when justices are interpreting statutes that might expand or limit "privilege" exemptions, they are required to do so cautiously, since they are forbidden from creating privilege or establishing exceptions to privilege using case-by-case decision making. In Grossman's case, the City's appeal seeks to have the Court create a new privilege. A privilege that doesn't necessarily exist, otherwise.
In the Welfare Rights Org. case, the attorney-client privilege was contextual and grounded in a specific need. This is unlike Shen's current argument that all communications between the City Attorney and his clients are privileged, regardless of context or a specific need. The Welfare Rights Org. case involved a Welfare and Institutions statute that allows non-attorneys to represent a welfare recipient at a hearing and determined that representative-client confidentiality was implied. The case didn't rule that it needs to be implied in, or applied to, other situations.
Indeed, the California Supreme Court's Welfare Rights Org. ruling provides no guidance to answer the question of whether attorney-client communications are entitled to privilege "generally," or whether they are "always and necessarily" confidential.
In his Appeals Court brief, Shen claimed on behalf of the City that the Domar Electric, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles case ruled that Charter City's such as San Francisco may not act in violation of their charters. Shen claimed Sunshine §67.24(b)(1)(iii) violates the Charter. But the Domar case only involved a competitive bidding process for bidders on city contracts. The Domar Court ruled there was no conflict between the proposed bidding process and the city's charter. Ng notes that the Sunshine Ordinance is also not in conflict with San Francisco's charter. Shen's reliance on the Domar case is, therefore, inapt.
Shen cited the Scott v. Common Council of the City of San Bernardino case to argue that only voters can change a city attorney's duties by amending a city's charter. Shen argued that voters had set the City Attorney's duties in San Francisco's charter and asserted that Sunshine Ordinance §67.24(b)(1)(iii) changed the City Attorney's charter-defined duties — a claim patently untrue. §67.24(b)(1)(iii) does no such thing; it doesn't involve changing San Francisco's City Attorney duties. The section only requires that a single category of documents — advice provided by the City Attorney to its city "clients" regarding CPRA, the Brown Act, and the Sunshine Ordinance — are subject to full disclosure. They must be made available for public review. That takes them out of the realm of "privilege." Ng notes §67.24(b)(1)(iii) does not conflict with any City Attorney duties set out in the Charter. There's nothing anywhere in the Sunshine Ordinance that changed even one of the City Attorney's duties.
Regarding the Sacramento Newspaper Guild case, Shen and the City Attorney misplace its significance and do exactly the opposite of what the Court had warned against. The Court held in this case that "public board members [who are] sworn to uphold the law, may not arbitrarily or unnecessarily inflate confidentiality for the purpose of deflating the spread of the public meeting law [emphasis added]." The Court warned in the Sacramento Newspaper Guild case that neither the "happenstance of some kind of [pending] lawsuit" nor the presence of a City attorney may serve as a pretext for secret consultations whose revelation will not injure the public interest. The Court warned against the broad and limitless assertion of "privilege" to defeat specific mandates requiring that public information remain available to members of the public. Shen — acting for his masters — attempted to both inflate the need for confidentiality, and confound public interest legislative functions.
In yet another case, Stockton Newspapers, Inc. v. Members of Redevelopment Agency, a California Appellate Court ruled that there are no exemptions when the purpose of communications with an attorney involves a legislative commitment, a provision sometimes referred to as the "legislative abrogation of the attorney-client privileges."
No unfair advantage would have been conferred by giving the public an insight into the City Attorney's views on successive iterations of the Ethics Commission's proposed draft regulations, which were akin to a legislative function. Why is St. Croix so desperately trying to withhold from Grossman the City Attorney's mere "views"?
It would be a travesty if the Appellate Court relied on whether the City Attorney and Shen have truthfully interpreted case law. Observers suspect the City hasn't truthfully presented the case law. Hopefully, the Appeals Court will neither invalidate the Superior Court's ruling in Grossman's favor, nor invalidate our Sunshine Ordinance statute passed by citizen initiative, without first reading the case law that Shen and Herrera so badly misrepresent, damaging their credibility.
It bears repeating that Ng's December 23 response to Shen's November 22 appeal was a brilliant legal analysis. Hopefully the Appeals Court will rule Ng and Grossman are right on the law.
Inappropriate Condescension
If Shen's 20-page Respondents Opposition filed October 9, 2013 in Superior Court and if his 42-page Petition for Peremptory Writ filed in Appeals Court November 22 seeking to overturn Grossman's Superior Court victory weren't bad enough, Shen's 22-page Reply to Opposition to Petition for Peremptory Writ of Mandate and/or Prohibition filed on January 14, 2014 sinks to a new low, stooping to a heavy dose of inappropriate condescension. Appellate Court justices can't miss that Shen insults Grossman as a person at every opportunity.
For openers, Shen discovered the word "mere" and used it at least seven times, including branding the Sunshine Ordinance a "mere ordinance" five times. It's Shen's effort to belittle the hierarchy of ordinances in local government.
In an exercise of hairsplitting, Shen tried to diminish Mr. Ng's observation that Herrera's own Good Government Guide acknowledges certain legal advice written by the City Attorney may be disclosable under the Sunshine Ordinance. Shen tries to throw sand in the eyes of the Appeal Court by claiming that the Good Government Guide's acknowledgement was a "mere warning" to the City Attorney's clients and was not a "concession" by the City Attorney that §67.24(b)(1)(iii) is consistent with the Charter. By reducing the clear meaning of the text in the Good Government Guide to a "mere warning," Shen seeks to fool the Court into believing it is not an admission the provision is valid.
Shen also denigrates the role of voters who hold the ultimate plenary power over the City's legislative affairs. The communications Grossman sought in this case involve Ethics Commission procedural regulations that were being vetted as a legislative function over which voters should have some control, or at least input. But Shen reduces the development of the regulations to "mere policymaking," as if of no interest or consequence to voters.
While Shen argues development of policy regulations is "mere" policy-making, he nonetheless wants to elevate the policy-making to the same standard of protected attorney-client privilege provided for cases involving litigation.
Elsewhere, Shen denigrates Grossman several times and felt compelled to tell the Appeals Court that Grossman had previously sued the City over Sunshine matters, perhaps to paint Grossman as a repeat litigant. Although Shen failed to tell the Court the previous matter had been settled in Grossman's favor, Shen blabbed to the Court that Grossman had "ghostwritten" a memo for the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force submitted to the Ethics Commission regarding the proposed regulations.
Shen babbled, "The fact that the Task Force is allowing private citizens to ghostwrite memoranda for it underscores the emptiness of Grossman's suggestion that the Task Force is entitled to deference."
First, "ghostwriting" is hardly a crime. If it were, thousands of current and former mayors, presidents, and kings and queens would be guilty of hiring ghostwriting speechwriters. Why hasn't Shen asked former Mayor Willie Brown if the long-running rumor is true that Brown's column in the Chronicle has been ghostwritten by another prominent Chronicle columnist all along?
Second, Shen withholds from the Court information that the Task Force members are all private citizens in their own right. They are entitled to consult and work with other private citizens, such as Grossman. There is no rule prohibiting the Task Force from seeking advice from experts such as Grossman, who is a lawyer dedicated to public records and public access law.
Third, Shen fails to inform the Court that the Sunshine Task Force — on the record and during public meetings — had asked its own Deputy City Attorney, Jerry Threet, to help draft a response to the Ethics Commission concerning the proposed regulations being developed by Ethics. Threet declined to help, saying SOTF would need to obtain approval for him to work overtime developing a response. Threet — like Shen — is expert at using Herrera's fairy dust.
Shen also failed to inform the Court that Threet had declined to attend a joint hearing between the Ethics Commission and the SOTF. Threet lamely claimed it might have been a conflict of interest for him to do so. He was supposed to be operating under an "ethical wall" separating him from his boss, the City Attorney, and his client, the SOTF. Shen also omits informing the Court that the comments Grossman provided as a "ghostwriter" were made during open, public meetings of the SOTF.
Shen wailed that the Task Force had taken "nearly a year" to provide comments and feedback on the Ethics Commission's proposed draft regulations. But Shen failed to inform the Court that the reason the Task Force hadn't met for nearly six months between July and November 2012 was because the Board of Supervisors had refused to appoint new members to the Task Force.
Without a quorum, the SOTF wasn't permitted to meet to conduct business. The delay providing feedback wasn't because the Task Force was simply dragging its feet in 2012 on the Ethics Commission's proposed regulations, as Shen wrongly implies. The Task Force was simply prohibited from meeting and conducting business. Shen's claim that St. Croix had determined it wouldn't be "useful nor efficient" to send further drafts of the proposed regulations to the Task Force for additional feedback also deceived the Appeals Court.
Misleading the Appellate Court
Shen continues to mislead the Appeals Court that the Sunshine Task Force is a "purely advisory body." The Task Force was established to implement and carry out certain aspects of San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance and the CPRA. By claiming the SOTF is "merely" an advisory body, Shen and Herrera are trying to persuade the Court that the Task Force has no authority to issue any Orders of Determination to any City department ordering compliance with the Sunshine Ordinance. The Sunshine Task Force is not a "mere" advisory body, it's a quasi-judicial body. Shen and Herrera must surely know this. And if they don't, they should consider resigning their jobs.
The Task Force is specifically empowered by the Sunshine Ordinance to determine where there have been violations of the Ordinance. It is also empowered by the Sunshine Ordinance to "order" production of records improperly withheld.
Shen fails to tell the Appellate Court that Sunshine Ordinance §67.21(e) specifically provides that if the Sunshine Task Force determines a record is a public record, it shall [must] order the Custodian of the record to comply and produce it. He also fails to inform the Court that §67.21(f) goes on to state that any other administrative remedies — in addition to the Task Force's administrative remedy provided in §67.21(e) — shall in no way limit the availability of other administrative remedies, nor shall administrative remedies provided by this section in any way limit the availability of judicial remedies.
Shen fails to inform the Court of §§67.21(e) and (f), precisely to obscure that the Task Force does not issue mere "advisory opinions." The Task Force issues what are, essentially, binding orders of administrative, quasi-judicial remedies. After all, the Task Force's primary mission is to adjudicate disputes involving access to public records. This makes it, if nothing else, an adjudicatory body — at a minimum — not a "purely advisory body" as Shen brazenly and wrongly deconstructs. Shen appears to hope the Court won't notice this.
Shen's nonsense that the SOTF is merely an "advisory body" is based on §67.30(c) of the Ordinance, which outlines the SOTF's separate duties to provide "advice" to City agencies. But Shen creatively elided telling the Appellate justices that §67.21(e) clearly stipulates that the SOTF has responsibilities to "order production" of public records, making it an adjudicatory body with power to issue orders, in addition to offering "advice."
Like all of us who wear multiple hats — roles as father, son, uncle, brother, or wife, mother, daughter and perhaps doctor — the SOTF wears multiple hats.
At the municipal agency level, take the Department of Public Health, which wears many hats providing trauma care, primary care, long-term care, and environmental health, among others. Or take the MTA, which provides bus services, oversees taxis, and has its parking and traffic control duties. Shen sprinkled fairy dust on the Appellate justices to obfuscate the SOTF's standing as an adjudicatory body, claiming the SOTF has a single role — merely to provide "advice."
In his January 14 Reply, Shen now claims that the Roberts vs. City of Palmdale case did not apply only to communications made in anticipation of pending litigation, it applies to any legal advice even when no litigation is threatened, since "governmental policymaking, particularly on cutting-edge issues, often results in litigation [emphasis added]." Shen elevates potential "litigation risk" to new heights, suggesting that the mere risk of future litigation somehow justifies total secrecy with respect to attorney-client communications involving mere regulations-making. Shen makes the NSA took tame by comparison.
And Shen fails to tell the Appellate Court that the Sunshine Ordinance specifically provides in §67.24(b)(2) that "when litigation is finally adjudicated or otherwise settled, records of all communications between the department and the adverse party shall be subject to disclosure, including the text and terms of any settlement," unless otherwise privileged under California law. Not only were the records Grossman sought not protected by privilege (since not confidential at the outset), City attorney advice in the Ethics Commission's and St. Croix's department records involving this case may also not be protected at the conclusion of Grossman's lawsuit, either.
Remarkably, Shen noted at the conclusion of his January 14 brief, that "The City agrees with Grossman that the Sunshine Ordinance is best understood not as a 'waiver' but as an attempt to bar assertion of [attorney-client] privilege in the future by the City Attorney's clients." Since Shen agrees with Grossman on this point, one has to wonder when Shen thinks "in the future" should commence. After all, we're approaching the 15th anniversary of passage of the 1999 Sunshine Ordinance amendments. How much longer does Shen want "in the future" to wait?
Shen ended on a thud, claiming the City Attorney's relationship with its clients is protected by state-law privilege and work product doctrine. Shen makes this wild fairy-dust claim after previously all but admitting to the Court that of the 24 documents withheld from Grossman, none involved City Attorney work-product records. They only involved attorney communications.
Shen also misleads the Court by omission. For starters, Shen fails to address that §67.21(i) prohibits the City Attorney from acting as legal counsel to City agencies for purposes of denying access to public records. Indeed, §67.21(i) specifically states the City Attorney shall [must] act to protect and secure the rights of the people of San Francisco to access public information and public meetings and shall [must] not act as legal counsel to deny access to public records.
§67.21(i) goes on to state that "all communications with the City Attorney's Office with regard to this ordinance, including petitions, requests for opinion, and [actual City Attorney] opinions shall be public records." All the Appellate justices need to do is to carefully read §67.21(i) to know Shen is wrong and elided key information. And that Ng and Grossman are right on the law.
Emperor's New "Good Government Guide" Clothes
An aside about Herrera's Good Government Guide is in order.
Perhaps ironically, the City's ethics laws require that even members of San Francisco's Sunshine Ordinance Task Force must take annual training on provisions of the Sunshine Ordinance, training required of all City employees required to file statements of economic interest on annual FPPC Form 700's.
The training is conducted by the City Attorney's Office, relying heavily on Herrera's Good Government Guide, which claims to be a guideline to educate City employees and elected officials about our local Sunshine ordinance, California's Public Records Act, and the state's Brown Act.
But former members of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force who were required to attend these training sessions — and spoke on condition of anonymity — note that the training sessions never acknowledge the Sunshine Task Force's key role as an adjudicatory body in disputes involving access to public records.
Indeed, several Task Force members report their impression is the training sessions subversively teach City employees how to defend themselves against Sunshine violations, rather than on how to transparently comply with the Ordinance.
Herrera's Good Government Guide includes a comprehensive section regarding the Sunshine Ordnance. Rita O'Flynn — who as a private citizen was previously forced to sue, but is not currently making any claims against the City — reviewed an employee training session on the Good Government Guide hosted by the City Attorney's Office.
She notes that although the City Attorney's Office maintained during her Sunshine Task Force complaint hearings — and later in Court filings — that it had provided her with all responsive e-mails she had requested, the Good Government Guide may have helped the City from providing full transparency.
The Sunshine Task Force ruled in O'Flynn's favor, finding that the City had improperly withheld records from her. When the Task Force referred her complaint to the Ethics Commission for enforcement, Ethics simply denied her complaint, indicating that its "investigation" showed that the City had provided all records responsive to her requests.
Astoundingly, during formal litigation the City subsequently turned over approximately 16,000 pages of additional, directly responsive e-mails and documents that the City had claimed during Task Force hearings didn't exist. The City finally provided them only during the discovery phase of litigation, after she was forced to file a costly lawsuit.
How could the City Attorney's Office have so mislead both the Sunshine Task Force and the Ethics Commission that O'Flynn had been provided all responsive public records during adjudicatory hearings, and only later coughed up 16,000 pages of documents it repeatedly and adamantly claimed hadn't existed? How does the Ethics Commission now explain its dismissal of O'Flynn's case, after 16,000 pages "magically" turned up? Perhaps fairy dust can explain it.
So much for the City Attorney's "transparency," given it grossly mislead the Task Force during O'Flynn's hearings.
"This should tell us how City employees view the Sunshine Ordinance," O'Flynn notes. "Basically, it's just a pain in the ass to them and nothing more," she adds.
What's At Stake?
If the City's appeal on behalf of St. Croix is successful, the public's ability to monitor the City Attorney's advice and assistance to officials, policy bodies, and other City units regarding this single subject area — narrow access involving City Attorney communications on records access law — would be seriously impaired. If the public's ability to access those records were blocked, members of the public would be at a great disadvantage when contesting City officials' refusal to disclose other records based on that advice.
Should Shen prevail, there may well be irreparable damage to the public's ability to access public records in San Francisco, since it is likely all other City agencies, officials, departments, and policy bodies may resist records requests that involve the City Attorney's "advice."
Should the City persuade the Appellate Court that §67.24(b)(1)(ii) is not enforceable and should be struck down, other sections of the Sunshine Ordinance may also be in jeopardy.
It may invalidate the provision in §67.21(i) that requests for opinions to the City Attorney, and the City Attorney's actual opinions to City departments and employees are, in fact, public records. It could invalidate provisions in §67.24(g), (h), and (i) that currently bars the City from claiming "deliberative process" and various "privilege" exemptions in CPRA §6255 to justify withholding public records that are otherwise required to be disclosed.
If multiple sections of the Sunshine Ordinance are struck down by the Appellate Court, it would permit the City Attorney and his City clients to keep secret all communications regarding public records access issues. It would permit the full weight of the City Attorney's Office to be used to defend errant City employees and departments against citizen Sunshine complaints, which the City Attorney is currently barred from doing.
This appears to be Shen's and Herrera's end game: To completely strip the Sunshine Task Force of its ability to order City departments and City employees into compliance with the Sunshine Ordinance.
Ng adroitly notes the public's right of access under California's Public Records Act (CPRA) operates as a "floor," not as a "ceiling." CPRA authorizes local governments to adopt requirements permitting greater access to records than prescribed by minimum State standards. That's all §67.24(b)(1)(iii) does. It permits greater access.
San Francisco voters expressly authorized the Ordinance's provision in order to "shrink one of the islands of privacy by precluding San Francisco [government] agencies from invoking certain statutory exceptions for public records." But only within certain narrowly-defined subject areas, limited to laws governing ethics and public records access.
Shen conflates this narrow subject area with his "the sky is falling" drama before the Court, misleading the justices.
Grossman sought communications providing City Attorney advice involving disclosure of public legislative records. Shen claims requiring the City Attorney to do so will open the door to others seeking City Attorney communications involving every other legal subject area. Ng shredded Shen's claim.
Given that the 1995 voter guide stated citizen initiatives moved to Charter appendices could only be changed by the voters, why is the City asking the Appellate Court to strike down sections of the Sunshine Ordinance rather than asking the voters to amend the Ordinance?
As the San Francisco Chronicle reported in "Ex-supe Settles Lawsuit" on February 21, the $75,000 fine against former Board of Supervisor Michael Yaki involving 70 instances of lobbying violations involved Herrera wanting to send "a strong message that the San Francisco Lobbyist Ordinance has teeth."
Ironically, Herrera stated, "We City officials take seriously our duty to protect transparency in our legislative process." If that were true, why is Shen — on behalf of Herrera — trying so stridently to block the transparency of the legislative process involving the Ethics Commission's regulations by appealing Grossman's Superior Court victory?
Is Herrera cherry-picking which aspects of transparency, which City Ordinances, and which legislative functions City officials will take seriously as their duty to protect? It will be interesting to eventually learn how much Herrera spent to protect transparency in Yaki's case, versus how much Herrera has spent to prevent transparency in Grossman's case. More than likely, the serious spending will have been wasted trying to prevent Grossman's Superior Court victory.
Shen's and Herrera's "fear mongering" is designed to distract the Court and drown out facts in Grossman's case. It's an age-old trick: Scream scary analogies often and loudly. Toss in handfuls of fairy dust. Stir in sandbagging. These bait-and-switch tactics are designed to make the Appeals Court panic, by confounding issues before the Court.
Hopefully, we'll see in Ng's final brief due in Appellate Court on March 7 another brilliant dissection of Shen's fairy tale. But brace for Shen likely tossing out more fairy dust in his final brief due March 31.
Herrera's End Game
The Sunshine Ordinance specifically requires a narrow reading of the City charter. §67.1 notes there are rare circumstances permitting the business of government to be conducted in secret, and those circumstances should be narrowly defined to prevent public officials from abusing their authority. In the end, Grossman's lawsuit involves St. Croix's and the Ethics Commission's "secret" communications with the City Attorney regarding draft regulations. Does Herrera want to prevent the loss of abuse-of-authority for public officials and the loss of his attempts at secrecy?
The CPRA authorized localities to adopt requirements for greater access to records than CPRA's minimum standards, which voters did when they adopted the 1999 Sunshine amendments. Shen all but ignores that whatever the hierarchical relationship between general provisions in the City charter and a detailed, specific enactment by voter initiative, the fact that the pertinent section — §67.24(b)(1)(iii) — was authorized by express state law makes Shen's debate that the charter "trumps" an ordinance of no significance. Hopefully, the Court will take judicial notice of this lack of significance.
The City is arbitrarily seeking to inflate the necessity for confidential communications in a case that only involves development of legislative regulations. The fairy dust — that all City Attorney communications involving advice on compliance with open government laws must be deemed confidential — must end.
Instead of invalidating §67.24(b)(1)(iii) as Shen requests, perhaps the Court should rule that San Francisco's charter may be in conflict with CPRA, and the charter should be amended.
Hopefully, the Appellate Court will rule Grossman and Ng are right on the law, and will ignore the fairy dust from Herrera and Shen.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
Full Disclosure: Much of the material reported in this article was contained in the legal briefs filed in Court. The opinions expressed are solely those of this author.
March 2014
Advancing Open Government in San Francisco
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Retired lawyer Allen Grossman, who won twice at court against the Ethics Dept.
for Sunshine violations |
Four Major Sunshine Victories
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
In a democracy predicated on the principle that citizens have inherent rights to know what their government is doing on their behalf, a City Librarian shouldn’t be permitted to commit perjury by concealing violations of laws regulating disclosure of financial conflicts of interest. Nor should an Ethics Commission be permitted to hand itself a blanket exemption to avoid hearing complaints brought against its own staff and its Commissioners.
Nor should a Public Health Commission be permitted for over two decades to omit meaningful agenda item descriptions of discussions and actions it plans to take during its meetings. Nor should the same Ethics Commission be permitted to flout orders to produce public records required by State and local laws, and in the process rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted expenses during preventable Superior Court lawsuits.
Grossman's two Superior Court lawsuits have cost the City nearly $100,000, and mounting — all because of St. Croix's and Herrera's needless battles … in the name of government secrecy."
These four open government violations represent the epitome of utter contempt of voters, contempt for open government, and clear contempt of the public’s right to know. These four violations — although not a whole host of other San Francisco government secrecy — have been stopped in San Francisco by another small group of dedicated citizens.
All four of the open government victories were against three Department Heads — at the Public Library, Department of Public Health, and the Ethics Commission — who all report to Mayor Ed Lee, and against the full Health Commission. The three department heads appear to collectively believe they’re allowed to brazenly violate State and local laws, or are above the law. There will always be Sunshine Ordinance violators, because some City employees believe they may have something to gain from secrecy and obscuring the truth, and are motivated to do so.
Citizen’s shouldn’t have to file costly Superior Court lawsuits to assert their rights, and then be told by Deputy City Attorney’s in court filings that San Francisco voters are powerless to adopt laws requiring that our local government officials disclose public records when the records merely involve communications with the City Attorney. That’s a novel legal proposition, but it’s thought to be unfounded and untenable.
The four open-government victories recently won occurred due to combined efforts of ten members of San Franciscans for Sunshine, including Peter Warfield, Executive Director of the Library Users Association; James Chaffee, a democracy advocate and former chair of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force; Ray Hartz, Jr., Director of San Francisco Open Government; this columnist and Dr. Maria Rivero, a former senior physician specialist at Laguna Honda Hospital; Bruce Wolfe, a former Vice Chairperson of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force; Derek Kerr, MD, the former LHH physician terminated for filing multiple whistleblower complaints involving the Department of Public Health and Laguna Honda Hospital; others; and most significantly, by Allen Grossman, a retired lawyer and prominent expert on San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance and State records law who is being represented by lawyer Michael Ng, another expert and full-time litigator.
The chain of recent Sunshine victories presented below chip away at the secrecy preferred by career politicians in San Francisco’s “City Hall Family” that is driven in large measure by the flawed legal advice provided by City Attorney Dennis Herrera and his top-heavy team of approximately 176 Deputy City Attorney’s — who cost taxpayers a staggering $27 million in salaries alone in 2012, excluding fringe benefits of 30% to 40% — and who all too often appear to be struggling mightily against open government, and by extension, against San Franciscans.
City Librarian Fined by the FPPC
During its regularly-scheduled meeting on September 19, 2013, California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) accepted a written admission of guilt by San Francisco City Librarian Luis Herrera for his failure “to report gifts received from the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library on Annual Statements of Economic Interests [known as Form 700’s] for calendar years 2009, 2010, and 2011.”
The filing regulations for the Form 700 reports and accompanying statements stipulate the forms shall be signed under penalty of perjury, verified by the filer that they have used all reasonable diligence in preparation of the statements, and that to the best of their knowledge are “true and complete” financial statements.
Government Code §87300 — which resulted following adoption of California’s Political Reform Act of 1974 — states, “Every person who signs and verifies any report or statement required to be filed under this [act] which contains material matter which he knows to be false, is guilty of perjury.” Herrera was fined just $200 for each of three counts of violating disclosure laws, for a total of just $600, a small slap on the wrist for having failed to accurately report financial conflicts of interest he was required to report on the Form 700’s under penalty of perjury.
Mr. Herrera — who serves as department head of a City Department and earned $218,387 in calendar year 2012 — was forced to formally acknowledge that he had unlawfully failed to report financial contributions he received from the Friends of the Library. Why have we heard not one peep about Luis Herrera’s fine and unethical behavior out of his boss, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee?
The FPPC complaint, filed by public library watchdog James Chaffee in April 2013, alleged that Herrera had repeatedly filed Form 700’s declaring he had no donations to report on his Statements of Economic Interest when, in fact, research by whistleblower Ray Hartz and James Chaffee revealed Mr. Herrera had received at least $130,000 from the Friends in two of the three reporting periods. Both Chaffee and Hartz are long-time library advocates. Peter Warfield also provided research assistance, and widely publicized the FPPC case against Herrera.
It’s not known why Mr. Herrera needed to augment his $218,387 City salary by accepting, but failing to report, significant gifts from the Friends of the Library. But it illustrates that city contractors and non-profit “Friends of” City department organizations are all too willing to buy influence at City Hall.
The FPPC’s order against Herrera — referred to as a “stipulation” — didn’t state how much in unreported gifts he received, but research by Hartz showed that the Friends of the Library had provided Herrera $66,000 in 2008–2009 and $65,000 in 2009–2010 for a “City Librarian’s Fund.”
Chaffee’s previous research of the Friends of the Library’s IRS non-profit tax reports and official reports of donations posted on the library’s website, reveals that the Friends of the Library raised $36 million in the decade between fiscal years 2000–2001 and 2009–2010, but only donated a paltry $4 million to the library during the same period.
Mayor Lee’s silence on Herrera’s FPPC fine is as troubling as the Mayor’s refusal to remove Library Commission president Jewelle Gomez, who was found by both the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and the Ethics Commission in July 2011 as having violated the Sunshine Ordinance. The Ethics Commission recommended to Lee that he remove Gomez, a recommendation that our Mayor has studiously refused to implement for now over two-and-a-half years. Perhaps the Mayor is counting on seeking political support from Friends of the Library, Luis Herrera, Ms. Gomez, and other helpful library employees when he seeks re-election to a second term.
Preliminary research of just 12 of the approximate 60 City Departments reveals that just 611 (barely 5%) of 12,082 City employees are required to file Form 700’s detailing potential financial conflicts of interest, but only 34 (5.5%) of the 611 are required to file their Form 700’s with the Ethics Commission that the FPCC and citizens can access easily on the Internet. [Editor: The City had 36,761 employees in 2012, of which the 12,082 only represent roughly one-third.] The remaining 577 of the 611 employees (94.5%) are only required to file their Form 700’s with their employing City Department — where they are harder to uncover, since not required to be posted on departmental web sites. It’s unknown how many other Form 700 filers under-report financial interests on their Form 700’s, as Luis Herrera so blatantly did.
But FPPC complaints can, and do, lead to fines against miscreant Department Heads such as City Librarian Herrera.
Ethics Tried Anointing Itself Sunshine-Exempt
Four days after the FPPC ruling against Luis Herrera, San Francisco’s Ethics Commission blatantly attempted to exempt itself from a key provision of our local Sunshine Ordinance, but its proposal was stopped dead in its tracks on September 23 following testimony from members of a small group of thoughtful committed citizens known as San Franciscans for Sunshine, previously referred to affectionately as the “Sunshine Posse.”
On Wednesday, September 18, an “interested persons” e-mail notice was sent by the Ethics Commission, announcing proposed changes to the Commission’s Regulations for Violations of the Sunshine Ordinance (“Regulations”) that Ethics staff claimed suddenly required modification just nine short months following implementation of the new Regulations on January 25, 2013.
The provision Ethics staff desperately wanted to suddenly alter involved referrals of complaints to the Ethics Commission that allege Ethics staff, Ethics Commissioners, or its Executive Director, John St. Croix, may have violated provisions of the Sunshine Ordinance.
Brazenly, St. Croix — who earned just $144,288 in 2012, as one of the lowest-paid City department heads — tried to muscle through the Ethics Commission’s approval process on September 23 changes to its regulations that would have granted blanket immunity and an open-ended exemption for any complaint alleging that Ethics Commissioners or Ethics staff had violated the Sunshine Ordinance, along with a provision to simply return any referred complaint against the Ethics Commission to the originating referral entity, and take no further action on any such complaint.
St. Croix also wanted to change Ethics’ rules that if a complaint is filed directly with the Ethics Commission (as opposed to a formal complaint being referred from the SOTF for enforcement) alleging violations of the Sunshine Ordinance by Ethics staff or commissioners, that the staff would simply inform the complainant of other legal remedies under State and local law — such as to the District Attorney, State Attorney General, or costly Superior Court lawsuits — and would also take no further action.
St. Croix’s lame rationale was that “it has been a challenge to find other Ethics agencies that are willing to handle them in the Commission’s stead. To avoid imposing such work on other Ethics agencies and to avoid any appearance of possible conflict, staff believes that informing the Complainant to pursue other available remedies would be the best measure.”
Under questioning from his own five-member Ethics Commissioners, only four of whom were present on September 23, St. Croix admitted that there have only been “three or four” complaints alleging that Ethics Commission staff had violated the Sunshine Ordinance in the 20 years since it was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in August 1993 and amended by voters in November 1999. Given the low volume of complaints referred to Ethics alleging Sunshine violations by Ethics staff, there is rarely any “burden” imposed on other Ethics agencies, and Ethics has only had to face the “challenge” of finding other jurisdictions to hear complaints involving our own Ethics Commission just a handful of times.
Three Cases Against Ethics Commission Outsourced
One complaint against Ethics staff was filed jointly by Ethics Commission staff members Kevin De Liban and Oliver Luby in early 2004 against the Ethics Commission’s then Executive Director, Ginny Vida, and Deputy Director Mabel Ng. Vida and Ng had ordered Luby — in violation of State law and San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance — to destroy public records that had been mistakenly submitted to Ethics by the 2004 Newsom Mayoral Swearing-In Committee.
The documents involved campaign finance issues potentially damaging politically to newly-elected Mayor Gavin Newsom and his campaign treasurer, Jim Sutton. The documents revealed large payments under the heading “San Francisco 2004 Swearing-In Committee” to more than two dozen individuals, most of them then-salaried employees of Newsom’s mayoral campaign, several of whom reportedly worked for Newsom’s initial administration. They also showed a $54,000 payment to Newsom’s mayoral campaign.
Ms. Vida eventually deleted the documents from Luby’s computer, which most likely amounted to a misdemeanor or felony, never pursued against her.
The Ethics Commission forwarded Luby’s complaint to the Oakland Public Ethics Commission’s executive director for investigation, who eventually ruled against him. Five years later, Luby filed a Whistleblower complaint in May 2009 on an unrelated matter, which the City Controller eventually upheld; he had filed two other whistleblower complaints. But subsequently, Luby faced retaliation and was terminated in June 2010.
A second complaint against Ethics staff thought to have been outsourced to another jurisdiction was an anonymous complaint also filed in 2004 against Ethics’ Deputy Director Mabel Ng, alleging that Ethics had proceeded with a special meeting of its Commission in violation of Sunshine Ordinance noticing requirements. The illegal special meeting appears to have paved the way for former City Supervisor Tony Hall’s appointment as director of the Treasure Island Development Authority, which in turn allowed the Mayor’s office to appoint Sean Elsbernd to Hall’s former seat on the Board of Supervisors — and allowed Elsbernd to register for the November 2004 election as an incumbent, shortening the deadline for other candidate’s to challenge Elsbernd, which effectively cleared the field for Elsbernd’s first election.
A third complaint against Ethics staff outsourced to another jurisdiction involved a Sunshine Ordinance Task Force complaint filed on March 6, 2011 titled Patrick Monette-Shaw vs. Ethics Commission (Case 11014), which sought to obtain the Ethics Commission’s closing memo of the Laguna Honda Hospital patient gift fund whistleblower complaint and the Ethics Commission’s investigative file. The complaint also involved the failure to release correspondence between the City Controller’s whistleblower program and the Ethics Commission, since Ethics and the City tried to assert that a so-called “official information” privilege applied to the entire file they wanted to keep totally secret.
But when the SOTF ruled in my favor on May 18, 2011 and referred the case to Ethics for enforcement, it was then outsourced not to an Ethics Commission or Sunshine body in another jurisdiction, but to San Jose’s City Attorney’s Office, which ruled against my complaint on September 6, 2012, 18 months after the complaint was filed in 2011.
All three of the Sunshine complaints filed against Ethics staff were found by the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force to have had merit, and each case was referred to Ethics for enforcement, but each of the three cases were outsourced to other jurisdictions. This illustrates that Ethics previously had not had a conflict-of-interest accepting referrals that alleged misconduct by Ethics’ own staff, and illustrates there is rarely any “burden” imposed on other Ethics agencies, since it has occurred just three times.
Ethics’ Sought Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
During public testimony on September 23, it became clear that St. Croix’s proposal to grant a blanket exemption to Ethics to refuse accepting Sunshine complaints involving Ethics staff would have amounted to a get-out-of-jail-free card, but only for Ethics as the sole City department awarded an exemption from Sunshine. Former Laguna Honda Hospital physician Dr. Derek Kerr — who was eventually awarded a $750,000 wrongful termination settlement award regarding his dismissal for exposing the raid of LHH’s patient gift fund — testified “Sunshine complaints against Ethics staff are rare. There’s no need to dodge them.” Kerr also noted there have only been three complaints made against Ethics’ staff since the Sunshine Ordinance was adopted.
Former Sunshine Ordinance Task Force (SOTF) member Bruce Wolfe testified that the proposal to exempt Ethics staff would create a slippery slope, the Ethics Commission should not cherry pick which Sunshine complaints it will accept, and should not exempt Ethics staff, since no other City employee and no other City department is granted the same privilege.
Retired lawyer Allen Grossman testified that there is no exemption in the Sunshine Ordinance for the Ethics Commission, its Director, or its staff to be granted a blanket waiver. Grossman stated that the California Constitution governs, and the Ethics Commission could not adopt this exemption without violating both the Sunshine Ordinance and the State Constitution.
For my part, I testified that it is Ethics’ responsibility to investigate Sunshine referrals sent to Ethics for enforcement involving cases against their own co-Commissioners.
Following thoughtful testimony from members of San Franciscans for Sunshine, the Commission sheepishly took no action and rejected St. Croix’s proposed changes, quietly agreeing on September 23 not to adopt the proposed blanket waiver, handing St. Croix an embarrassing public defeat.
St. Croix has been the public face of the City’s gluttonous attempts to scuttle open government ever since his appointment as Executive Director in 2004. During the past decade, he has been perceived as being instrumental to the City’s efforts to thwart Sunshine and protect high-ranking City employees, often working hand-in-glove with City Attorney Dennis Herrera to implement government secrecy, rather than government transparency.
So it really comes as no great surprise that after the Ethics Commission went in to closed session on September 23 — to conduct St. Croix’s annual performance review following its rejection minutes before of his bald attempt to hand Ethics broad blanket immunity from hearing complaints against Ethics staff — the meeting minutes indicate that when the Commissioners reconvened in open session, they attempted to smooth St. Croix’s ruffled feathers.
Ethics’ Vice-Chair, Paul Renne — husband of former City Attorney Louise Renne, who by report despises San Francisco’s open-government Sunshine Ordinance even more than her successor, Dennis Herrera — stated that “it had been a rough evening on staff,” apparently including on poor Mr. St. Croix. Renne stated on behalf of other Ethics Commissioners that he didn’t want staff or St. Croix to take the public criticism to heart, and it isn’t the way Ethics Commissioners feel. Renne suggested that the accusations [made during public comment] “were all unfounded comments.” Ethics Chairperson Beverly “A Deer Caught in the Headlights” Hayon agreed with Renne; she congratulated St. Croix on his hard work and stated he shouldn’t “take the comments personally or to heart.”
Would that be St. Croix’s decade of hard work blocking access to public records, his hard work dismissing all 39 Sunshine cases the Sunshine Task Force had referred to Ethics for enforcement, and his hard work protecting City department heads found violating the Sunshine Ordinance?
As Paul and Beverly tried to re-fluff St. Croix’s mottled feathers, both of them more than likely had to have known (unless St. Croix hadn’t shared news with the pair) that just five days earlier, lawyer Allen Grossman had filed his second Superior Court lawsuit on September 17 naming both St. Croix and the Ethics Commission as respondents for their failure to produce public records requested on October 3, 2012 that St. Croix appears to have improperly withheld, discussed below.
To be fair, when Hayon and Renne sought to reassure poor Mr. St. Croix on September 23 following closed session, although they may have known Grossman had filed his second lawsuit against Ethics, they had no way of knowing that a month later the Superior Court would rule on October 25 in Grossman’s favor, largely over the same issue of improper withholding of records raised in Grossman’s 2010 lawsuit. So much for St. Croix’s “hard work” of withholding records, hard work rightfully overturned by a second Superior Court judge, who ignored St. Croix’s disheveled feathers.
Superior Court’s First Rejection of St. Croix’s “Hard Work”
When Allen Grossman’s first Superior Court case — Allen Grossman vs. San Francisco Ethics Commission, John St. Croix, and Richard Mo — was settled in Grossman’s favor in February 2010, it represented a reversal of the Ethics Commission’s assertion of exemptions for its investigative records and future Ethics Commission investigative files. His case in 2010 had asserted that none of the citations offered by the City Controller and the Ethics Commission had provided a valid exemption to the California Public Records Act permitting the withholding of previous records then sought by Grossman. Grossman was awarded $24,900 in legal fees and costs, likely because if the amount had surpassed $25,000, it would have required Board of Supervisors approval, which “negative publicity” the City wanted to avoid at all cost.
The City Attorney spent an additional $13,062 fighting Grossman’s first Superior Court case in 2010, pushing the tab to nearly $40,000. In the end, the Ethics Commission was required to provide Grossman with approximately 150 documents that had been improperly withheld, most of which were the Ethics Commission’s un-redacted and complete investigative files on approximately 14 cases referred by the SOTF to Ethics for enforcement, which Ethics had simply dismissed as unsubstantiated and refused to release, until Grossman filed suit in Superior Court, which concluded St. Croix had to cough up the records.
It’s clear Paul Renne, Bev Hayon, and Herr St. Croix all need to be replaced at once, clueless about the abhorrent blanket exemption St. Croix attempted to cram through, stopped by citizen activists. Unless this trio wants to invite another Superior Court lawsuit challenging blanket Sunshine exemptions potentially granted to Ethics to skirt the law.
Health Department Finally Ordered Into Sunshine Compliance
Another open-government victory occurred on October 2 for two concerned citizens who had filed a Sunshine complaint against Department Head-level staff: Health Commission President Sonia Melara and Director of Public Health Barbara Garcia (who earned $259,921 in calendar year 2012). Melara and Garcia, per the Health Commission’s By-Laws, are responsible for generating the agendas for Health Commission meetings. The complaint also named the full Health Commission as Respondents.
The Sunshine Complaint — Case # 13021, Patrick Monette-Shaw/Maria Rivero, MD vs. Public Health Commission, et al. — was filed on April 18, 2013, alleging that for two decades, the Health Commission had violated both San Francisco’s local Sunshine Ordinance and the State’s Brown Act, both of which laws require that meaningful agenda item descriptions be provided for each agenda item in order to alert members of the public of important policy discussions and proposed actions that may be discussed during any given meeting, so citizens can decide whether an agenda item is of sufficient interest that they might want to attend a scheduled meeting.
The basis of the Monette-Shaw/Rivero complaint featured a deficient agenda notice for the Health Commission’s April 2, 2013 meeting, at which former LHH physician Derek Kerr was scheduled per a court order to receive a public apology for his wrongful termination and retaliation lawsuit, but which agenda had lacked any notice whatsoever that Kerr’s public apology was to take place on April 2.
As egregious and unprecedented as it was for DPH to violate terms of Kerr’s legal settlement agreement by failing to provide adequate agenda notice of the public apology mandated by Court order, thousands of agenda items over the past two decades have also contained only agenda topic titles. Lacking meaningful agenda descriptions, thousands of San Franciscans were deprived of knowing what their government via the Health Commission was doing, and to decide whether they might want to attend any given Health Commission meeting.
The Sunshine complaint should have been considered and heard by the Sunshine Task Force within 45 days from April 18; instead, the hearing never occurred until October 2, fully 167 days after it was first filed. Just 12 days before the Task Force hearing, Ms. Melara finally got around to providing a response to the complaint on behalf of the Health Commission on September 20 — fully five months after the complaint was filed.
“The Way We’ve Always Done It”
Comically, Melara tried to assure the Sunshine Task Force that the reason the Health Commission had failed to comply with both the Brown Act and the Sunshine Ordinance was because “that’s the way we have always done it,” as if past practices of how the Commission had always been done it could excuse violating the clear intent of both laws, and as if “past practices” can “trump” City and State laws to the contrary.
Melara hedged her bets, however — apparently with Ms. Garcia’s tacit approval — saying in her response that if the Task Force ruled that the Health Commission had to begin including meaningful descriptions of proposed legal settlements, the Health Commission would certainly consider changing its past practices, but only by cherry-picking among agenda items it was willing to disclose.
What Melara didn’t seem to understand was that both laws are very clear that every agenda item — not just legal settlements — have to contain a meaningful agenda item description. Melara, Garcia, and each of the Health Commissioners sign annual statements under the penalty of perjury that they have read the Sunshine Ordinance, which clearly states the requirements for meaningful descriptions for each agenda item. Ostensibly, the intent is that they not only read, but fully comprehend, the laws they are required to read under penalty of perjury, and incorporate while performing their official duties.
In an “instructional memo” sent to the Task Force on September 26 just four working days before the October 2 Task Force hearing, Deputy City Attorney Celia Lee — assigned to provide legal advice to the Sunshine Task Force — appeared to support every allegation that had been raised in this complaint.
Of the 108 agenda items listed on the Commission’s 13 meeting agendas between January and October 2, 2013, 69 percent contained just agenda titles, with no meaningful descriptions at all. Of those 108 items, 22 were action-only items, 12 were discussion-only items, and 55 items involved discussion with possible action. Among agenda items since January that were never provided a meaningful description were topics addressing “Community and Public Health Committee,” the “Community Health Improvement Plan,” the “Community Independence Project,” and “Proposed Amendments to San Francisco Health Code,” all weighty topics, among others lacking any meaningful agenda descriptions.
Given notice in April 2013 of the Sunshine complaint against them, Melara, the Health Commission, and Director of Public Health Garcia made no effort during the intervening five months to begin correcting the problem. They just kept following their “past practice” behavior with impunity, even after having been placed on notice they were violating State and local law, apparently unwilling to change past practices unless ordered to do so by the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.
After the SOTF ruled unanimously on October 2 that Garcia, Melara, and the Health Commission had violated, and were continuing to violate, the Sunshine Ordinance and Brown Act, the Health Commission finally started publishing agenda item descriptions. Unfortunately, the new agenda descriptions are weakly-worded and may remain ineffectual.
Second Superior Court Victory: Grossman vs. St. Croix
The Westside Observer’s November 2013 editorial, “Court to Ethics’ St. Croix: Cough Up the Records,” announced Mr. Grossman’s second Superior Court victory against St. Croix and the Ethics Commission. The editorial noted that the Court ruled Grossman, not Ethics, was right on the law. This was the second time Grossman prevailed in Superior Court against St. Croix and the Ethics Commission.
This time, the withheld records involve the Ethics Commission’s Regulations for Violations of the Sunshine Ordinance (“Regulations”),which it adopted in November 2012 for implementation on January 25, 2013,
The Sunshine Task Force issues what are known as “Orders of Determination,” ruling on the facts in Sunshine public access disputes brought before it. The Orders of Determination are frequently forwarded to the Ethics Commission for enforcement (although the Ethics Commission has very rarely enforced them, and instead, wrongly re-adjudicates the Sunshine Complaints all over again, and has dismissed nearly 100% of all referrals for enforcement, the referral of Library Commission president Jewelle Gomez to Mayor Lee being the rare exception).
For years, Ethics had used its separate Ethics Commission’s Regulations for Investigations and Enforcement Proceedings” — regulations that were developed to address campaign finance and disclosure laws — to rule on access to public meetings and access to public records violations. Grossman and other Sunshine advocates had long argued that those regulations didn’t govern Sunshine Ordinance open meetings and open records enforcement violations, and that the Ethics Commission needed new, separate regulations tailored to Sunshine matters, since the latter deal with public meeting access and public records issues, not campaign finance issues.
In 2009, the Ethics Commission finally agreed, and began drafting new stand-alone regulations to address referrals for enforcement from the Sunshine Task Force and complaints filed directly with the Ethics Commission alleging willful violations of the Sunshine Ordinance’s public access provisions.
Four years later, the Ethics Commission still won’t release related records, including draft versions of the proposed regulations and communications with the City Attorney’s Office. Ethics initially worked with the Sunshine Task Force and held several joint meetings between the two bodies, seeking input to the new regulations. But that suddenly changed in September 2012 when the Ethics Commission published notice that its September 24, 2012 meeting would discuss yet another revised draft of the proposed regulations that had not been vetted with the Sunshine Task Force. Sunshine advocates objected to many of the proposed changes on September 24, but the Ethics Commission eventually adopted its new regulations in November 2012.
In an effort to seek additional information about the September 2012 final draft, Grossman placed a records request on October 3, 2012 seeking all prior drafts and the final version of the September 14 draft, and also requested the Ethics Commission’s staff report. When the Ethics Commission responded to the records request on October 12, Grossman was notified that the Commission was withholding an untold number of other documents in their entirety, citing attorney-client privilege and two types of attorney work-product protections.
Because St. Croix had failed to identify each of the withheld public records, failed to provide a written citation to justify each withholding, and Ethics’ assertion of privilege, Grossman filed a formal complaint with the SOTF on November 19, 2012. In response, during a SOTF hearing St. Croix again claimed the attorney-client privilege and attorney work-product protections, and asserted that merely citing the relevant code sections on a blanket, not case-by-case, basis was sufficient to satisfy compliance with requirements to provide written justification for each record withheld. But St. Croix was wrong on the law.
The Task Force held an extended hearing on Grossman’s complaint during its June 5, 2013 meeting and issued its Order of Determination on June 24, ruling that St. Croix had violated two sections of the Sunshine Ordinance by improperly withholding records subject to disclosure. The Task Force ordered St. Croix to produce the records to Grossman. To date, St. Croix has failed to comply with the SOTF’s Order of Determination.
Forced Into Superior Court
So Grossman was forced to sue St. Croix and the Ethics Commission for a second time in Superior Court to gain access to the improperly withheld records. In his initial 16-page Verified Petition for Writ of Mandate filed in Superior Court on September 17, 2013, Grossman asserted that none of the records he had requested were exempt from disclosure under either the California Public Records Act (CPRA) or under San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance. [Note: A Writ of Mandate is a court order to a government agency to follow the law by correcting its prior actions or ceasing illegal acts. When a Writ is ordered, they are typically effective immediately.] St. Croix’s refusal to provide the requisite justification for withholding and his misguided assertion of “privilege,” also constituted a violation of law, since he and the Ethics Commission had a nondiscretionary, mandatory ministerial duty to comply with Grossman’s records request, and to comply with the Sunshine Task Force’s lawful Order of Determination.
In its Superior Court response, the City Attorney’s Office submitted a 20-page Respondents Opposition to Petition for Writ of Mandate, on October 9, 2013 authored by Deputy City Attorney Andrew Shen.
It’s the worst legal filing this columnist has ever had the displeasure of reading, since it starts out indicating Grossman’s case “raises the question of whether a municipality’s voters acting in their legislative capacity may, by ordinance, override the laws of attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine set forth in state statues and rules of professional conduct incorporated into a City charter.”
That’s complete rubbish — of course voters can! — but Shen’s Opposition brief quickly went downhill from there. He painted a picture that the City Attorney couldn’t fulfill his obligations to protect client confidentiality if a “mere” ordinance could bar City officials from asserting attorney-client privilege or from asserting attorney work-product privilege in a “broad swath” of unrelated legal matters.
Shen wailed that the City Attorney’s ability to fulfill his mission of advising City officials would be seriously compromised. Shen wasted 10 of his 20 pages addressing attorney-client privilege and attorney work-product privilege issues to argue that voters can’t enact restrictions on the City Attorney, ignoring that seven states have already abolished government attorney-client privilege, particularly when it only involves communications between a government attorney and his government client.
The reason these states have abolished government attorney-client privilege is due in large part to the diminished expectation of confidentiality in the public sector, and democratic values disfavoring secrecy in government. There is strong evidence — as St. Croix and Herrera must surely know — that suggests attorney-client privilege is not a necessity for effective communication between government officials and their attorneys, undermining any rationale that invoking this privilege in a government context is ever justified.
When the “client” is a government body, bestowing this privilege to it appears particularly perverse, since the privilege is then used all too often to withhold information from the very citizens the government body represents.
The strong public interest in seeking honest government and exposing wrongdoing by public officials is ill-served by allowing attorney-client privilege in inquires into actions of public officials. Many believe allowing City Attorney’s to use attorney-client privilege as a shield against production of public records is a gross misuse of public assets.
Shen admitted that St. Croix had withheld 28 documents from Grossman for over a year, and announced that upon further review, four of the 28 — 14.3 percent — were “determined not to be subject to” either attorney-client privilege or attorney work-product privilege. The four documents were provided to Grossman on the same date Shen filed the City Attorney’s response to Grossman’s lawsuit in Court. Had Grossman not sued, St. Croix would have gotten away with withholding the four documents that weren’t even legally privileged.
The “Work-Product” Canard
Indeed, Shen’s separate Declaration effectively admits that none of the withheld records involved work-product; it appears they are simply attorney-client communications. Of the remaining 24 documents withheld, 15 documents, mostly e-mails, involve requests from the Ethics Commission staff to the City Attorney’s Office for legal advice on the proposed Ethics regulations. The remaining nine appear to be City Attorney responses to those requests providing advice regarding the proposed regulations, including one dated May 6, 2010 that analyzed legal issues implicated by the Commission’s proposed Sunshine regulations.
And Shen’s Declaration — separate from his Respondents Opposition brief — says nothing about the work product doctrine, even though he goes on and on about work product in the Opposition brief. Shen’s Declaration impliedly admits that the 24 documents that remain in dispute are subject to the attorney-client privilege, so none may be subject to work-product privilege.
Then Shen launches into an all-out attack on Sunshine Ordinance §67.24(b)(1)(iii), which simply states that any City Attorney communications providing “advice on, compliance with, analysis of, or an opinion” concerning CPRA, the Brown Act, San Francisco’s Ethics Code, or the Sunshine Ordinance are public records subject to disclosure. Shen claims this section “purports to bar,” the City from asserting attorney-client privilege and wrongly claims the City Attorney would be prohibited from providing legal advice to City officials, when in fact, this section only stipulates that any such legal advice to City officials are, by definition, public records that must be disclosed. It doesn’t prohibit the City Attorney from anything — other than prohibiting withholding the records from disclosure.
But Shen twisted §67.24(b)(1)(iii) into something it is not, and railed throughout the remainder of his Opposition brief that the section attempts to “alter or limit the provisions of” the City Charter, and that this section of the Sunshine Ordinance cannot be enforced. In the Court Order handing Grossman his second victory against St. Croix, Judge Goldsmith denied Shen’s request to strike down §67.24(b)(1)(iii), noting that this issue was not properly before the Court in Grossman’s motion for writ of mandate.
Attorney Ng to the Rescue
In stark contrast to Shen’s misguided and rambling Opposition brief, Grossman’s lawyer Michael Ng submitted a brilliant rebuttal in his 14-page Petitioner’s Reply in Support of Verified Petition for Writ of Mandate.
Ng began by noting Shen’s claim that voters are powerless to adopt laws requiring that public officials disclose public records involving communications with the City Attorney, is unfounded, and untenable; Ng notes voters are the ultimate authority and can exercise plenary power over the City’s legislative affairs. It’s clear that Sunshine §67.24(b)(1)(iii) says City Attorney communications — from the outset — are not confidential, and that communications that were never confidential cannot be subject to the attorney-client privilege.
Ng then noted CPRA expressly authorizes local governments to adopt requirements like §67.24(b)(1)(iii) providing greater access to public records in order to shrink the islands of privacy [in a sea of government secrecy], by precluding San Francisco from invoking exceptions when the public records concern a narrow set of law relating to public records access itself. He also notes San Francisco voters expressly approved these “enhanced rights of public access to information and records.”
Ng observed that the City — by extension City Attorney Dennis Herrera and St. Croix — has not challenged other provisions of §67.24 that also preclude San Francisco agencies from asserting other CPRA exemptions. It’s clear to most observers that St. Croix and Dennis Herrera are not so concerned with §67.24 overall, as they suddenly are with the implications of §67.24(b)(1)(iii). Ng rightfully asserted Shen’s contention that the latter citation would prevent Herrera from carrying out his City Attorney duties is a gross exaggeration, since that section merely provides that City Attorney communications regarding open government laws remain accessible to the public.
Why the City is suddenly seeking to strike §67.24(b)(1)(iii) from San Francisco’s administrative code 20 years after it was added to the Sunshine Ordinance in August 1993 and adopted by voters in November 1999, isn’t known. Observers suspect the City now wants it struck down simply because Grossman appears to be the first San Franciscan to have successfully sued for its enforcement in Superior Court. As long as nobody had sued for enforcement, the City appears to have let §67.24(b)(1)(iii) stand for 20 years.
St. Croix and Herrera brazenly asked the Superior Court to strike it down when Grossman found the chutzpah — referred elsewhere to as the “audacity of hope” — to challenge the shameless pair of Herrera + St. Croix in court.
Specifically, §67.24(b)(1)(iii) is “no more an attack on the attorney-client relationship than the Brown Act’s mandate public meetings be conducted in the open,” Ng declared. Indeed, the Brown Act mandates that most attorney-client communications with a local legislative body take place in open session, Ng observes. The Brown Act acknowledges the relationship between a local body and its attorney does not require secrecy when it is outside the context of pending litigation.
Dennis Herrera’s Public Spanking
Ng acknowledged that St. Croix and the City Attorney had, in effect, asked the Superior Court “to create new law by carving out an exception to the express terms of the Sunshine Ordinance.” San Francisco voters had decided such City Attorney advice must be provided in the open.
Ng notes that the City Attorney’s blanket repeated assertions of privilege without providing any substantive rationale, may be evidence of the City’s strategy of stonewalling and evasive responses. Individuals seeking public records under CPRA or the Sunshine Ordinance should not have to burden the Court to obtain compliance with either law.
At issue here is that the drafting of procedural regulations — such as the Ethics Commission regulations in Grossman’s second lawsuit — is a legislative function. As such, it’s a process that should be open to members of the public, including candid, honest, and complete legal advice in connection with the regulations, unimpeded by objections to disclosure.
When voters speak through the ballot box, any power to waive “privilege” dissolves, since City Charter §14.100 grants voters the power to enact initiatives, and the power to nullify measures involving legislative matters by referendum. Witness the November 5 election in which — by referendum — voters nullified the legislative decision of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to grant the 8 Washington project a height exemption when voters rejected Prop C. And witness the voter’s adoption of the Sunshine Ordinance as a valid exercise of their authority to enact an ordinance restricting the secrecy permitted at City Hall.
St. Croix’s argument that the City Charter’s designation of the City Attorney as his counsel somehow trumps the voters’ specific adoption that certain records must be made public holds no water, Ng noted. Whatever relationship exists between a general provision of a City Charter and a detailed specific enactment by voters, the fact that the pertinent section at issue was authorized by express State law renders the debate of no significance.
Both St. Croix and Dennis Herrera had to have known that State law expressly permits adoption of stricter open records rules supersedes local law, since State law appears to supersede even City charters. The SOTF’s Order of Determination against St. Croix and the Ethics Commission was a lawful, binding order, which the Superior Court had authority to enforce. So it did, handing St. Croix and Dennis Herrera an embarrassing public spanking.
Ordered to Comply, the City Appeals Instead
Judge Ernest Goldsmith’s Order Granting Petitioner’s Writ of Mandate in Grossman’s favor, dated October 25, 2013 states that “the record shows that Respondents [St. Croix and the Ethics Commission] had not met their burden [proving] that the withheld documents are exempt under the [CPRA] and the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance” [emphasis added]. Goldsmith reached the same conclusion that the Sunshine Task Force had reached on June 5 almost five months earlier, nearly a year after Grossman had been forced to file his Sunshine complaint.
Goldsmith noted that under the Sunshine Ordinance, public records regarding advice on CPRA and the Sunshine Ordinance are, in fact, subject to disclosure, citing §67.24(b)(1)(iii) as the basis. This had to have disappointed Mr. Shen and City Attorney Dennis Herrera. The judge noted Shen had conceded the 24 documents withheld from Grossman consist of requests from Ethics Commission staff for legal advice and the City Attorney’s responses analyzing the legal issues.
Goldsmith ordered St. Croix to deliver the remaining 24 documents to Grossman. Goldsmith also denied Shen’s request to strike §67.24(b)(1)(iii) from the City’s Administrative Code.
Clearly desperate to stop Allen Grossman’s victory due to potentially far-reaching implications should he prevail, the City filed a Motion to Stay the Superior Court’s order in the Court of Appeals First Appellate District on Friday, November 22. The Appeals Court granted the Stay pending resolution of the writ proceedings on the same date, despite the fact that Superior Court Judge Goldsmith had ruled in the “trial court phase” that the City and St. Croix had not met their burden of proof that additional records St. Croix had withheld are exempt under the CPRA or under San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance. It’s somewhat surprising that the Appeals Court didn’t give Grossman a chance to respond to the Motion to Stay before it granted Shen the stay.
The City’s request for the stay of enforcement was unavailable at the deadline to submit this article to the Westside Observer for its December issue. So it’s not yet known what new, creative legal theories the City and Mr. Shen may have introduced in their Stay to fight Grossman’s Superior Court victory.
The Appeals Court may potentially dismiss the writ summarily, but it may also wait for a full briefing before deciding whether to dismiss the Superior Court’s Writ. Hopefully, the Court will wait for a briefing. Grossman’s court briefs responding to the Motion to Stay are due December 23, and the City’s reply to Grossman’s response is due on January 7, so it will take another two months before the Appeals Court rules on the City’s appeal.
Meanwhile, St. Croix’s Superior Court costs continue to balloon. A subsequent public records request has revealed that in Grossman’s second Superior Court case, the City Attorney’s Office has already racked up 213.5 hours of time at the Superior Court level, at a cost of $51,178 plus $145 in expenses, fighting Grossman over a mere 24 documents. Just through the Superior Court phase, that’s $2,138 per withheld document — and growing, since it is not yet known how much Grossman’s lawyer may request from the Court in attorney’s fees, nor is it yet known how much the City will eventually rack up in costs fighting Grossman during the Appeals process.
Courts have noted the unique responsibility of government attorney’s such as Dennis Herrera to not only serve the government entities he represents, but also the public interests of citizens he serves. Herrera appears to hold no obligation to the voters who elected him, or to his duty to provide transparency and openness in San Francisco’s government. He appears to believe his sole responsibility is protecting City officials from exposure of wrongdoing.
To date, Grossman’s two Superior Court lawsuits have cost the City nearly $100,000, and is mounting — all because of St. Croix’s and Herrera’s needless battles against access to public records. The wasted money — significant and unnecessary costs — is an obscene amount for City Attorney Herrera to spend in the name of government secrecy.
Dennis Herrera — who sought re-election on November 5 unopposed — just doesn’t seem to get it that San Franciscans want more Sunshine and transparency from City Hall, not more secrecy from our City Attorney.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com
December 2013
|
Progress at SF General’s new Hospital and Trauma Center
does not include a dialysis center |
Committed Citizens Changing the World
A Victory for SFGH’s Dialysis Patients
by Patrick Monette-Shaw
American cultural anthropologist Margaret Meade’s famous dictum — “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does” — played out when citizens sought suspension of an RFP to privatize the Health Department’s outpatient dialysis center at SFGH by outsourcing it to a private company that would be required to build it out in a current “shell” in Laguna Honda Hospital’s (LHH) old, and questionably seismically-safe, buildings.
it was decided outpatient dialysis wasn’t considered an “essential” service. The Health Department appears to have forgotten that dialysis is essential to the continued lives of its dialysis patients.”
When the suspension of the RFP to outsource DPH’s dialysis services occurred unexpectedly during a Board of Supervisors hearing on October 17, it occurred because a small group testified why outsourcing dialysis to the private sector was a really, really bad idea. Members of the Board of Supervisors opposed to privatization listened, and stopped the proposal.
Dialysis Privatization: Dead on Arrival
The 40-plus citizens who attended the Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee hearing on October 17 presented compelling testimony regarding why dialysis services should remain on SFGH’s campus, rather than being privatized and outsourced to LHH, echoing many of the concerns first reported in the Westside Observer’s October article “Department of Public Health’s Dialysis Crisis.”
The group included family and patient caregivers, SFGH Renal Center staff, dialysis patients themselves, and other patient advocates. No one spoke in support of relocating dialysis services to LHH other than hospital administrators.
During the hearing called by Supervisor David Campos, SFGH’s Chief Operating Officer Roland Pickens asserted that dialysis services were not included in the plans for the replacement acute care hospital building now under construction because it was decided outpatient dialysis wasn’t considered an “essential” service. The Health Department appears to have forgotten that dialysis is essential to the continued lives of its dialysis patients. Supervisor Campos asked Pickens who had made that decision; Pickens indicated the decision had been made by the Mayor and Health Commission at the time planning for the SFGH rebuild bond measure was being developed.
In response to a direct question from Campos about whether the RFP to move dialysis had been discussed and voted on by the Health Commission, Pickens stated unequivocally that “Yes, it was” voted on by the Health Commission, which is a complete fabrication, since Pickens was fibbing. Campos pushed harder, and asked again if the Health Commission had voted on an RFP to privatize dialysis services, and Pickens again claimed that from his recollection, it had been voted on. More fibbing.
But as the Observer reported last month, the discussion to outsource dialysis to LHH was only discussed in the Health Commission’s subcommittee — the SFGH Joint Conference Committee (JCC) — in the Spring of 2012, with only the barest subcommittee “report back” to the full Health Commission. The full Health Commission did not discuss the “report back” in any depth, and the full Health Commission has not scheduled a distinct agenda item regarding outsourcing SFGH’s dialysis services during the past two years of its meetings.
Before Pickens chose to fib, a records request for any vote of the Health Commission had already resulted in a response that there are no responsive records, indicating the full Health Commission never debated merits of the RFP and took no vote on whether to approve the dialysis privatizing RFP before it was issued.
Admission: Not All Options Were Studied
When Campos asked Pickens whether the $5 million it will cost to build out dialysis at LHH could be better spent on renovations of SFGH’s campus to keep dialysis there, Pickens openly admitted SFGH had not looked at an option to spend that money on renovating space at SFGH. When Campos asked whether any options had been considered to stay in the current vicinity, if not on the SFGH campus itself, Pickens claimed the City’s Real Estate Division had explored leasing space elsewhere, but none met requirements. When asked if Real Estate had prepared a report about other options, Pickens said he would have to go back and look for that.
As the Observer reported last month, Director of Public Health Barbara Garcia had been asked by the Health Commission to submit a report of all viable options to keep dialysis services at SFGH. According to a records request, it appears Garcia never provided the Health Commission — let alone the Board of Supervisors — with a report that had investigated all possible options to prevent moving dialysis services off of SFGH’s campus.
When the hearing explored the burdens of increased transportation times for vulnerable, sick dialysis patients who would have to travel further to get to LHH, Campos asked Pickens if the patients had been surveyed about the impact to their care. Pickens answered “No, we did not.” Campos asked “Why would you not talk to the [patients] who are going to be … the most impacted by moving” dialysis to LHH. Pickens admitted that in hindsight, DPH should have done that, and that it was a mistake they made not surveying patients. Pickens stated DPH will make sure they survey dialysis patients regarding transportation issues. Pickens agreed with Campos that if a survey of patients reveals that moving dialysis to LHH is not the right move, DPH would “absolutely” reconsider its decision to move dialysis to LHH.
Campos noted how disrespectful it was to patients who were not consulted prior to release of the RFP. Near the end of the hearing, Pickens apologized to patients that “we have not had a conversation with you.”
Even though Health Commissioners David Sanchez and Edward Chow had indicated in 2012 that transportation would be addressed in the RFP, Pickens admitted to Campos that transportation had not been addressed in the RFP, but that DPH “can go back and make [transportation] a part of the [RFP] process.”
Campos appeared incredulous that DPH had not performed any analysis of a potential decrease in revenue from other medical services if patients outsourced for dialysis then choose to receive other services — for example, vascular surgery, radiology, etc. — by obtaining those services from other providers, rather than returning to SFGH to obtain other primary and specialty-care services. DPH is fully aware that it will be “competing” in the managed care arena for patients, so why it didn’t perform a cost-benefit analysis of potential unintended consequences of losing additional revenue is rather shocking. In addition to the millions of dollars in lost dialysis revenue that benefits SFGH, DPH would also run the risk of losing additional millions from other medical services, but this appears never to have been studied.
Sadly, given DPH’s many highly-paid bean counters, it’s even more shocking that it didn’t occur to any of DPH’s or SFGH’s administrators and hospital administrators that they should ask the bean counters to run a lost-revenue “what if” scenario to estimate how much potentially-lost revenue might be at stake.
The “Fib” LHH Is Seismically Safe
Pickens also testified that DPH considers the space where dialysis would have been placed in LHH as seismically safe, despite the fact that the only seismic remodeling of LHH’s old buildings included replacing an unknown number of hollow-clay walls with concrete walls, but no lateral bracing for lateral shift during an earthquake.
When the hearing was opened for public testimony, the first speaker was Vivian Imperiale, a 10-plus-year former employee at Laguna Honda Hospital, who rhetorically asked who had decided that LHH was a suitable place for dialysis patients, given that voters were told much of the old buildings would be demolished as being seismically unsafe. She noted a lawsuit may be waiting to happen if a patient receiving dialysis turns out to be a “sitting duck” injured (or killed) in LHH’s old buildings during an earthquake. Speaking against moving dialysis services to LHH, Ms. Imperiale testified “Let us remember that change is not synonymous with improvement.”
Following testimony from a staff member of the Dialysis Center that showed life-safety regulations for fire sprinklers were relaxed in 2012, grandfathering buildings built before January 2008 to operate without them, Campos inquired whether that permitted DPH more flexibility. Mr. Pickens replied that if that proves to be the case, SFGH might pursue it as an option to keep the facility right where it is currently located at SFGH.
In effect, should Mr. Pickens finds that this proves to be the case, the inescapable conclusion is that DPH didn’t consider, Barbara Garcia didn’t “explore” or report back on this potential option, and the Health Commission may not even have known of this option, given Garcia’s non-existent repot back concerning “all” options.
It was clear by the end of the hearing that Pickens understood that the Board of Supervisors wants to keep dialysis services on SFGH’s campus. It also appeared clear that Pickens got the message that the Supervisors do not want DPH to come back with a replacement RFP now or anytime soon to move dialysis elsewhere.
Campos noted that the proposal to move dialysis to LHH appeared to conflict with the Health Services Master Plan that the City just adopted, noting that Master Plan Recommendation 1.1 meant to address social and environmental factors that impede or prevent access to optimal care, as the increased burden of transportation surely would. Campos also noted that the RFP appeared to violate Master Plan Recommendation 3.1 meant to increase access to appropriate care for San Francisco’s most vulnerable patients.
At the end of the hearing, Supervisor Campos summed up by asking Mr. Pickens that, “In terms of clarity, does it mean that right now, the dialysis services will stay at the current center until a decision is made otherwise,” to which Pickens responded “Yes, we will suspend the [current] RFP process.”
For further clarity, Campos then asked “So the process is suspended and you will not be making a decision to privatize [dialysis] services at this point?” to which Pickens replied, “That is correct.” Campos then asked if a decision is made in the future to go down the route of privatization, whether there would be a separate and new RFP process, to which Pickens responded, “This is correct, absolutely.”
[Editor’s Note: On October 22, shortly before the Observer was going to press for this November edition, DPH’s Contracts Office responded to a records request, announcing the dialysis outsourcing RFP was suspended as of October 22. Patient advocates, and patients, would feel more comfortable if DPH’s announcement had indicated the RFP had been cancelled completely, not just suspended.]
Ms. Imperiale commends Supervisor Campos’ and Mar’s decision not to outsource and relocate the SFGH dialysis center off campus. “The conduct of both Supervisors during the hearing demonstrated their ability to analyze proposals, ask very relevant questions, truly listen to impassioned testimony, and respect those who came forward to give public comment,” Imperiale says.
“Their professionalism, concern, and sound judgment were the epitome of what we like to expect from our elected officials,” she adds.
It was clear as the hearing was formally “filed” before adjourning, that any dialysis relocation plans have been put on hold and that the current RFP to move dialysis to LHH was completely dead on arrival.
At that point, a cheer went up in Board Chambers from the small group of 40 thoughtful, committed citizens who had just changed the world of dialysis patients treated at SFGH.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
November 2013
Department of Public Health’s Dialysis Crisis
’Round the Circle-Game We Go
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
PUBLIC NOTICE: Annual Meeting of the Public Health Commission at Laguna Honda Hospital
Adoption of LHH’s annual report • Tuesday, October 15, 2013, 4:00 p.m.
Included: public discussion of the use of the former old buildings at LHH. Initially slated for demolition, there may be a discussion of reuse of the old “finger wings” for other uses rather than demolition.
The meeting will be held in the John Kanalry Meeting Center in the new new hospital's Pavilion Building; seating is limited..
For more than 46 years, dialysis services have been admirably provided on the campus of San Francisco General Hospital. But in a move to privatize every public service it can, the City is making a dire mistake outsourcing dialysis to the private sector, and placing it at Laguna Honda Hospital.
The vast majority of dialysis patients treated
at SFGH are African-American, Hispanic, or
Asian/Pacific Islanders, most of them already
facing disparities in access to medical care.”
Although the Department of Public likes to boast that it is “integrating” patient care between SFGH, LHH, and it’s many community-based clinics throughout the City, DPH is about to fracture the delivery of services for dialysis patients who have been treated on SFGH’s campus for nearly half a century, after the State of California first awarded a grant to UCSF’s Medical Center to establish the UC Renal Center at SFGH in 1967.
Following the dialysis center’s opening shortly after receiving the State’s grant, it has faced a growing circle of licensing and financial-loss problems, and then faced chronic indecision regarding its fate from UCSF, SFGH, the Department of Public Health, and mostly from San Francisco’s governing Health Commission.
Coming full circle, the decision to outsource dialysis services to an outside contractor and place a 30-chair outpatient dialysis center in Laguna Honda Hospital’s seismically unsafe old main buildings is extremely troubling, when not potentially dangerous to patient safety, as the Observer first reported in our September issue ("Squished Together: Misery Visits Company").
The Licensure Circle
After operating the UC Renal Center at SFGH for 33 years, the broader UCSF Medical Center notified SFGH in 2001 that it would no longer license the Renal Center at SFGH. A year later, UCSF’s Department of Medicine at SFGH luckily stepped in and became independently licensed to operate the UC Renal Center at SFGH. But a year following that, in 2003 UCSF’s Department of Medicine unsuccessfully tried to sell the facility, or partner with a private company, due to its financial losses. So in 2003, the facility and its license were transferred to SFGH, and the unit was renamed the SFGH Renal Center, where it has operated for the past decade.
And during that same past decade, since Katie Worth published several articles in the San Francisco Examiner in 2004 about the chronic shortage of dialysis services all over San Francisco in both the public and private sectors, debate — and constant indecision and delay — has raged about placing dialysis services at LHH, despite initial plans to rebuild both LHH and SFGH without any dialysis services in either of the replacement hospitals.
A current Request for Proposals to outsource SFGH’s dialysis services specifically requires that the entity who is awarded a ten-year contract will be responsible for obtaining licensure to operate outpatient dialysis services at LHH. As far back as 2007, the State agency that issues licenses for dialysis services prohibited long-term care nursing facilities from operating a dialysis center on site. But in early 2007, the State Assembly quickly authored AB 214 to permit long-term health care facilities to provide chronic dialysis clinic services to residents of their facilities. Notably, AB 214 did not authorize the skilled nursing and long-term facilities to operate outpatient dialysis centers, just services for inpatient residents.
By 2009, the State Assembly introduced AB 1544, to expedite approval of new outpatient clinics without a prior onsite survey, but the bill initially would have prohibited acute care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and specialty hospitals from providing new outpatient services for chronic dialysis treatment. As AB l1544 wound through the State Senate, amendments to the bill on September 4, 2010 struck out the prohibition restricting outpatient dialysis services from the bill.
To our knowledge, LHH has never tried to obtain any license to provide dialysis services, and indeed, its current license and menu of “clinics” does not include inpatient dialysis. Notwithstanding its lack of license for dialysis services, change orders were eventually approved during construction of LHH’s new facilities, adding a six-chair dialysis center that was built out on the promenade in LHH’s new Pavilion building, and dialysis chairs and equipment were purchased and delivered, although the small inpatient dialysis clinic has not opened in the three years since LHH moved into its new digs. Many of LHH’s current and former staff were never informed the six-chair dialysis unit was even there waiting to be opened, but never was. As a result, LHH’s dialysis patients still endure being transported to SFGH’s Renal Center for treatment.
Sources report that despite the construction of a six-chair inpatient dialysis center in LHH’s new Pavilion building, former Director of Public Health Mitch Katz would not allow LHH to open it, for fear of taking away business from SFGH. “Doctors don’t like losing dialysis patients because the business is very lucrative, and competition for Medicare patients is fierce,” a former LHH physician speaking on condition of anonymity notes.
Similarly, LHH’s expansion of its acute physical medicine rehabilitation beds to 15 never panned out, as this reporter previously predicted might fail, because competition for acute rehab patients is also cut-throat among private hospitals. LHH’s share of the acute-care physical medicine rehab patient pie typically hovers at an average of no more than two at any given time, given the fierce competition for Medicare Part A acute rehab patients.
After receiving an additional $1.5 million or more annual budget increase to increase staff for a 15-bed acute rehab center planning to compete for Medicare Part A revenue that LHH’s Chief of Rehabilitation Services Lisa Pascual, MD asserted would occur —and which budget increase was approved by a beguiled Mayor and Board of Supervisors — LHH hasn’t been able to fill up more than half of its currently-licensed five acute rehab beds (not 15) at any one given time. LHH has failed so far to increase its grasp of the acute-care rehab reimbursement pie.
Lamely, a presentation to the SFGH Joint Conference Subcommittee on February 14, 2012 presented by SFGH’s CEO, Sue Currin and others, claimed on the “Funding Plan” slide that the six-chair inpatient dialysis unit was dropped from LHH’s rebuild plans in 2008 due to the projected high operational costs. But why would they have built out the six-chair unit and had the equipment delivered in 2010 if it had already been dropped in 2008? Knowledgeable sources believe it was never dropped from the plans, but that Dr. Katz refused to let it open and Currin was merely spouting spin control in 2012.
The Really-Bad-Location Circle
There are a number of reasons why moving SFGH’s dialysis center to Laguna Honda is a really bad location.
First, and foremost, it will fracture the care of dialysis patients, who attend multiple primary- and specialty-care appointments at SFGH each month, in addition to their weekly dialysis sessions. SFGH’s dialysis patients are among the most vulnerable in the City, suffering from ESRD, diabetes, congestive heart failure, cancer, HIV/AIDS, heroin addiction, and tuberculosis. Many patients require multiple SFGH-based clinic appointments, along with their three- to four-hour dialysis treatments three times a week.
The vast majority of dialysis patients treated at SFGH are African-American, Hispanic, or Asian/Pacific Islanders, most of them poor people already facing well-known disparities in access to medical care.
SFGH is the only dialysis unit in the city that accepts patients on gurney’s and from other community skilled nursing facilities who cannot ambulate due to quadriplegia, stroke, and vascular disease. It is also the only dialysis unit that accepts patients with aggressive behavioral issues who have failed at, or have been terminated by, other dialysis units in the City, and it is the only dialysis unit that accepts incarcerated patients needing dialysis who have lost medical insurance once in jail. It is the only unit in the City that dialyzes behavioral health patients (e.g., schizophrenia) and those requiring 24-hour care at SFGH’s secure facilities, since attempts to dialyze them at other units were unsuccessful, disruptive to other dialysis patients and staff, and costly, incurring both transportation costs and costs of safety “sitters” to accompany patients.
SFGH’s Renal Center dialyzes patients who can’t be referred to private centers, including those with paralysis, those on breathing tubes, and those who are ineligible for insurance.
In December 2011, SFGH’s Renal Center received additional funding to staff a fourth evening dialysis shift specifically to address the problem of uninsured patients who are kept in the hospital at huge expense, because no other units in the City will accept them and the Renal Center did not have open chairs.
What will happen to all of these patients, since there is nothing in the RFP that stipulates that the vendor awarded the contract to operate a dialysis center at LHH will be required to accept these types of patients?
Moving the service to LHH will require these patients to obtain care at multiple locations, fragmenting their care between locations, and increasing the odds that they may end up admitted to SFGH’s emergency room. Many dialysis patients see multiple providers at SFGH during their dialysis visits, so they may end up making multiple trips to different campuses each week to receive fragmented care.
Second, the current Renal Center at SFGH formerly used ambulance transport when patients experience a medical emergency during dialysis treatment. Then, Renal Center staff learned they could use SFGH’s “Medical Emergency Response Team” (MERT), to use wheelchair transports from Ward 17 in Building 100 where the Renal Center is located, to transport patients by wheelchair quickly to the SFGH's E.R. along hallways in SFGH’s current main hospital in Building 5.
But there is no MERT at LHH, and the best LHH may offer be able to offer is use of its medical-staff Code Blue Team, who will have to travel a long distance on LHH’s campus from the new buildings were they see patients, over to the old main building where the outpatient dialysis center is proposed to be placed on the third floor. Alternatively, should patients Code Blue during dialysis treatment at LHH, following a delay in calls to 9-1-1, not only will there be an increase in fire alarms going off, the Fire Department station on Olympia Way behind LHH has no access road to LHH, and fire engines will be a three-minute ride away, barreling down Clarendon Avenue sirens ablaze, then along Laguna Honda Boulevard, before they can turn onto the grounds of LHH. If a Code Blue patient needs transport to the E.R. at SFGH, factor in at least a 10- to 15-minute trip to Potrero Avenue, causing further delays in care en route.
It is thought that SFGH’s MERT team is summoned to its Renal Center an average of three to four times a month for emergency transport, and Code Blue’s occur about six times annually.
Third, moving dialysis services to LHH will exacerbate transportation burdens. Studies have long documented that patients have poorer outcomes the farther they have to travel to a dialysis center. MediCal no longer reimburses for van transportation, although MediCare does (and it is thought about 40 percent of SFGH’s MediCare patients are quickly referred to other off-site dialysis centers, and aren’t in SFGH’s on-site dialysis patient mix). Anthem Blue Cross, which provides managed MediCal, does not reimburse for transportation, nor does it reimburse for some dialysis-related medications. It is not yet known whether the San Francisco Health Plan or the separate Healthy San Francisco programs cover transport costs.
Presentations made by DPH to the full Health Commission in February and April 2012 document that of 97 dialysis patients being treated at SFGH, 33 rely on public transportation, only 40 had an “entitlement van,” 4 rely on gurney transport in an ambulance, three walk, 12 have private cars, one is transported from jail by the Sheriff, and 4 were behavioral health patients presumably at SFGH’s Mental Health Rehab Facility at SFGH.
Worse, DPH’s presentation also noted that of 33 dialysis patients treated at SFGH who rely on public transportation, fully 26 (79 percent) reside in five zip codes in the Inner Mission, Bay View-Hunters Point, South of Market, Outer Mission, and Tenderloin neighborhoods, who will face an increase of 2.3 to 3.8 miles in public transportation to LHH, presumably with longer transit times, particularly from the Inner Mission and Bay View-Hunters Point.
As far as that goes, of the 97 dialysis patients seen at SFGH, fully 86 (89 percent) are from these same five neighborhoods, plus Bernal Heights and the Excelsior. Of SFGH’s additional 132 patients treated off site in the community, fully 98 (74 percent) are from these seven neighborhoods. Whether the 132 use public transit or other transportation, they will all face longer transportation times, in addition to their three- to four-hour dialysis treatments — assuming there are no delays in treatment that may affect missing scheduled van transport times for return home.
Patient advocates fear SFGH’s dialysis patients may not be able to endure two-hour bus rides, three times a week for dialysis.
Data in the presentation to the Health Commission is echoed by dialysis caregivers throughout the City. SFGH Renal Center staff have testified at Health Commission meetings that 90 percent of their patients live on the East Side near SFGH. They testified that the Laguna Honda site will pose access issues for Renal Center patients, all of whom receive primary and specialty care at SFGH. They don’t believe any SFGH outpatient services should be moved to LHH.
They note moving the Renal Center to LHH will mean increased van, car, ambulance, and pedestrian traffic in the LHH neighborhood. With just 99 dialysis patients treated three times each week (assuming that dialysis patients currently treated at community sites will remain where they are, despite DPH’s hope to move them to LHH, which likely won’t happen), there would be fewer than 198 round-trip transports three times each week, but there will still be a high number of vans running through the LHH neighborhood daily, which increase in traffic may not have even been considered when the Environmental Impact Report was prepared prior to construction of LHH’s replacement facility. This excludes SFGH’s 132 patients who are currently served off-site, and may or may not be forced to switch from community-based dialysis clinics, to LHH, which may exacerbate their transportation problems, and who may also be forced to change their nephrologists.
During testimony at the SFGH Joint Conference Subcommittee meeting of the Health Commission February 14, 2012, one member of the public testified that LHH was too far away, which may deter patients from getting the appropriate care; he read a letter into the meeting minutes from a medical transport company who stated that it can’t afford to transport patients to LHH due to lower reimbursement rates from MediCare.
The Chronic Indecision Circle
There has been little to no public discussion of the pros and cons of outsourcing SFGH’s dialysis services to LHH.
There has been no substantive discussion of the RFP to move dialysis to LHH at the full Health Commission. In response to a records request placed by this columnist on September 14, 2013, Health Commission Executive Secretary Mark Morewitz responded that there were no responsive documents to a records request for any “Resolution” adopted by the full Health Commission authorizing DPH to issue an RFP to outsource and privatize the Renal Center at SFGH and relocate those services to LHH.
Nor were there any responsive records for meeting minutes of the full Health Commission in which it formally approved DPH’s proposal to relocate the dialysis services to LHH. Morewitz also noted that there were no responsive documents to a request for any DPH budget initiative forms to eliminate dialysis services; he indicated no reductions have been made to the DPH outpatient dialysis budget. At least not yet.
Mr. Morewitz creatively tried to assert that DPH’s “outpatient dialysis services located at SFGH are currently ‘outsourced’ to UCSF.” But it is thought that he’s stretching the truth, because the license for SFGH’s Renal Center resides with SFGH, not with UCSF. Although the Renal Center is staffed with UCSF employees, so are large areas throughout the SFGH medical center campus, and the employees are staffed under a so-called (and financially lucrative) “Affiliation Agreement” with UCSF, which is typically afforded cost-of-living and cost-of-doing business budget increases each year funded by DPH’s budget through the City’s General Fund. Unlike the Affiliation Agreement now in place to staff the SFGH-licensed Renal Center, the pending RFP will actually outsource the entire operation, including licensure, to an outside entity, even though the UCSF Department of Medicine’s Nephrology Division will retain control of “medical direction” for any outpatient dialysis center at LHH.
Morewitz did, however, send along minutes of the Health Commission’s SFGH Joint Conference Subcommittee meetings on held on February 14, 2012 and April 10, 2012. Scattered throughout both SFGH JCC minutes, Health Commissioner Sanchez, PhD and Commissioner Ed Chow, MD, repeatedly requested that DPH “explore all possible options and postpone the release of the RFP [to move dialysis to LHH] until Director [of Public Health Barbara] Garcia reports back to the SFGH JCC regarding this issue.” There’s no indication Ms. Garcia ever reported back.
For his part, Sanchez requested on February 14 that “DPH consider exploring other options so that outpatient dialysis services could remain on the SFGH campus, and another unit could be located at LHH” in order to continue serving safety-net patients if outpatient dialysis is moved to LHH. Despite postponing release of the RFP, it appears to have been issued, apparently without the requested report back from Garcia.
The minutes of the full Health Commission on April 17, 2012 report the SFGH JCC was “hopeful” a solution could be found regarding appropriate transportation to the new site for [dialysis] patients” at LHH. This followed Dr. Chow’s helpful “suggestion” to ensure patient transportation be “part of the plan” in the SFGH JCC’s minutes of April 10, 2012. Unfortunately, the RFP to outsource dialysis to LHH mentions not one word about transportation issues, and the issue appears to have never crossed the lips of Barbara Garcia and the Health Commission before the RFP was issued, unless such conversations occurred behind closed doors, out of ear-shot and oversight of members of the public, and the very dialysis patients DPH purports to serve.
For her part, Health Commission President Sonia Melara said not one word about the issue on February 14, 2012, unless Morewitz elided her oral remarks from the “Commissioner Comments Follow-Up” section of the JCC’s published minutes. Melara, employed by St. Francis Hospital, may fully understand not wanting to divert lucrative MediCare dialysis patients from private sector providers vying for the fierce competition for dialysis revenue. She also holds an appointment as the Health Commission’s representative on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Public Health Foundation, which also may be eager to preserve lucrative business for private-sector hospitals.
Fast forward to the SFGH JCC’s meeting on April 10, 2012. Once again, SFGH CEO Sue Currin presented a PowerPoint presentation to the JCC about outsourcing SFGH’s Renal Center. The April 10 minutes also report in the Commissioner Comments/Follow-Up section show that Commissioner Chow asked for “clarification on the reason for the timing of the review” of the [outsourcing] issue.” Chow asked if DPH and SFGH had spoken “with UCSF about the Mt. Zion option or about the RFP [to outsource to LHH].” Cathryn Thurow, a UCSF Assistant Dean reported there had been no direct conversation with Mt. Zion, but indicated another UCSF Associate Dean — Dr. Sue Carlise — had spoken to UCSF administration and had “heard favorable feedback about it [UCSF] applying for the [LHH dialysis] RFP.”
Commissioner Sanchez again stated he was “very interested” [apparently as a UCSF employee himself], in “SFGH/DPH pursuing dialogue with the UCSF leadership,” about any potential for UCSF “to combine renovations of the SFGH and Mt. Zion outpatient renal centers into one project to alleviate the need to move the unit out of SFGH.” A week later, on April 17, in a summary report of JCC Committee reports to the full Health Commission, Sanchez commented that the goal is to find a safe facility to provide dialysis services, and that he “would like the SFGH campus to be part of a solution in regards to final plans for DPH’s outpatient renal services.”
Once again, minutes of the April 10 SFGH-JCC meeting and the April 17 full Health Commission meeting report not one peep out of Ms. Melara or Ms. Garcia. Sanchez must surely know that LHH is really not a “safe” facility.
Given the Health Commission’s and DPH’s indecision about where to place outpatient dialysis services to serve SFGH patients, the most obvious solution the City studiously ignored is right under their noses, suggested by UCSF employees staffing the Renal Center at SFGH: Delaying the RFP and moving the dialysis center into SFGH’s current Acute Hospital in Building 5 in which approximately 140,000 square feet of space will become vacant, and available (turf desperately being fought over), when SFGH’s new hospital under construction and nearing completion vacates Building 5, which is far more seismically safe than either the Renal Center’s current location in Building 100, or LHH’s almost-as-ancient seismically-unsafe buildings, as the Westside Observer noted in the September issue, and certainly much larger than the 8,500 square-foot space being proposed for dialysis at LHH. SFGH is where the Renal Center should be located, in order to provide the most seismically-safe, life-safety location, since LHH isn’t.
Renal Center staff suggested that since SFGH plans to move its Rheumatology, Dermatology, and other “clinics,” into the vacated space in Building 5, the logical choice would be to find room in Building 5 to move the Renal Center into, too, given the many co-morbidities facing dialysis patients who would benefit by not fragmenting locations of care.
Commissioner Chow, having asked Garcia and SFGH to consider “all options,” never commented on an option to move the Renal Center to Building 5. Indeed, the Health Commission appears never to have discussed in public meetings, that Building 5 might well be the best location.
For his part, Commissioner Chow was reported in the SFGH-JCC’s February 14, 2012 meeting minutes as having requested that DPH explore not only all “possible options,” but that DPH postpone release of the RFP to move dialysis services to LHH until Director of Public Health Garcia reported back to the SFGH JCC regarding this issue.
For her part, Director of Public Health Garcia is not mentioned in public records as having presented a report-back to the Health Commission regarding all options considered before release of the RFP, including an option to move the Renal Center to Building 5. There’s no public records, apparently, that Garcia ever “reported back” before the RFP was issued.
As if the Health Commission didn’t observe that Garcia had gone missing in action, or AWOL, providing the requested report-back.
Perhaps Garcia presented a report-back in a closed-door session of the Health Commission, or by e-mail to Health Commissioners. But dialysis patients, patient advocates and caregivers, and members of the public never heard in public meetings, any or all options the Health Commission requested be explored, or that Garcia may, or may not, have presented.
All along, the Health Commission, DPH, SFGH, and LHH have played a really bad circle game, delaying for long over a decade, decisions on how to provide life-saving dialysis services to San Francisco’s most vulnerable patients.
The “Life Safety” Canard
Over a decade ago, then Dr. Talmadge King, who oversaw medical services at SFGH, was quoted in the San Francisco Bay Guardian (“Kidney punch,” October 6, 2002) that “There aren’t enough dialysis spots in San Francisco, and we’re very worried about that.”
Considering the glacial speed of rebuilding the Bay Bridge following the Loma Prieta earthquake, and the endless delay of building a safety barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge, a decade-long delay in planning for caring for increasing numbers of MediCal-reliant dialysis patients in San Francisco is not be too surprising and was almost predictable.
The claim is that SFGH’s Building 100 is not life-safety compliant due to lack of sprinklers, fire alarm speakers, and smoke alarms, and may have an open stairwell in the building that doesn’t have a fire-wall door. Ms. Currin’s April 2012 PowerPoint presentation to the Health Commission noted getting the fire safety deficiencies, sprinklers, and alarms up to Life Safety code would cost a mere $636,000, and other improvements another $331,000, for a total of less than one million dollars. Add to that another $5.5 million to correct the elevator’s ADA access deficiencies — which SFGH has long delayed bringing into ADA compliance and should have been upgraded by now, and which expense it will eventually have to bend over and cough up — for a total of just $6.5 million. This is chump change, which DPH surely has. SFGH’s Renal Center could stay right where it is, and prevent the fragmentation of dialysis patient’s care. It is thought that the increased costs of transportation could have easily funded the first million to correct Life Safety code deficiencies in Building 100.
But the area proposed for dialysis at LHH also reportedly has an open stairwell — admittedly at the opposite end of the third floor hallway — that also does not have a fire-wall door. And a former staircase immediately adjacent on the right to the entrance area where the LHH dialysis center will be housed, has been removed during reconstruction, limiting egress from the building to a central staircase a good 100 to 200 feet away, at minimum, from the proposed dialysis space, and the open stairwell further down the hallway.
As with the debate of getting CPMC patients out of a third-floor location, getting dialysis patients in wheelchairs, on gurneys, and using other assistive devices down two flights of stairs at LHH during an emergency hasn’t been discussed openly, least of all by the Health Commission. The best life-safety location appears to be in Building 5 — SFGH’s current main hospital — that the Health Commission seems to have forgotten even exists as the best, obvious option, since it is far more seismically safe than either SFGH’s Building 100 or in LHH’s old buildings.
The Other Canards Circle
In addition to patient advocacy concerns about the wisdom of increasing transportation burdens on vulnerable dialysis patients by shunting them to LHH, there are other canards involved.
First, DPH claims insufficient space at SFGH to meet the growing demand of Safety Net patients. DPH ignores the 140,000 square feet of space that will become available in Building 5 in which to “grow” Renal Center space in a centralized care location on the same campus where it has operated for 46 years.
Second, although DPH claims the Renal Center will grow from 13 to 30 chairs by moving it to LHH, dialysis staff have questioned this assumption, since in order to be profitable, the contractor awarded the RFP to operate at LHH will more than likely limit the number of chairs it will contract to DPH to probably 15 chairs, reserving the rest for privately-insured patients in order to develop a payer mix to meet revenue projections and remain profitable. It’s unlikely the 13 current “chairs” will grow by much if the vendor chosen restricts the number of chairs contracted for DPH clients to 15.
Given current trends, the dialysis patient population is expected to grow significantly, and San Francisco will need more and more dialysis chairs to served MediCal patients, not less.
Third, DPH’s April 10 PowerPoint presentation to the Health Commission indicated that the “current plan is to issue [an] RFP for either a private or non-profit provider.” Health Commissioners Chow and Sanchez stated several times they expected a contract would go to a non-profit provider. Elsewhere, patient advocates were assured the RFP was being developed to award the contract to a non-profit provider, but that restriction wasn’t in the RFP eventually issued. According to a DPH contracting officer on September 25, the only three companies to submit a letter of intent by the August 26 deadline making them eligible to bid on the RFP were from Dialysis Clinic Incorporated (DCI); Satellite Healthcare, Inc.; and DaVita HealthCare Partners, Inc. Only the first two are non-profits; DaVita is a for-profit company. In 2012, there were reports that two for-profit dialysis chains in San Francisco have pending legal actions against them for submitting false billing claims, over-using anemia drugs, and for using dialysis machines associated with infection and death.
CPMC’s Dialysis Center is now outsourced to Da Vita, which by report has denied patients oxygen, substituting re-circulated air because it’s free.
Fourth, of great concern, the RFP restricts the hours of operation for dialysis at LHH to Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and will exclude holidays “generally recognized by the City.” But SFGH’s Renal Center currently operates from 5:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Fridays, and is open from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday’s, Thursday’s and Saturday’s. In effect, the RFP’s restrictions will eliminate at least 26.5 hours of dialysis treatments weekly by curtailing the hours of operation.
Another potential problem may involve water. Hemodialysis requires a lot of water, and water treatment. There are unavoidable leakages, with water flowing down hill into areas below any dialysis unit not located on a ground floor. This may be a problem at LHH, if there is water leakage from a third floor dialysis unit down to Moran Hall on the second floor, or Gerald Simon Auditorium and the Chapel on the first floor. After the $600,000 mold problem that resulted from water leakage in LHH’s new Pavilion Building that the Observer reported in our July issue (Of Mold and Men), you’d think LHH would be more cautious about projects with potential water leaks.
Some observers note that violence in dialysis centers is on the rise, and are worried that the RFP says the City will provide building security only at levels currently provided. Other concerns are whether the vendor awarded the contract will have to pay additional rental under the lease if they decide Saturday hours will be needed to meet increases in demand for dialysis services. The RFP also stipulates that electrical usage in excess of the operating hours will also have to be reimbursed by the tenant for any electrical consumption overage.
DPH claims that operating the Renal Center at SFGH results in a mere $9,063 annual revenue loss, mostly from the $20,000 monthly it spends on out-of-network costs for SF Health Plan patients unable to be accommodated in its current location who are referred to external providers. DPH also claims revenue to the vendor awarded the contract to outsource dialysis may potentially earn $1.25 million annually operating a 30-chair dialysis unit at LHH. SFGH Renal Center staff who have testified before the Health Commission have noted that outpatient dialysis is a revenue generator for SFGH, and outsourcing it will result in the loss of millions of dollars in revenue for SFGH and DPH.
Some observers believe UCSF and SFGH and DPH are simply fudging their facts.
As with the dumping-of-the-elderly problems reported in “Who’s Dumping Grandma?” in the Observer’s June issue, and the dumping-of-mental-health-patients problems reported in “Squished Together: Misery Visits Company” in the Observer’s September issue, it now appears that DPH is dumping dialysis patients over to LHH principally to increase DPH’s revenue under implementation of Obamacare, by swapping out dialysis revenue for the much more stable revenue it will generate by renting out floor space at LHH to an outsourced vendor, dialysis patient’s outcomes be damned.
Welcome to the circle game, which may be a close second-cousin-twice-removed relative of the circle jerk phenomena at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina described by the New York Times Magazine’s chief national correspondent, Mark Leibovich, in his new book “This Town” on the New York Times’ current best-seller list.
The No Public Hearings Circle
One remaining question is whether Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos will step up to the plate to have the RFP cancelled, reconsidered, and potentially put out for re-bid, if space cannot be located in Building 5 at SFGH. After all, that vacated space will open up just about the same time that a dialysis center at LHH would open up. The two Supervisors should schedule a hearing to discuss the pros and cons of moving dialysis services to LHH, adversely affecting health outcomes for their constituents.
The two members of the Board of Supervisors successfully forced Mayor Ed Lee into re-negotiating with CPMC to build its Cathedral Hill Hospital on Van Ness Avenue by forcing CPMC to also rebuild St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission to prevent the loss of vital, accessible healthcare services to particularly vulnerable East Side residents.
The question now is whether Avalos and Campos might step in to prevent the loss of services to patients in the Mission, Bernal Heights, Excelsior, and the Bay View Hunters Point neighborhoods, among others, who would face having their dialysis care outsourced and fragmented to LHH, where the circle-game may come full circle.
After all, if the Health Commission’s Executive Secretary Mark Morewitz is correct — which he is probably not — that the SFGH Renal Center has been “outsourced” to UCSF, a private hospital, despite SFGH actually holding the license for operating it using UCSF staff under is ‘affiliation agreement,’ then the Health Commission should have already conducted what is known as a “Prop. Q” hearing to determine whether a private-sector hospital’s abandonment of services will have an adverse, negative effect on the health of San Franciscans. Such a hearing requires a vote by the full Health Commission for private hospitals.
Alternatively, if SFGH decides to reduce the availability of on-site outpatient dialysis services, the County Board of Supervisors are required to hold what is known as a “Bielenson hearing,” which State law requires whenever healthcare services will be reduced at a given County location, or when the transfer of management of a County-operated healthcare facility is being considered, notice must be posted on the entrance doors of the affected facilities, and County supervisors are required to hold a public hearing.
Neither a Prop. Q hearing, nor a Bielenson hearing, have been held to date. One or the other — or both must apply.
It’s time for Supervisors Avalos and Campos, and other Supervisors, including District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee, to interrupt this circle game void.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
October 2013
Laguna Honda Hospital and SFGH
Squished Together: Misery Visits Company
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
Given San Francisco Department of Public Health's stated budget goal of maximizing revenue in anticipation of implementation of Obamacare, it's probably not too surprising the department decided to squish patients out of its Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility at SFGH, squish them into Laguna Honda Hospital or out-of-county, squish non-ambulatory elderly two-to-a-room into the spaces converted into housing at the MHRF, and squish outpatient dialysis services into Laguna Honda's decrepit old buildings.
Then came the shocker. After all the squishing, Mayor Ed Lee rewarded the Health Department a budget increase of $200 million, pushing the department to an almost $2 billion-a-year budget.
Despite the Supervisors being told by Director of Public Health Barbara Garcia that the 34 patients in the MHRF would be relocated to Laguna Honda Hospital or 'placed in the community,' it turns out this reporter's concerns that patients would be dumped out of county has, in fact, occurred. The Supervisors never asked what 'in the community' meant, so DPH had the green light to dump patients out-of-county, albeit at the City's expense.”
MHRF Reconfiguration Dumped Patients Out-of-County
As reported in "Of Mold and Men" in the Westside Observer's July issue, the Department of Public Health's proposal to repurpose its Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility/Behavioral Health Center into mere housing was ostensibly approved by the Board of Supervisors during its June 18 Bielenson hearing in Board chambers. The Board didn't actually vote to accept or reject the Bielenson cuts proposed by DPH, it just closed the hearing, noting in its meeting minutes "No further action was taken."
Despite the Supervisors being told by Director of Public Health Barbara Garcia that the 34 patients in the MHRF would be relocated to Laguna Honda Hospital or "placed in the community," it turns out this reporter's concerns that patients would be dumped out of county has, in fact, occurred. The Supervisors never asked what "in the community" meant, so DPH had the green light to dump patients out-of-county, albeit at the City's expense, perhaps to the chagrin of City Attorney Dennis Herrera who is considering suing Nevada for inappropriate patient dumping into San Francisco, but who doesn't appear concerned about The City's own outbound patient dumping.
According to one reliable source who spoke on condition of anonymity, at least one of the MHRF's patients was admitted to a hospice, and 12 were admitted to LHH. Reportedly, the rest (of 36, not 34) "are being housed out of county at the City's expense." A second source independently verified that 12 of the MHRF's patients have been transferred to Laguna Honda. The rest have reportedly either gone to other care facilities like Crestwood Hope and Idlywood, or to non-profits like Loso House (a transitional program for people with serious mental health and substance abuse problems) operated by the Progress Foundation, which holds lucrative City contracts.
About half a dozen of the MHRF's patients reportedly went AWOL (absent without leave) while out on passes, perhaps to avoid being squished into Laguna Honda Hospital, or squished out — dumped out-of-county. Did they join San Francisco's mentally-ill homeless?
Another observer worries about the Health Department's claim that patients would be transferred from the MHRF to other "less-restrictive" settings. Given it's licensure, LHH is not a less-restrictive setting, since it's licensed as a "distinct-part" skilled nursing facility attached to a hospital. This issue is of keen interest to the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, which forced Laguna Honda through a legal settlement into discharging its patients to less-restrictive settings.
Dial "M" for Mayoral Veracity
There may have been no point dialing "M" hoping to obtain the mayor's veracity about whether or not he did restore all of the mental health cuts Director Garcia lured the Board of Supervisors into believing had happened. But here's how dialing "M" for Mayor Lee's public records went down.
When Supervisors London Breed and Malia Cohen pushed for information from DPH's Director Garcia during the Bielenson hearing in June, they may have been hoodwinked by Garcia's claim that the Mayor had restored "all" mental health cuts to his proposed two-year City budget for FY '13-'14 and FY '14-'15.
Following the Board of Supervisors Bielenson hearing on June 18, this reporter placed a public records request the next day addressed to Director Garcia — with courtesy copies of the records request sent to the Health Commission and DPH's public information officer, as well as to all 11 members of the Board — requesting a list of all of the mental health services restored by the Mayor.
This reporter received return receipts from Garcia's public information officer Eileen Shields, the Health Commission's Executive Secretary Mark Morewitz, four of the Board of Supervisors — including Supervisors David Campos, Mark Farrell, Scott Wiener, and Eric Mar, but not Supervisors Malia Cohen or London Breed — and from the Clerk of the Board, presumably Angela Calvillo. A return receipt was also received from Health Director Garcia. Eight people had opened and apparently read the records request. But the three principles — Garcia, Morewitz, and Shields — never bothered responding to the records request at all, which in and of itself is a violation of San Francisco's Sunshine ordinance. Never heard a peep out of any of them for a list of the mental health services restored by the Mayor. So much for veracity.
So this reporter tried again, placing a second immediate-disclosure records request on July 6 to the Mayor's Budget Director Kate Howard and Lee's spokesperson, Christine Flavey, asking for a list of each and all mental health services restored by Mayor Ed Lee, sending electronic courtesy copies to Supervisors Breed and Cohen. Once again, this reporter received return e-mail receipts indicating that Ms. Howard, Ms. Falvey, and Supervisor Breed — but not Supervisor Cohen — had opened and ostensibly read the second records request.
Ten days later on July 16 — again in violation of the Sunshine Ordinance's immediacy-of-response provisions — this reporter finally heard back, not from the Mayor's Budget Director, but from Kirsten Macaulay in the Mayor's Office of Communications, that the Mayor's office had "no responsive records" to my request. Macaulay directed me to (of all places) the Department of Public Health, which hadn't previously responded, and which hadn't created a list of whatever it was that the Mayor had reportedly restored.
On August 3, this tenacious reporter tried again, sending a third records request to Deputy City Controller Monique Zmuda asking for any records that the Controller's Office may have showing which mental health services the Mayor restored prior to the June 17 Bielenson hearing between his proposed budget submission in May and his final budget submission in June.
Six days later, Zmuda indicated on August 9 that she had spoken with Ms. Howard, who assured her that Howard's office doesn't maintain records "on programs not reduced or added back by the Mayor, only of services reduced." Does anyone really believe that the Mayor's Office of Communications or his Budget Director doesn't track programs added back by the Mayor in order to crank out media publicity about his accomplishments?
Nonetheless, Zmuda indicated she would have her budget staff "run some reports that show [the Mayor's] submitted budget and [the] Mayor's approved budget and we should have those next week." She indicated any such Controller's Office report would contain only dollar amounts, not program descriptions affected. Zmuda indicated DPH's Bielenson list would provide information on the original cut list, and that her office "may be able to annotate this with the health dept's staffs' help."
Also on August 9, one of the Controller's employees responded separately, saying the records request was a more "extensive and demanding request," and that the Controller may need to consult with another City agency, invoking an extension permitted by San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance.
When this reporter then e-mailed Zmuda the next day on August 10 noting that if Controller's Office was invoking an extension, it should be dated to start on Monday, August 5 (the first business day after first filing the request on Saturday, August 3), not on August 9, the next response from Zmuda was when she clammed up on August 10, saying that "We [the Controller's Office] have no documents that are responsive to your request."
Another door slammed shut. So much for City Hall's claims that it will openly provide data concerning City government on its new "open data" web site.
Squishing Replacement Patients Into the MHRF
When the MHRF beds on its second floor officially closed on Thursday, August 15, DPH's plan was to turn it into a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE), and cram 59 indigent, non-ambulatory seniors two to a room, in the roughly 10-foot by16-foot rooms. There, they will face living together squished into "housing" not much larger than a prison cell, with no in-house services or "therapeutic" activities. How non-ambulatory elderly residents will care for themselves without in-house services or activities has not been explained.
But they'll be on an unlocked floor upstairs from an Adult Residential Facility (ARF) on the first floor that is also unlocked, which houses residents who have basically been banned from regular board-and-care facilities due to their behavioral issues. The first and second floor residents will share the nearest Muni bus stop with patients of a methadone program that is also located on SFGH's campus, which may be bad news for future residents. Some worry about what might possibly go wrong.
Soon, the City will lose a total of about 72 long-term mental health beds at the MHRF once its third floor turns half of its beds into respite beds. All in all, most observers believe that the "re-purposing" of the $40 million MHRF into essentially "housing" that has occurred since 2003 is scandalous. But a compliant Board of Supervisors has quietly gone along with the MHRF's reconfiguration, fully cognizant of the loss of long-term mental health beds at public- and private-sector hospitals throughout San Francisco.
More Squishing: Dial "D" for Dialysis
After Katie Worth published her article "Dialysis shortage creates expensive problem for
city," in the San Francisco Examiner on July 20, 2010, this reporter wrote two stories on
July 22, 2010, and August 4, 2010 about the crisis with dialysis services at SFGH and
Laguna Honda Hospital, while then the "San Francisco Hospital Examiner" for the Examiner's
on-line web site (paid just mere pennies based on web page "hits"). My reporting noted three years ago that LHH and SFGH had both failed to include space for dialysis patients in both of their rebuild projects.
Dialysis is a blood-filtration technique used on patients with kidney failure. Ms. Worth noted fully three years ago that dialysis centers in the City "increasingly exceed capacity, requiring some patients to be hospitalized for days or weeks — often on the public dime — while they wait for a spot at an outpatient clinic to receive the life-saving treatment. When patients need dialysis but there's no room in the outpatient center, they can end up being hospitalized. Hospitalizing a patient for dialysis can cost taxpayers thousands of dollars a day, whereas receiving the three-hour blood-cleansing treatment costs just hundreds of dollars, according to hospital officials."
Out of the blue on August 12, and now fully three years later, DPH just got around to issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking to outsource, build out, and squish a 30-chair outpatient dialysis center into Laguna Honda Hospital to serve all of DPH's dialysis patients. It will take another 16 months before any successful bidder on the RFP will actually open dialysis services at LHH, nearly five years after the Health Commission faced Worth's scathing reporting in the Examiner.
Prior to the release of the RFP, it is thought there were no public meetings, and no public dialogue, about whether LHH is even the right location at which to place dialysis services. Why weren't there any public meetings and public dialogue? Oh! I forgot: DPH doesn't believe there's any need for it to consult publicly with the community about LHH.
Potential bidders will have until October 21 to submit proposals, top vendors will be chosen on December 2, and the Health Commission and Board of Supervisors are tentatively scheduled to approve issuing a contract in January 2014. The "start date" of the 10-year dialysis contract award is expected for March 2014, with the build-out and opening of the dialysis center by the end of December 2014.
A number of concerns about placing outpatient dialysis services at LHH will be explored in the Westside Observer's October issue. For now, San Franciscans may want to question the wisdom of moving dialysis services from SFGH's Building 100 (an admittedly unsafe building), to an area in Laguna Honda that may also be seismically unsafe.
One knowledgeable source with an amazing memory recalls there was never a plan to seismically retrofit portions of LHH's old main building where the proposed outpatient dialysis center at LHH will be placed. Officials knew that seismically bracing the old administrative wings was way too costly and there would be too much lost floor space. And LHH wanted out of further Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) oversight and control.
A second knowledgeable and high-level source confirmed that the LHH's replacement remodel plans had never intended to "bring the old buildings into seismic compliance, but rather mitigate some known vulnerabilities, such as removal of hollow, clay-tile walls and replace them with new concrete walls, and generally improve the life safety quotient for occupants of the old buildings."
That's it? Just mitigate? Replacing an unknown number of hollow-clay walls with some concrete walls? How many isn't known, since Laguna Honda referred this reporter to the Department or Public Works, who then suggested that OSHPD might not let drawings and specifications be released.
For all of DPH's squishing, Mayor Lee rewarded it a budget increase of $200 million, pushing DPH's budget to approximately $1.9 billion, reported in the Health Commission's August 6, 2013 meeting minutes.
When you're sitting in a dialysis chair at LHH due to kidney failure when the next Big One hits, will your relatives be notified you've been squished in a seismically-unsafe building?
Or will the City simply assert it has no statistics, deny negligence, and claim misery was just visiting company?
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com
September 2013
Laguna Honda Hospital Patient Dumping – Part 2
Of Mold and Men
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
Between dumping mental health patients into Laguna Honda Hospital and out-of-county, and dumping elderly skilled nursing patients out-of-county to make room for mental health patient admissions, who knew that news of mold in the LHH's new kitchen would be overshadowed by the sudden resignation of LHH's public information officer, Marc Slavin?
And that Slavin's ouster would obscure news that Mayor Ed Lee would be joined by a compliant Board of Supervisors reaching consensus to shut down San Francisco's Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility during budget negotiations?
Laguna Honda had never needed — and never had for over 100 years — a P.R. department in a public hospital serving what is essentially a "captive audience" of the medically indigent who have nowhere else to go."
Minister of Misinformation?
If I were a San Francisco Health Commissioner, I'd be furious that LHH's CEO Mivic Hirose appears not to have notified the Health Commission before Friday, June 21 that Marc Slavin, Laguna Honda Hospital's public information officer and communications director, had suddenly resigned days before, since news of his pending resignation was being openly discussed at LHH for at least two weeks, and line staff knew Slavin was physically gone the day before his resignation announcement was made. This is news that clearly should have been shared with the Health Commission to prevent them from being caught off guard.
Slavin, you may remember, creatively spun to I-Team investigative journalist Dan Noyes in May 2010 that "the LHH patient gift fund isn't for patients" when Noyes first broadcast news that LHH's administrators had inappropriately been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations to the patient gift fund on staff, instead.
For six years many believe, Slavin essentially served as LHH's shadow CEO, propping up Hirose when not running the entire show, including reports that he intermittently inserted himself into clinical-care decisions regarding specific patients with no medical license to do so, as well as interviewing job applicants and hiring decisions throughout the hospital.
Although staff and patients often wondered what Slavin's job duties involved, he served alternatively as Hirose's ghost-writer, speech writer, spokesperson, and staff bouncer. There are reliable reports that the intense friction between Slavin and Hirose had recently escalated. One high-level source has confirmed that Hirose and Slavin weren't getting along anymore, and during recent public meetings Slavin sat in seating for members of the public, not at the main table, sending a signal that he was on the outs with Hirose.
Previously, Slavin appeared untouchable, due to his benefactress former City Attorney Louise Renne, and former Director of Public Health Mitch Katz. As a 1375 Special Assistant XVI , a job code typically reserved for the Office of the Mayor and Board of Supervisors, observers suspected Slavin was brought in by then-Mayor Newsom.
But once Katz fled to Los Angles following a whistleblower complaint that Katz had accepted significant consulting fees from a City contractor to whom he had steered lucrative consulting contracts, and after Renne's Laguna Honda Foundation imploded, Slavin lost his political cover.
Slavin claimed to staff in a goodbye note that he was resigning in order to complete his PhD thesis. There was no usual-and-customary "good-bye" party to honor Slavin's six-year service.
Along with Slavin's ouster, there are reports that LHH suddenly and completely disbanded its Communications Department at the end of the week, the very three-person empire Slavin created that at one point was consuming over $300,000 a year in salaries and benefits. Prior to his arrival in mid-summer 2007 on assignment to "stop the negative publicity about LHH" for Louise Renne's Laguna Honda Foundation, Laguna Honda had never needed — and never had for over 100 years — a P.R. department in a public hospital serving what is essentially a "captive audience" of the medically indigent who have nowhere else to go.
Emerging Mold Problem
Freshman District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee attempted to circumvent recommendations by Harvey Rose, the Board's Budget and Legislative Analyst. On June 5, Yee introduced an "emergency" sole-source contract not to exceed $595,367 to repair a cart wash leak that resulted in extensive mold in LHH's new kitchen. The cart wash room is where mobile carts used to transport food from the main kitchen to the patient's rooms are washed.
Although John Thomas, the LHH Replacement Project manager from Department of Public Works (DPW) claimed during the June 5 hearing that there is a "temporary cleaning facility" for the carts used to transport meals to patients, LHH staff asserts that the food carts are now just cleaned using disinfectant wipes, not fully washed.
Mr. Rose recommended that a sole source contract not be issued, there was no "emergency" involved, that the amount be reduced by $266,723 to only $328,644, and that the DPW should seek competitive bids from the lowest-responsive bidder to complete the remaining remediation of the mold in LHH's new kitchen.
Although LHH moved into its new facilities in December 2010, elevator maintenance staff working in LHH's new Pavilion Building didn't discover a water leak in the elevator's machine room until September 2011. The leak had gone undetected and was eventually traced to the hospital's cart wash room on the floor above the elevator machine room, resulting in mold growing in several rooms.
But despite discovery of the mold in September 2011, the Director of DPW didn't declare an "emergency" until June 6, 2012. DPW initially estimated the cost to repair would be up to $250,000, the threshold set in Administrative Code Section 6.60 that permits City department heads to award emergency contracts without undergoing competitive bidding procedures. DPW awarded a not-to-exceed sole-source contract for just $80,000 to Belfor USA Group to perform the demolition, mold remediation, and reconstruction work; Belfor began the remediation in late June 2012.
For his part, Mr. Thomas claimed that the delay involved determining if it would be covered by LHH's insurance policies, or whether the repairs would be funded through recovery of funds via the lawsuit the City has filed against LHH's architects. Thomas further noted that in 2011, the Replacement Project was directed to redesign the cart wash space, since it was "incompatible with its use," and the space had to be redesigned.
In January 2013, Belfor submitted invoices for $328,644 for remediation work completed through November 2012, and Belfor estimated it would cost an additional $266,723 to reconstruct the facilities, for a total not-to-exceed cost of $595,367. This lead to the Resolution Yee introduced in May, four months after the City received Belfor's revised costs to complete the remediation.
But Mr. Rose noted that the emergency was not officially declared until June 2012 and that Belfor estimated the project would be completed in September 2013, fully two years after the emergency leak was first discovered. Rose had to point out to Supervisor Yee and the Budget and Finance Sub-Committee that Administrative Code Section 6.60 defines emergencies as those which demand immediate action for "conditions that involve clear and imminent danger to prevent or mitigate loss of, or damage to, life, health, property or essential public services."
As such, Rose questioned whether the mold problem at LHH met the City's definition of an emergency, and concluded that in his professional judgment it did not. Rose recommended that Yee's Resolution be revised to put the remaining $266,723 in uncompleted work out to competitive bid to seek the lowest-responsive bid to compete the remaining reconstruction.
Yee charged ahead, ignoring Rose's recommendations. Yee had his Resolution calendared for a hearing, proposing to bypass competitive bids by awarding Belfor an amendment to complete the full $595,367 in work. But following astute questioning by Supervisor John Avalos, Mr. Thomas admitted the work was not an emergency; Avalos got Thomas to agree to accept Rose's recommendation to seek competitive bids.
When Harvey Rose speaks, the Board of Supervisors typically listens.
Louise Simpson from the City Attorney's Office advised that San Francisco has sued Stantec, the LHH Replacement Project architect, for "total estimated damages in excess of $45 million," but she provided no explanation as to why that lawsuit — initially reported to recover $70 million has been reduced by $25 million to just $45 million.
Behind Patient Dumping
Since plans for the two-year budget got underway in early 2013, Mayor Ed Lee has been quietly working with the Department of Public Health (DPH) and its Health Commission to "reconfigure" the Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility (MHRF) — renamed the Behavioral Health Center — on SFGH's campus. The MHRF was supposed to be a long-term care facility for the mentally ill to keep them in-county.
DPH submitted a list of "Bielenson" budget cuts that totals between $29.6 million and $39 million, mostly in cuts to mental health services, that the Mayor appears to have incorporated into his budget submission for the upcoming two-year budget cycle.
DPH proposed — and the Mayor appears to have accepted — cutting $12.7 million (43 percent) of the $29.6 million, by "reprogramming" the MHRF into housing and dumping patients into Laguna Honda Hospital; cutting $1 million (3.5 percent) from tuberculosis control programs; cutting $8.8 million (30 percent) from various community-based services, most of which are mental health services, which cuts will grow to $17 million beginning in July 2015; and cutting just $7 million (23.7 percent) from HIV health services. The HIV cuts are the only ones being aggressively backfilled, and will likely not occur.
Because it will effectively eliminate all but 24 of the mental health rehab beds at the MHRF on the campus of San Francisco General Hospital, submitting such a budget proposal harkens back to Governor Ronald Reagan who shut down California's mental health hospitals and ended federal community mental health centers while President. It appears Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors may reach consensus to shut down the MHRF.
As reported in "Who's Dumping Grandma?" in last month's Westside Observer, the Board of Supervisors was required to conduct a State-mandated Bielenson hearing on the DPH's proposal to cut the remaining 47 mental health beds in the MHRF down to just 24. The MHRF had opened with 147 mental health beds, but was "reconfigured" to only 47 in 2003. How long before those remaining 24 beds are simply eliminated altogether?
During the Board's Bielenson hearing held on June 18, Director of Public Health Barbara Garcia tried to reassure the Board of Supervisors that only 12 of the mental health patients at the MHRF would be transferred to Laguna Honda. She claimed — falsely it seems — that the remaining 22 MHRF patients would be placed "in the community," but Garcia failed to inform the Board of Supervisors that the plan appears to be to dump them into out-of-county facilities, not "into the community." Managers throughout DPH are aware the plan will most likely use locked psych facilities out-of-county.
At the start of the Bielenson hearing and prior to taking public comment, Garcia repeatedly acknowledged that "in preparation for healthcare reform [ObamaCare] to reduce costs and increase revenue generation, in the coming fiscal year DPH needs to reduce services that are not revenue generating." Most of the $17 million in the proposed cuts to community-based services are because DPH does not generate revenue by providing those services. Later in the hearing, following public testimony, Garcia indicated that "one of the important things we've been looking at this facility [the MHRF/BHC] it's about $19 million [to operate annually] with only about $2 million in revenue."
Garcia testified "We will be closing one of the two skilled nursing facilities on the SFGH campus, and organizing those services to support discharges from SFGH, [which] we believe [will] increase revenue." This means that, by closing skilled nursing beds for psych patients in the MHRF, SFGH will gain vacated space in the MHRF to be converted, essentially, into "housing" to more quickly discharge acute-care patients from General Hospital into. DPH will be able to increase SFGH revenues by being able to more quickly accept paying, revenue-generating new admissions into the acute-care hospital beds, using the MHRF as transitional housing to quickly dump patients out of the City's acute-care hospital and trauma center.
A few senior managers at LHH are claiming to community leaders that only 6, not 12, of the MHRF patients are slated to move to LHH; the senior managers have also acknowledged the remaining MHRF patients will be placed out-of-county, not in "the community," as Garcia may have misinformed the Board of Supervisors.
Supervisors Support Dumping?
Only four of the Board of Supervisors bothered to ask Garcia questions about the Bielenson cuts; the remaining seven Supervisors raised no questions. Supervisors David Campos and Scott Wiener asked only about the $7 million in HIV service cuts, both men knowing that well over half of those cuts had already been backfilled, and all but a handful of those cuts will likely also be backfilled. Neither man asked about the mental health cuts.
Supervisors Malia Cohen and London Breed asked Garcia questions about the mental health cuts and Laguna Honda Hospital. Supervisor Cohen asked about the mental health cuts. Garcia lamely claimed "many of those individuals will be going into community placement," for those who need "locked facilities." San Francisco has few, if any, in-county locked facilities.
Cohen pushed further, asking if "the number of folks who need [skilled nursing facilities] will outnumber the beds that are available at Laguna Honda Hospital." Garcia indicated that, as individuals leave LHH, DPH will transfer people over. But Cohen understood that every bed, formerly housing the elderly who need skilled nursing care, that is converted into beds for mental health patients, there will be one fewer bed for elderly demented patients needing 24/7 skilled nursing care.
Repeatedly, Garcia noted that the Mayor had restored all of the mental health cuts. But the mental health beds at the MHRF/BHC were not restored, and there are $17 million in looming community-based cuts, which haven't even been identified yet, and won't be until an RFP is issued in 2014.
Garcia indicated DPH is following LHH's admissions policy, but she didn't acknowledge that LHH is — by reliable report — internally considering changing the admission criteria to its North Mezzanine patient neighborhood from "dementia" to "cognitive impairment," potentially paving the way for an admissions policy change, which internal conversation Garcia chose not to share with Supervisors.
At the end of the hearing, President Chiu simply moved the agenda to its next item, without taking a vote. State law only requires that a hearing by County supervisors be held, they are not required to vote on proposed cuts.
Is cutting mental health services in San Francisco to the tune of over $100 million across the past decade really a San Francisco "value"?
Who will be responsible for the death of in-county mental health beds at San Francisco's MHRF, all in the name of increasing revenue?
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California's First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com
July-August 2013
Who’s Dumping Grandma?
The Shame of Laguna Honda
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
Plans at the Department of Public Health are, apparently, to place 34 of its “behavioral health” patients into Laguna Honda Hospital (LHH), possibly placing more psychotic patients into the mix with the frail elderly and disabled. History repeats itself with the proposed reconfiguration yet again.
On April 20, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera launched an investigation into whether Nevada’s primary state psychiatric center, Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital, had engaged in patient “dumping” by sending patients out of state using one-way bus tickets. A San Francisco Chronicle article on April 21 quoted Herrera as saying that the practice of psychiatric patient dumping is “shockingly inhumane and illegal.”
She (Therapist Blaustein) and the physician assigned to the North Mezzanine raised concerns and protested placement of inappropriate patients, indicating the two patient populations don’t thrive well together because the behaviors of people with dementia agitate psychotic people, and then psychotic patients want to harm the demented ones.”
Herrera’s concern appears limited to in-bound patient dumping and the increased costs to San Francisco for caring for psychiatric patients. But Herrera has been strangely silent regarding out-bound patient dumping from San Francisco to other jurisdictions, and potential patient dumping between San Francisco facilities. His hypocrisy is breathtaking.
This is the same hapless Herrera featured in the article “High Costs of City Attorney’s Advice” in last month’s Westside Observer.
The Chronicle article also reported that Paul Boden, the director of a nonprofit that highlights civil rights abuses against the homeless, the Western Regional Advocacy Project, said “it’s a little hypocritical of San Francisco officials to feign shock at the Las Vegas hospital’s [patient dumping] practice when [San Francisco officials] too, hand out one-way bus tickets to homeless people.”
The Department of Public Health (DPH) is proposing to re-configure the Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility (MHRF) on the San Francisco General Hospital campus, renamed the Behavioral Health Center (BHC) in order to be politically correct, into a residential care and respite care facility, and transferring 34 behavioral health patients to Laguna Honda Hospital (LHH)
Is transferring behavioral health patients to LHH a form of patient dumping into a setting where they may not receive the appropriate level of mental health care?
Battery Against LHH Staff
Alerted this April that LHH had accepted transfer of about 11 BHC patients during 2012, and that an Institutional Police Officer had informed SEIU members at LHH in October 2012 that assault cases at the facility had drastically increased, many were concerned. When it was learned that a food service worker was assaulted on the job in May 2012, subsequently required shoulder surgery following the battery, and has yet to return to work 10 months after being attacked, concern mounted. The worker was so badly beaten that emergency room staff treating her were shocked by her injuries, and the obvious emotional trauma.
She entered a locked dementia unit at LHH — the North Mezzanine, which serves patients at risk of wandering, elopement, or harm — she was assaulted when she encountered a patient who was supposed to be being watched by a “sitter.” The North Mezzanine unit has traditionally housed and cared for demented, but ambulatory, patients, it is a locked unit implemented to protect patient safety.
But LHH placed behavioral health care patients on the North Mezzanine, possibly agitating demented patients. The patient who assaulted her was finally sent on a “5150” psychiatric hold to SFGH after going on another rampage. A separate patient who had been discharged was eventually readmitted to LHH, despite being a sexual predator.
An investigation revealed that the injured staff member is now suing the City, possibly alleging negligence and mishandling of the situation following her assault and battery. The lawsuit appears to be sealed, most likely to protect patient privacy, even though the patient has reportedly since died. As a reminder, assault is any reasonable threat of physical harm to another person; battery is actual physical contact and actual harm.
Staff Retraining Required
Her battery case may not be the only one, but her assault was a big deal in LHH. Multiple meetings were held to calm staff, and hospital administration spent a lot of money to have all employees go through SMART training — staff training presented by a licensed Psychiatric Technician on how to remain safe around violent patients.
SMART training is definitely not part of the training typically provided to staff in long-term care skilled nursing facilities; it is more typically presented to staff working in psychiatric and mental health settings. The SMART training at LHH was introduced in 2005 to deal with its then-new patient population during the ruckus over implementing the “psycho-social rehabilitation” model of care exported to LHH when Mozietta Henley, RN, PhD was shunted from the MHRF to LHH, toting along her “BioPsychoSocialSpirtual (BPSS)” model of care proposal that was never tested or implemented at the MHRF.
Henley’s model of care comically became the basis for a small California HealthCare Foundation grant LHH’s Mivic Hirose was awarded for “Social Rehabilitation.” [I was there: Hirose’s January 2005 grant ended as a notorious flop, probably an embarrassment to the California HealthCare Foundation, and created a ruckus at City Hall.]
This followed on the heels of former Director of Public Health Mitch Katz’s nervous announcement on October 20, 2004 during LHH’s Executive Committee meeting of his “vision” that LHH would become a “social rehabilitation facility for the homeless poor,” a statement the City soon denied had been made, but the cat was out of the bag since numerous LHH staff had heard Katz speak clearly. Previously, the not-too-esteemed Dr. Katz lured the MHRF Blue Ribbon Committee into believing that the “future LHH” would provide “the same kind of services as offered at the MHRF.” If the City accepts DPH’s proposal to reconfigure the MHRF and dump more psych patients into LHH, we’ll have come full circle to Katz’s prediction of offering MHRF services at LHH.
Uptick in Sheriff’s Statistics
Alerted that an uptick in assaults at LHH may have occurred between calendar years 2011 and 2012, Sunshine records requests were made to the SF Sheriff’s Department, knowing that asking LHH’s administrators for this data would meet with dead silence, if not endless delays and denials.
Data provided by the Sheriff’s Department on May 21 shows that between 2011 and 2012, battery incidents increased at LHH by 18.2%, from 22 to 26 such cases, which is statistically significant. Across the same time period, “disturbances by resident” incidents summarized on the monthly Sheriff’s Activity Reports increased 227.8%, from 115 to 337 at LHH, and “disturbances by visitors” increased 309.4%, from 32 to 131 cases.
It’s no wonder that in October 2012 an Institutional Police officer from the Sheriff’s Department advised SEIU members working at LHH that assault cases had drastically increased.
Three Questions Lead to Bullying
Laguna Honda staff brave enough to ask questions are frequently targeted for retaliation. Indeed, the culture of staff intimidation was increased soon after Hirose was appointed CEO in 2009, and after Slavin came on board in 2007 to “stop the negative news about Laguna Honda” for his benefactress, former City Attorney Louise Renne. The intimidation was designed to silence and weed out any remaining staff who dared to question agendas that violated State laws and existing hospital policies.
Randy Ellen Blaustein, a therapeutic recreation therapist on the North Mezzanine unit who worked at LHH for eight years, raised three questions about the mixing of ambulatory demented patients with patients having psychiatric diagnoses from the BHC transferred to the North Mezzanine. She and the physician assigned to the North Mezzanine raised concerns and protested placement of inappropriate patients, indicating the two patient populations don’t thrive well together because the behaviors of people with dementia agitate psychotic people, and then psychotic patients want to harm the demented ones.
Blaustein noted the North Mezzanine physician had complained to hospital administration about no longer being able to provide input to admission decisions to their unit, and protested inappropriate placements, but was ignored.
During a key meeting with hospital administration, Randy apparently asked three questions that landed her in a lot of trouble:
1) Why hadn’t LHH’s Administration honored its vow not to place residents with histories of physical aggression and violent behaviors on the North Mezzanine?
2) Why did the unit no longer have input into admission processes? and
3) Why wasn’t their unit granted a lower census, since they had been afforded that in the old facility, given their patient population?
Apparently, someone reported to her supervisor, Bill Frazier the Director of the Activity Therapy Department, that Randy had “overstepped boundaries; was negative and didn’t offer solutions; wasn’t supportive of the new LHH; and (gasp!), had insinuated that Administration didn’t know what they were doing.” Instead of supporting Blaustein, Frazier asked her to cease asking contentious questions in meetings. Randy says she had previously gotten into trouble for upsetting Dr. Colleen Riley, LHH’s Medical Director, in another meeting.
“With severe dementia, less is more. I’ve never heard of any other facility that places nearly 60 ambulatory people with severe dementia in the same living area, with psychotic people in the mix,” Blaustein says. “The North Mezzanine received new admissions that required 1:1 ‘sitters’ at all times, because of their physically aggressive behaviors, placing other residents and staff at risk.”
After Clarendon Hall closed, LHH never re-created the three locked psych units that had been on the second floor of Clarendon. Many of LHH’s staff, including Blaustein, believe that’s, in part, why the new LHH is such a mess.
Another source reports that the staff member who was assaulted, subsequently requiring shoulder surgery, who is now suing, was assaulted by the North Mezzanine patient who was supposed to have a 1:1 sitter, but somehow got out of the inner door to the unit and attacked her before the outer door. So much for sitters.
Randy says that, after being repeatedly bullied, she chose to resign. Shortly before she left in mid-December 2012, a discussion began to consider changing the admission criteria to the North Mezzanine from “dementia” to using “cognitive impairment,” but she doesn’t know the outcome of that discussion. Like many former employees, Blaustein still cares deeply about LHH’s residents and staff, and their safety.
Earning His Comeuppance
Bill Frazier appears to be his own worst enemy. Comeuppance was bound to catch up with him, since what goes ’round, typically comes back ’round. All staff at LHH are required to take sexual harassment prevention training annually. It was widely known throughout LHH that during his 15 years as Director of Activity Therapy, a number of complaints were filed against Frazier by subordinates for such things as sexual harassment, unequal treatment, and failure to comply with union agreements. It is unclear how LHH’s Administration responded to these voiced concerns, since the reported pattern was observed to continue from year to year.
The training may have been lost on him, since in early 2013 he was overheard screaming in his office at an Activity Therapist for over ten minutes, and allegedly called her a “selfish bitch” — clearly a sexist term that has no place in public service.
This might have been brushed under the carpet as a “he said, she said” situation, except it was overheard and reported by a witness willing to come forward. This may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, when Frazier suddenly vanished in February; some of his duties assigned to an acting director, and other duties split to other departments.
But a month after his disappearance, amid reports he would not be back, Frazier resurfaced in LHH’s Accounting Department in a newly-created position as liaison to Friends of Laguna Honda (formerly known as Laguna Honda Volunteers, Inc., the non-profit dedicated to LHH’s patients, that never needed for 50 years any “liaison” on LHH’s staff paid from taxpayer funds).
Frazier is now in charge of LHH’s Patient Gift Fund, which should not be a 40-hour full-time job. It’s akin to having the fox guarding the hen house. That LHH created the position as a soft spot for him to land may mean the hospital is worried about potential shenanigans with the gift fund, or worried that he knew too much about the great gift fund scandal of 2010. After supervising approximately 40 staff for over a decade and a half, he no longer has direct reports or anyone to supervise.
Out of County, Out of Mind
As just one example of out-of-county patient dumping, consider the case of a middle-aged gay man who suffered a stroke one evening while at a tavern, and was taken to SFGH where he languished for months. His close friends tried to get him admitted to LHH, but were rebuffed when told he needed too much physical rehabilitation therapy and couldn’t be sent to LHH. It’s well known that delays in receiving rehabilitative therapy following strokes leads to poorer patient outcomes and progressive functional decline.
He languished at SFGH for more months until being discharged out-of-county to a facility in Antioch that principally houses patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Since he is not demented, he now languishes in an environment in which he has nobody to communicate with, and his friends are unable to endure the obstacles of travelling to Antioch to visit him. His family is now trying to get him discharged to take him back to Ohio for care.
There are many other similar stories of patients needing skilled nursing care who are being dumped.
Many of LHH’s department heads are concerned about DPH’s decision to reconfigure the MHRF/BHC and place the 34 BHC patients into LHH. But they remember that when former LHH Executive Administrator Larry Funk opposed admission of violent patients to LHH, he was replaced and demoted.
Other staff who opposed admission of unsafe patients, including former Medical Director Dr. Terry Hill; Dr. Maria Rivero, LHH’s former admitting physician; and others, were forced to resign.
Many dedicated staff want to make LHH a safe place for staff and patients, and they’re concerned Herrera may not know LHH doesn’t have a psych license.
There are huge human costs to patients and staff from patient dumping, and Herrera is correct that the practice is “shockingly inhumane and illegal” — and obviously unethical. But where is Herrera’s concern for out-bound patient dumping to other counties, or internal dumping between DPH’s facilities? Is he concerned only about the cost of in-bound dumping, not the costs of out-bound dumping? How does Herrera’s ethical barometer work? Will Herrera ever look in the mirror and investigate patient dumping occurring in his home town’s back yard, or is he just grandstanding?
One test of Herrera’s ethics may involve how quickly the lawsuit filed by LHH’s battered staff member is resolved. Hopefully, Herrera’s underlings won’t introduce a flaky motion for summary judgment to stall her case and delay justice in a misguided attempt to scuttle her settlement, since that would only add further insult on top of injuries.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
June 2013
Retaliation and Bullying of City Employees
High Costs of City Attorney’s Advice
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
Spurious legal arguments creatively developed by Deputy City Attorneys to fight lawsuits against the City — often with the supervisory approval of the City’s Chief Labor Attorney and probably City Attorney Dennis Herrera himself — may be so misguided as to be costing the City millions of dollars, year in and year out, and may be damaging the reputation of the City Attorney’s Office.
The City Attorney and the City appear to be laboring under the age-old adage that there’s plenty of money for “Defense” (of City officials), but no money for “Butter” — relief for plaintiffs harmed who are forced to sue the City.
Troubling developments in Dr. Derek Kerr’s settlement agreement against the City for $750,000 have occurred since the Westside Observer first published details of his settlement terms in our April issue.
In addition, new information has surfaced regarding the 105 settlement agreements involving prohibited personnel practices against the City that have cost taxpayers at least $12.1 million over a six-year period, showing a disturbing trend in how the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office mounts its legal defense in these cases.
But the costs are substantially higher when City Attorney costs are added in … a total of 40,828 hours at a total cost of $7.726 million, above and beyond the $11 million settlement…””
“The City Attorney tried to use every pretext, lie, and smear used by the Defendants in my case to deny their whistleblower retaliation. The evidence from sworn depositions and subpoenaed documents — plus their pitiful contradictions — sank their defense,” says Dr. Derek Kerr, who was awarded monetary and non-monetary damages in his wrongful termination lawsuit settled against the City last month.
Developments in Kerr’s Settlement Agreement
As the Observer reported, Dr. Kerr’s settlement agreement included five non-monetary terms. Following the Board of Supervisors unanimous passage on second reading of Kerr’s settlement agreement on March 26, the City appears to have already deliberately mucked up at least three of Kerr’s non-monetary settlement deals.
First, the non-monetary provisions ordered the City to issue a formal retraction signed by Director of Public Health Barbara Garcia in the same format that former Director of Public Health Mitch Katz jointly issued with Laguna Honda Hospital (LHH) CEO Mivic Hirose in 2010, falsely accusing Drs. Kerr and Maria Rivero of not only being “detractors,” they publicly claimed Kerr and Rivero had made, and would continue to make, “false statements” — publicly defaming the two doctors as dishonest and liars.
But Garcia’s initial “retraction” notice was not signed by her, and was not in the same format that had been issued by Katz, which had been a key requirement of Kerr’s settlement agreement. Since the settlement agreement takes place under Court supervision, Kerr is required to report any departure from agreed-upon terms to his attorneys, in order to prevent any breach of his non-monetary settlement terms. After Garcia’s departure from Kerr’s settlement agreement terms was reported to the City Attorney, she was required to issue a “do-over,” and a revised retraction notice in the correct format has now been posted on the Department of Public Health’s web site.
Second, the City’s required public apology to Kerr at a meeting of the City’s Public Health Commission was improperly announced via a deficient agenda notice for the Health Commission’s April 2 meeting.
On Friday, March 29, the Health Commission released its April 2 meeting agenda, which listed agenda item seven merely as an “LHH Update.” The item carried only a subheading, not any “meaningful description” required by the Sunshine Ordinance and the Brown Act. Members of the public had no way of knowing the “LHH Update” item would include Dr. Kerr’s public apology so they may have chosen to attend the meeting, had there been a clear agenda description. Only by a stroke of accident did Kerr’s associate, Dr. Rivero, discover over the weekend that the “LHH Update” item would include Kerr’s public apology.
Once alerted, Dr. Kerr’s supporters were quickly notified, and 32 speakers attended the Health Commission’s April 2 meeting, all unanimously testifying in support of Kerr’s contributions to Laguna Honda Hospital’s hospice program. Had there been sufficient agenda notice, Kerr estimates attendance would have easily doubled.
Nobody spoke in support of Kerr’s oppressors, particularly not in support of Mivic Hirose, LHH’s CEO. Perhaps Hirose didn’t want her lackey subordinates and supporters to witness her having to publicly apologize to Kerr. Curiously, LHH’s highly-paid public information officer, Marc Slavin, was missing in action as a no-show, rather than standing beside his incompetent boss, as he typically does during public meetings.
Given the deficient agenda notice, a Sunshine Ordinance Task Force complaint has been filed by Dr. Rivero and this author regarding the Health Commission’s ongoing, deficient agenda notices. We’ll keep you posted on how the Sunshine Task Force rules on the complaint.
Third, Kerr’s settlement agreement provided that Hirose would read into the minutes of LHH’s 40-member senior Leadership Forum the commendation letter co-signed by Dr. Colleen Riley, LHH’s Medical Director and Dr. Steven Thompson, LHH’s Chief of Staff. But Hirose instead read the letter into the minutes of LHH’s much smaller Executive Committee on April 23, after which Kerr stated “We are glad that we exposed misconduct. If any of you want to blow the whistle, please contact us, ” as he was leaving handouts for the Executive Committee. Like Garcia, Hirose was required to make a “do-over.” On May 8, Hirose finally read Kerr’s commendation letter into the minutes of the Leadership Forum, as Kerr and Rivero wore home-made “Speak Truth to Power” ID badges after being asked not to bring handouts to the Leadership Forum do-over.
“Guns” or “Butter”?
There’s little injured-party relief (“Butter”) when it goes to legal Defense costs (“Guns”).
On April 16, the San Francisco Examiner carried an article by Chris Roberts regarding the $11 million awarded in the 103 prohibited personnel practice cases, which Dr. Kerr uncovered through a public records request to the City Attorney and which this reporter performed a secondary data analysis of. Roberts reported that the 103 cases filed by City employees includes “$3 million paid out in 18 racial discrimination cases and more than $1 million in 25 disability discrimination cases.” [Editor’s Note: The $11 million Mr. Roberts reported was subsequently confirmed to be even higher, at a minimum of at least $12.1 million, due in large measure to under-reporting by the City Attorney’s Office of actual settlement amounts to Dr. Kerr.]
As the pie chart in Figure 1 shows, settlements for prohibited personnel practices between 2007 and 2012 also include over $1 million awarded for “general harassment” of employees, at least $1.4 million for “wrongful termination,” $553,837 for “sexual harassment” cases, and over $4.8 million for various types of other prohibited personnel actions.
The $12.1 million doled out to settle what were at least 105 cases is one clue that there’s a lot of bullying of City employees, cases oftentimes pure, thinly-disguised retaliation involving personnel practices already prohibited by law.
But the costs are substantially higher when City Attorney costs are added in for the time Deputy City Attorney’s (DCA) spend defending the City against these lawsuits. According to a further public records request, DCA’s spent a total of 43,195 hours at a total cost of $8.3 million — above and beyond the nearly $12.1 million in settlement awards — defending the 105 cases against the City involving prohibited personnel practices. Combined, between actual settlement awards and City Attorney time fighting the cases, we’re talking at least $20.4 million in preventable waste of taxpayer funds — preventable precisely because they involve personnel practices long prohibited by law.
In the Doe and Raskin v. the City of San Francisco 9–1–1 dispatcher’s case, they were awarded $726,000, but the City spent $304,508 fighting Doe and Raskin. In the Derek Kerr, MD v. the City of San Francisco case that awarded him $750,000, the City spent $450,493 (1,740 hours) fighting Kerr!
In one of the racial discrimination cases a City employee won, he was awarded just $322,750, but new data shows the City Attorney’s Office racked up 3,107 hours fighting his case, at a total cost of $526,597. In one wrongful termination case, a City employee was awarded just $15,000, but data shows the City Attorney racked up $247,772 fighting his case. In another racial discrimination case, although the Plaintiff was awarded $1.6 million, the City Attorney spent $488,022 and 2,817 hours fighting the settlement.
Disturbingly, in a lawsuit settlement involving compensation to a City employee, while the City Attorney’s office reported the Plaintiff had only been awarded $109,583, according to the Board of Supervisors’ January 17, 2008 Rules Committee agenda, the Plaintiffs was awarded $755,000, suggesting data from two City agencies don’t jive. The City Attorney’s Office reported in had spent 1,855 hours, at a cost of $341,946, fighting the case.
The City Attorney’s Office appears to have initially under-reported to Kerr — by at least $1.47 million — the amount of settlements actually awarded to 15 of the 105 plaintiffs. The data discrepancies were uncovered by comparing data provided by the City Attorney’s office in November 2012 to data gleaned from the Board of Supervisor’s Rules Committee agendas and the full Board of Supervisors meeting minutes. The City Attorney’s Office under-reporting of actual settlement awards in the 15 cases represents 12% (almost $1.5 million) of the $12.1 million reported by the Board of Supervisors.
Of the remaining 90 cases, the City Attorney reported to Kerr the correct settlement award amounts for 19 cases, but it is not yet known whether 71 of these cases were accurately reported by the City Attorney to Kerr, or if the $12.1 million will soar even higher if additional inaccurate under-reporting of actual settlement awards is uncovered.
There are many other examples of small monetary settlements to City employees for various prohibited injuries, after the City Attorney racked up large sums in costs fighting the settlements every step of the way. And that’s without considering the costs of staff time spent by City department managers during lawsuit litigations, which staff time and associated costs are not tracked at the department level.
According to a retired senior human resources professional in the City who spoke recently on condition of anonymity, the City considers the costs of on-the-job bullying, retaliation against employees, and wrongful termination, to be a “cost of doing business.”
We’ve heard this justification before, including from San Francisco General Hospital nurses who acknowledge that the City may consider the failure to fix problems at SFGH that result in preventable patient outcomes, as another cost of doing business.
Supervisors Settle 305 Lawsuits Against the City
Across the same six-year period between 2007 and 2012, a total of 305 legal settlements filed against the City — for a whole host of lawsuits and other unlitigated claims beyond just prohibited personnel practice cases — were heard before the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee prior to referral to the full Board for consideration and approval. The 305 cases cost taxpayers a total of $104.7 million — without including the costs of City Attorney time fighting the lawsuits.
Although Dr. Kerr obtained a breakout of the types of prohibited personnel practice cases through a public records request to the City Attorney’s Office, the Board of Supervisors are required only to publish “notice” on its agendas of the major categories of cases, whether for settlements of lawsuits, settlements of unlitigated claims, or settlements for other types of cases. So it’s unclear how many of the 305 settlements involved lawsuits for Muni accidents versus, say, poor healthcare delivered at City hospitals — or bullying of, and retaliation against, City employees.
As the pie chart in Figure 2 shows, 214 of the cases heard by the Board of Supervisors involved settlements of lawsuits, fully 86.6% of all settlements. The Board heard another 60 cases involving unlitigated claims, 6 other claims, and the remaining 25 cases involved a variety of types of settlements.
It appears that the 105 cases involving prohibited personnel cases represent 34% of the 305 cases referred to the Board of Supervisors for settlement approval, and account for 11.5% of settlement awards. Clearly, the prohibited personnel practice cases and costs are completely preventable, if City managers would simply follow existing laws regarding prohibited personnel actions.
In February 2012, ABC-TV Channel 7’s KGO “I-Team” investigative journalists reported that one attorney said that all of the lawsuits and claims — not just the personnel cases — are preventable. During the six-year period it examined (a five-year period one year earlier than data reported in this article), the I-Team reported that thousands of claims and lawsuits — 10,000 of which resulted in no financial payouts whatsoever — totaled more than $212 million to resolve, plus at least $53 million in City Attorney time and costs to fight the 10,000 cases receiving no payout, ballooning to $265 million in total.
In response to an I-Team’s question about whether the $265 million was considered just a cost of doing business, City Attorney Office spokesman Matt Dorsey callously responded saying that when you consider that San Francisco spends $6.8 billion every year to run City government, “You know, it is. It’s the cost of … running a major city.” Dorsey said most of the claims and lawsuits stemmed from the vast amount of vehicles San Francisco has on its streets, without offering any proof that the $265 million in costs were attributable mostly to MUNI.
This is the same Matt Dorsey who claimed in 2004 that the wrongful termination case of Dr. John Ulrich from Laguna Honda Hospital in 1998 over First Amendment free speech issues that resulted in a negotiated $1.5 million payout to Ulrich from the initial $4.3 million jury award, was “not an instance of reprisal,” and that the City Attorney’s Office “… considers this outcome [Ulrich’s award] … [to be] an aberration.”
Dorsey probably also figures that City employees who file lawsuits regarding prohibited personnel practices such as racial discrimination and wrongful termination to be just another “aberration” to be chalked up to the costs of doing business.
High-Priced City Attorneys
At the end of calendar year 2012, San Francisco’s City Attorney’s Office alone employed 318 staff paid a combined $38.5 million in total pay, excluding 30% to 40% fringe benefits. Of the 318, the City Attorney employed 182 attorneys across seven job classification codes, paid a combined $27.8 million in total pay. Of the 138 Civil and Criminal Attorneys, 76 of them earned over $165,000, while the remaining 44 supervising attorneys averaged $190,905 in total pay, both excluding fringe benefits. Deputy City Attorneys are paid at their highest salary step of somewhere between $82.97 and $98.44 hourly (up to $204,000 or more annually), although what they charge back to City Departments and Plaintiffs per hour is significantly higher.
Although attorney’s employed by the City are paid, at most, $98.44 per hour, data provided by the City Attorney shows that in the 105 prohibited personnel practice cases, total costs of City Attorney time and expenses ranged from $165 per hour to $263 per hour, suggesting that the City Attorney bills back at an hourly rate far higher than salaries paid to lawyers employed by the City Attorney.
For his part, elected City Attorney Dennis Herrera earned $216,129 in total pay, excluding fringe benefits. He’s paid that, a taxpayer might think, to ensure his employees know what they are doing. And you might think given these attorney’s high salaries, the City’s lawyers would offer expert legal advice and would know what they we’re doing. You might be wrong, on all counts.
Questionable Rationales for “Summary Judgment”
As Mr. Roberts reported in the San Francisco Examiner on April 16, two recent and prominent City employee retaliation cases include “a pair of 9-1-1 [public safety] dispatchers who received $762,000 after City employees violated federal communications law, a jury found,” and Dr. Kerr, who received a $750,000 settlement involving wrongful termination, after complaining about misuse of the Laguna Honda Hospital patient gift fund.
In both cases, the City Attorney attempted to convince both judges in these two cases to grant a “Motion for Summary Judgment” (MSJ), a legal process in which judges make a summary judgment regarding disputed facts prior to a case advancing to jury trial. In both cases, the rationales Deputy City Attorneys used to seek summary judgment calls into question their understanding of the law.
Summary judgment is appropriate when there are no genuine disputes regarding “material” facts in a case; material facts are those that may affect the outcome of a case. Disputes as to material facts are “genuine” when there is sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to return a verdict for the party in a case who had not sought summary judgment. The party requesting summary judgment bears the initial burden of informing the Court of the basis for its MSJ, and of identifying those portions of a case that might demonstrate the absence of a genuine dispute of material fact.
Deputy City Attorneys in both cases had to have known genuine disputes of material facts did, in fact, remain — and that there was no absence of genuine dispute — but they still petitioned both Judges for summary judgment, possibly driving up unnecessarily the costs of litigation.
Flagrant MSJ Rationale: “No City Municipal Liability”
The most flagrant issue raised in the City’s MSJ in Dr. Kerr’s case involved whether there was any municipal liability at all; municipal liability is determined using the Monell standards.
In the Defendants’ 32-page Notice of Motion for Summary Judgment against Dr. Kerr dated July 5, 2012, creative City Attorneys used four pages to claim that Kerr could not establish that the City was liable for the retaliation Kerr alleged. Defendants claimed Kerr could not assert “respondeat superior” liability against the City under Monell v. Department of Social Services, claiming it is “well settled law that ‘municipalities are answerable only for their own decisions; [and] are not vicariously liable for the constitutional tort of their agents’.” [Note: “Tort” refers to an act that injures a party in some way, for which the injured party may sue a wrongdoer for damages; here, San Francisco tried to assert that it is not vicariously liable if one City employee injured another employee.]
Respondeat superior — Latin for “let the master answer” — is a common-law doctrine that makes employers vicariously liable for actions of their employees, when their employees actions take place within the scope of employment. The doctrine was established in seventeenth-century England to define the legal liability of employers for the actions of their employees, and provides a better chance for injured parties to actually recover damages from injuries caused by an employers’ “agent” working within the scope of their employment.
Defendants attempted to assert there was no Monell liability in Kerr’s case because “Defendants Katz and Hirose did not have final policy making authority” over Kerr’s termination. The City contended it was entitled to summary judgment because Kerr had not established that Katz was a “final policymaker,” arguing instead that it was the Civil Service Commission that had final “policymaking” authority regarding San Francisco employment matters, not Katz or Hirose.
On August 9, 2012, Defendants filed an additional 26-page Reply Brief in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment, using another five pages to claim there was no municipal liability under Section 1983, arguing that Defendant Mitch Katz’s decision-making authority was constrained by other City policies prohibiting retaliation. Defendants brazenly argued that to the extent Dr. Katz or Ms. Hirose had possibly departed from policies prohibiting retaliation, their conduct could not be attributed to the City, arguing in part that Katz could not delegate to Hirose authority he didn’t possess as a final policymaker. Remind me: What rubbish is this?
In her 47-page Order ruling on the 58 pages between the City’s two MSJ briefs, Judge Wilken had to wade through issuing an eight-page analysis dissecting whether Defendants held municipal liability under Monell. Among other observations, Wilken noted the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has previously held that City employees to whom decision-making power is delegated, are “not authorized to violate the law,” and it is not sufficient to “insulate a governmental entity from [Monell] liability, ‘without more’.”
While Defendants argued that neither Kerr nor Rivero had subsequently applied for other vacancies on LHH’s medical staff that had become available, the DCA’s neglected to consider that since Katz as the “appointing officer” had made the decision to remove Kerr, Katz would not have been likely to rehire Kerr.
The Defendants tried to argue that a number of Civil Service Commission (CSC) rules for exempt employees constrained Dr. Katz’s ability to terminate Dr. Kerr. Wilken had to remind City Attorney’s that the Defendants’ own CSC “expert witness” had testified that “in general, no one reviews decisions” the Director of Public Health makes to lay off exempt physicians, nobody had the “authority to overrule the director of [public] health’s decisions,” and claimed the Directors’ “decisions can’t be prohibited by law.”
The Defendants’ own “expert witness” also noted that the City’s Human Resources Director does not review lay-off decisions when a complaint involves retaliation based on whistleblowing.
So Judge Wilken had to remind the Defendants’ City lawyers that “by the City’s own admission [the CSC rules] did not constrain Dr. Katz’s decisionmaking or provide for review in any way applicable to [Kerr’s termination],” as the City wrongly claimed.
Wilken observed that the City regulations Defendants cited do not provide for review of termination decisions, and simply required Katz to comply with the law. She further noted that Section 4.115 of San Francisco’s Campaign and Government Conduct Codes that can sanction officers or employees who engage in retaliation does not provide any mechanism for review or reversal of unlawful decisions. Although Defendants suggested Kerr and Rivero could have appealed, the DCA’s failed to acknowledge that there are no appeal procedures whatsoever for exempt employees who are terminated by their “appointing authorities.”
Wilken noted that, by its own terms, Section 4.115 only sets policies prohibiting retaliation against employees who file formal complaints or participate in formal investigations, but does not provide retaliation protections for employees who engage in using First Amendment free speech and subsequently face retaliation.
When will voters demand that San Francisco’s Charter be changed to include basic First Amendment protections for City employees?
After wading through reading 105 pages of motions for and against summary judgment and Judge Wilken’s Ruling, it looks to this author like the weight of evidence in Derek Kerr v. City and County of San Francisco; Mitchell Katz, Mivic Hirose, and Colleen Riley caused the Defendants’ case to fall apart.
Wilken ruled that Plaintiff Dr. Kerr had presented sufficient evidence of Monell municipal liability against the City, and denied Defendant’s MSJ to dismiss Kerr’s Section 1983 claim, putting the City on the liability hook.
City’s “Uncontroverted Facts” Claim Washes Out
At the tail end of Defendant’s MSJ dated July 5, 2012, they petitioned the Court to grant summary judgment in their favor, alleging five separate times that the Defendants “were not on notice” of Kerr’s complaints. They claimed that even if Defendants lost summary judgment, they asked the Court “to issue an order specifying certain facts were uncontroverted in order to narrow the scope of issues for trial.” Instead, Judge Wilken ruled otherwise.
Although Defendants raised many objections to evidence — which evidence and objections Judge Wilken considered — she only discussed and ruled in her Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for Summary Judgment on the admissibility of the evidence that made a difference in the case, overruling the Defendants’ other objections as moot — irrelevant.
Although Defendants contended the City Charter removes exempt employees such as Kerr through Civil Service Commission rules, Wilken noted that “even if this were true, the Charter and Administrative Code … specifically exclude exempt employees from the authority of the Civil Service Commission for removal procedures,” observing that exempt employees serve at the pleasure of appointing officers such as Dr. Katz, who are allowed to remove employees holding exempt positions without any further review, or an appeals process.
Just as DCA’s in the 9-1-1 dispatcher’s case smeared Ms. Raskin (below), City Attorney’s unnecessarily smeared Kerr. In its August 2012 Reply Brief, DCA’s wrongly claimed “It was Kerr’s enduring sense of entitlement — his refusal to shoulder the heavier workload that every other doctor agreed to — that differentiated Kerr from his peers.” This was clearly a disputed fact, which Kerr’s lawyers disproved. Defendants further smeared Kerr, writing “Plaintiff Derek Kerr likes to swim upstream. He had a comfortable existence at Laguna Honda Hospital, where many of his peers took … divergent paths to address … [needs of the patients]. Kerr refused to follow the [downstream] current.” I wondered, did the City smear Kerr again, really alleging he didn’t address his hospice patients’ needs?
The City Attorney hadn’t originated the smears, he was just “representing” the ad hominem smears, lies, and pretexts concocted by the guilty Defendants he was representing, who were grasping at straws to extricate themselves from their bungled, retaliatory hit-job against Kerr.
As a layperson having read many legal filings, this author was shocked that Defendants resorted to using smears in their legal briefs, smears clearly irrelevant and disproven by factual evidence:
· KGO, ABC Channel 7, I-Team News Reports, May 2010: Defendants objected to evidence of the multiple investigative news reports that alleged mismanagement of LHH’s patient gift fund, claiming the evidence wasn’t relevant, lacked foundation, and was hearsay. Judge Wilken ruled the Defendants objections were overly vague and failed to provide any explanations why they believed the evidence was objectionable. Wilken noted that evidence of the broadcast news reports was clearly relevant, the evidence had been offered to prove Kerr’s assertion he was terminated as a result of the news reports, and ruled the broadcasts weren’t hearsay. Instead, Wilken ruled that Kerr had established a material dispute of facts as to whether his termination was carried out in retaliation for the ABC7 news reports. Wilken denied summary judgment on the issue.
· Audit of Patient Gift Fund: The Defendants objected to the City Controller’s audit report of LHH’s patient gift fund, stating the audit was also not relevant evidence, lacked foundation, and was hearsay. Wilken ruled the audit report was clearly relevant to Plaintiff’s claims, and noted that “The fact that the City’s own Auditor found later that there had in fact been misuse of the [patient] Gift Fund is probative [evidence] of Defendants’ motives in terminating Plaintiff.” Wilken also noted that since the audit was issued by the City and was a public record, the report was either non-hearsay or subject to a hearsay exception. Shouldn’t the DCA’s employed by the City Attorney know these rationales won’t survive summary judgment?
· Protected Speech: Next, although Defendants didn’t dispute that Plaintiff’s formal complaints constituted protected speech, Defendants did argue that Kerr’s public discussion of the Ja Report and gift fund records requests didn’t constitute protected speech. Defendants asserted in their MSJ that Plaintiffs’ public records requests were not protected speech, and were nothing more than requests for information. Defendants further claimed that Plaintiffs’ August 2009 speech concerning the Ja Report during a medical staff meeting — which report recommended replacing doctors with nurses, social workers, and psychologists — was speech that “didn’t address matters of public concern” (as if reducing access to physicians would not be of public concern), it was only speech regarding personnel disputes, and the speech wouldn’t reach the public at large. Judge Wilken disagreed, concluding Kerr’s critique of the Ja Report was protected speech, and that there was a material dispute of fact regarding whether Kerr’s gift fund records requests constituted protected speech.
· Conflicts of Interest: Defendants claimed that the Plaintiff’s critique of the Ja Report “had not raised any allegations of a conflict of interest,” and that the Plaintiff had first raised the conflict of interest allegation in March 2010. However, Wilken noted that the Plaintiff had, in fact, submitted evidence that the conflict of interest issue had been raised in a September 18, 2009 whistleblower complaint, long before the eventual decision to terminate Kerr had been made. How could highly-paid City Attorney’s have missed this important timeline dispute?
· Labor Code Violation: Plaintiff had claimed Labor Code Section 1102.5(b) provided protection against retaliation for disclosing information to a government or law enforcement agency if they believed the information disclosed violated state or federal statutes. Defendants argued that Plaintiff had not engaged in protected 1102.5( b) activity, claiming Kerr did not reasonably believe his complaints disclosed an alleged violation of federal or state law; he had not pointed to a specific statute, rule, or regulation that had been violated; and he had not clearly identified prohibited conduct to place the City “on notice” of its potential legal liability.
Although Wilken noted the conflict-of-interest allegations “could have violated several state laws” and that Kerr’s “media and formal complaints about mismanagement of the patient gift fund implicated several state laws,” she ruled that his gift fund records request didn’t point to specific violations of sections of laws (that Wilken then thoughtfully identified), and that media reports were not complaints to a government or law enforcement agency in order to provide Kerr with Labor Code 1102.5(b) retaliation protection. Wilken split her ruling on summary judgment of the 1102.5(b) issue, granting Defendants’ MSJ claim only to the extent Plaintiff alleged retaliation for his formal whistleblower complaints, records requests, and media reports about the gift fund, but denying Defendants’ MSJ claim regarding Labor Code 1102.5(b) to the extent Plaintiff had alleged retaliation for his critique of the Ja Report.
Given her rejection of many of the City Attorney’s dubious rationales seeking summary judgment in Kerr’s case, Wilken ordered that a previous ruling be maintained to begin a ten-day jury trial on November 13, 2012.
It may have only been then that the City began to negotiate in earnest to develop settlement terms with Kerr, perhaps fearing a jury trial might further unravel the City’s nincompoop defense of Katz, Hirose, and Dr. Colleen Riley, and risking greater monetary settlement awards to Kerr.
Specious MSJ Smears of 9–1–1 Dispatchers
In the 9-1-1 dispatcher’s lawsuit, Jane Doe and Anne Raskin v. City and County of San Francisco, the Deputy City Attorney (DCA) claimed there were no disputes involving material fact, and requested that eight claims for relief be granted in their MSJ. In its MSJ, Defendants also smeared Plaintiffs, claiming “Plaintiff Ann Raskin lived a charmed life at DEM prior to the e-mail incident,” a snide statement wholly out of place in a legal filing.
U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson granted only one of the City Attorney’s dubious claims for summary judgment, and denied the City’s other seven claims, including:
· Federal Stored Communications Act. Plaintiff Jane Doe claimed her private e-mail had been improperly searched by Defendants over an 18-month period on a shared computer, and was bullied and harassed by supervisors as a result. Defendants asserted there had been no search of any kind, and that Plaintiffs had no expectation of privacy — and even if the e-mails had been searched, it wasn’t a “serious” offense, which Plaintiffs refuted. DCA’s snarked, “Doe and Raskin decided that their best defense was a good offense,” and asked for summary judgment to dismiss each of the Plaintiffs claims.
DCA’s asserted that Defendant’s inadvertent discovery of Plaintiffs work-related, but personal e-mail account documents viewed on a shared computer, did not constitute a “serious invasion” of Plaintiff’s privacy. Since both sides had presented evidence supporting each version of events, Judge Henderson ruled there was a genuine issue of material fact for the jury, denying Defendants claim for summary judgment on the issue.
· Privacy Claims: Plaintiffs alleged there was a reasonable expectation of privacy, given their union contract that explicitly states “employees [covered by the contract] shall have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” which labor agreement City lawyers must have known about. Ignoring the union contract, the DCA’s argued there was no such reasonable expectation. The Judge ruled that facts around the alleged violation of Jane Doe’s e-mail account were clearly in dispute, such that summary judgment wasn’t appropriate.
· California Labor Code Claims: Defendants moved for summary judgment on Labor Code claims contending Plaintiffs had failed to exhaust administrative remedies through other channels. Since the Plaintiffs conceded they had not exhausted administrative remedies, the Judge granted summary judgment only on this single issue.
· Gender Discrimination Claims: Plaintiffs alleged that the abusive mistreatment they received from their female supervisors would not have occurred had the Plaintiffs been men, since men in their workplace would not have been treated in the same manner. Defendants argued that the Plaintiffs claim of woman-on-woman discrimination seemed improbable, as if City Attorneys have never heard that women can, and do, discriminate against one another, just as men do. Since the facts underlying this claim were in dispute, the Judge ruled it a proper issue for a jury’s determination, and found it inappropriate to grant summary judgment.
· Sexual Harassment Claim: Plaintiffs pointed to case law allowing circumstantial evidence of gender-based abuse, and contended the conduct they endured had occurred. DCA’s representing the Defendants contended the conduct was nothing more than reprimands concerning the Plaintiffs work performance, not sexual harassment. Judge Henderson ruled that there were actual disputes to the material facts regarding this issue, ruling summary judgment was inappropriate.
· Failure to Prevent Claims: The Defendants entire argument was that there was no triable issues involving Plaintiffs claims of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation and, therefore, no misconduct had occurred that could have been prevented. Therefore, if the Court found there was a triable issue on these claims, the Defendants had made no other argument as to why the claims should be decided on summary judgment. Plaintiffs pointed out it is unlawful for employers to “fail to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring, but that the City and County of San Francisco did nothing to step in, or investigate” Plaintiffs complaints. Since material facts underlying the claim were in dispute, Judge Henderson again ruled summary judgment would be inappropriate.
· Retaliation Claims: The Court noted that Defendants “largely lump their retaliation argument in with their argument about the Plaintiffs’ whistleblower claims.” While the Defendants presumably disagreed with Plaintiffs contention that bullying, abuse, and negative treatment had occurred in the workplace, the Defendants devoted their argument to Plaintiffs’ “failure to exhaust remedies.”
Judge Henderson noted that the Defendants’ argument was undermined by another court case that held that employees who suffer employment-related discrimination are not required to exhaust internal administrative remedies before filing discrimination claims. Again, shouldn’t the City and its DCA’s have known this all along? Judge Henderson noted the disagreement between the two parties regarding retaliation claims was factual and was, therefore, inappropriate for summary judgment.
· Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress: Defendants appear to have wrongly asserted that Plaintiffs’ emotional distress claim duplicated their Fair Employment and Housing Claim. The Court had to point out to Defendants’ DCA’s that it is established law that Plaintiffs can allege both employment discrimination and additional intentional infliction of emotional distress. Yet again, shouldn’t the DCA’s — or at least their supervisor, the City’s Chief Labor Attorney Elizabeth Salveson, who was paid $184,827 in calendar year 2012 — have known this?
Instead, the DCA’s contended the conduct in question didn’t rise to emotional distress, and was merely “rigorous, difficult training that dispatcher’s must go through.” Judge Henderson again ruled the dispute involved a question of fact that had to be presented to a jury, not determined via summary judgment.
As with Dr. Kerr’s case, the City attempted to claim that the 9-1-1 dispatcher lawsuit had not identified specific violations of law by citing a particular statute, rule, or regulation that prohibited an illegal activity that was violated by the conduct complained of. The City claimed that for a complaint to be protected and upheld, the complaint must specify violations of law by citing a relevant statute that was violated.
“The Truth [of Retaliation] Was True”
By denying seven of the Defendants’ eight claims for summary judgment, Henderson effectively moved Jane Doe and Anne Raskin v. City and County of San Francisco to trial. At trial, the jury ruled in Doe and Raskin’s favor, and they were eventually awarded the $762,000 settlement, suggesting that the City — City Attorney Dennis Herrera and his legal defense teams — often barks up the wrong tree, tossing out flaky defense strategies hoping to see what will stick on the wall.
To do that, Herrera’s team not only resorted to using ad hominem smears against Plaintiffs Kerr and Doe and Raskin, they used wrongful claims and disingenuous arguments, and ended up acting just like their clients — the Defendants.
Such strategies drive up the time and costs of litigation, costing taxpayers millions of dollars, and forcing opposing counsel and judges to wade through the muck of what is, essentially, garbage proffered as the City’s legal defense. Desperate to prevail, the City Attorney continues doing so, anyway.
“The City Attorney used every trick in the book — but the evidence of Laguna Honda Hospital’s wrongdoing was so overwhelming, that they were forced to settle,” notes Dr. Rivero. “It took us three years to convince the City Attorney — and the Court — that the truth was true,” she laments.
If Kerr’s and the 9-1-1 dispatchers lawsuits prove nothing else, the two cases demonstrate that all too often the City Attorney defends City officials against City employees and the very citizens paying the miscreant officials’ bloated salaries.
After all, between the settlement awards and the City Attorney’s costs fighting the prohibited personnel practices, we’re talking about a minimum of at least $20 million that was a completely preventable, unnecessary expense, had careless City managers who bullied City employees simply followed existing personnel law.
It’s long past time to confront the City Attorney’s spurious legal advice, which appears to be costing taxpayers millions that could be better spent on other City needs.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
A Comical Postscript
In a comical twist of irony, City Attorney spokesman Matt Dorsey rises again.
On May 16, the San Francisco Examiner reported that the day before a former internal affairs attorney for the San Francisco Police Department — Kelly O’Haire — filed a wrongful termination and whistleblower lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against Police Chief Greg Shur, against the Police Department, and presumably, against the City.
O’Haire’s job involved investigating and prosecuting misconduct claims against San Francisco Police Department members, and bringing misconduct cases before the Police Commission. O’Haire alleges she was fired in retaliation for having investigated Greg Shur when he was a high-ranking official before being appointed Police Chief. She sought Suhr’s termination in 2009 for an alleged pattern of misconduct and policy violations. Following Suhr’s appointment as Police Chief in April 2011, O’Haire was terminated within a month.
Dorsey is comical: On May 15, the Marin Independent Journal carried an article by Gary Klein reporting on O’Haire’s lawsuit. Dorsey, City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s spokesman, asserts O’Haire’s lawsuit “lacks merit.” Dorsey was quoted as saying “The City Attorney is going to vigorously defend the Police Department, and we’re going to do everything we can to protect taxpayer dollars.”
This is the same City Attorney’s Office that settled the 105 prohibited personnel practice cases for the princely sum of $12.1 million, and the same City Attorney who spent $8.3 million fighting the 105 cases, for a combined waste of $20.4 million in taxpayer funds. And that’s not including the $1.3 million of taxpayer funds racked up in City Attorney time wasted during the City Attorney’s inept proceedings on behalf of Mayor Ed Lee to oust Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi for alleged official misconduct. After wasting fully $22 million, Dorsey now wants us to believe the City Attorney is trying to “protect” taxpayer dollars?
Supervisor Jane Kim noted during the Board’s vote to remove Mirkarimi that the charges against the Sheriff — developed by the City Attorney on behalf of the Mayor — did not rise to the City Charter’s definition of official misconduct, and that the Ethics Commission had not found that Mirkarimi had used his official duties to commit wrongdoing. Kim voted against removing the Sheriff, indicating that a clear, articulable test to remove public officials had not been established. To that extent, the persecution of Mirkarimi was a complete waste of $1.3 million in City Attorney time, at taxpayer expense, which appears to have escaped Mr. Dorsey.
Chances are that as O’Haire’s case plods through the court system, the City Attorney will likely mount spurious reasons for a motion for summary judgment. But O’Haire will likely prevail and will probably win a significant settlement amount, while the City Attorney wastes more taxpayer funds spending thousands of hours fighting O’Haire.
After all, this is San Francisco, where whistleblowing City employees who expose wrongdoing of high-level members of the “City Hall Family” — for example exposing the City Family’s former Director of Public Health Mitch Katz, former Housing Authority Director Henry Alvarez, and now Police Chief Greg Suhr — face 100% retaliation, bullying, and wrongful termination. Is the 100% retaliation rate a new San Francisco “value”?
The print edition of this Westside Observer article was a condensed version; this expanded version — providing additional details of the spurious rationales the City Attorney used seeking summary judgment, a status update on Kerr’s non-monetary settlements, and data regarding costs of prohibited personnel practices —Is available on-line at www.westsideobserver.com.
May 2013
Laguna Honda Hospital’s Whistleblower Retaliation
The $750,000 Wrongful Termination Affair
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
|
Retaliation against Laguna Honda Doctors reveals how the City does business |
Three years after jointly filing three whistleblower complaints with his colleague Dr. Maria Rivero, Dr. Derek Kerr’s wrongful termination settlement agreement was finally approved on second reading by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on March 26, awarding him $750,000 in monetary damages and other non-monetary awards.
Kerr’s settlement is one of the largest pre-trial (out-of-court) settlements in San Francisco history, although post-trial settlements have been larger.
Like many great mysteries, the great Laguna Honda Hospital Patient Gift Fund scandal of 2010 started with some curiosity, ethical concerns, and a compelling public-interest question: If the fund was nearing “bankruptcy,” what had happened to the money?
…they believed the law … which clearly prohibits termination, demotion, or suspension of City employees as retaliation for reporting waste, fraud, and inefficiencies in City government to the Ethics Commission, City Controller, District Attorney, or
City Attorney.”
When former Laguna Honda physicians Kerr and Rivero put on their detective hats, neither expected that the age old question “show us the money” would quickly result in prompt retaliation, harassment, and wrongful termination. Neither did they expect Kerr would eventually win the largest pre-trial settlement in City history.
At the outset of their sleuthing, they believed our democracy functions only when citizens know what our government is doing. Believing public participation is essential to our democratic process, the two doctors take seriously their role to speak as patient advocates.
The sordid patient gift fund mystery started with a classic example of mismanagement over a small issue — reimbursement to Dr. Rivero for a mere $100 she had spent for tacos for LHH’s Spanish Focus ward in September 2009. The taco luncheon was to celebrate Fiestas Patrias — Latin America’s Independence Day — on a ward where the majority of patients had various forms of dementia. Told that the $2 million gift fund was nearing insolvency and couldn’t reimburse her, Rivero and Kerr became gumshoes when they requested and began researching 10 years of gift fund public records on October 31, 2009.
|
Official Apology from Laguna Honda to Dr. Derek Kerr: Buried in an update to the Health Commission, the apology, rarer than hen’s teeth and even more valuable, possibly saved the City more than a million dollars. Had they refused to apologize and continued through with the lawsuit, so many laws were broken that a jury would probably have awarded considerably more. |
After examining thousands of pages of public records and placing serial records requests, the pair felt they had no ethical choice but to file an Ethics complaint on March 2, 2010, which clearly documented mismanagement of the patient gift fund. Just hours after submitting copies of their whistleblower gift fund complaint with the Ethics Commission on March 4, it reached the District Attorney and retaliation against them was set in motion, after they had simply exercised their First Amendment rights to free speech.
When San Francisco Department of Public Health officials wrongly retaliated by notifying Kerr orally on Friday, March 5, 2010 that his employment would be terminated, the officials had to have done so willfully. The officials should have known that they would be violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. constitution, other Federal law, at least three State laws, and San Francisco’s own Administrative Code that prohibits retaliation.
This has so many themes that reverberate throughout City Hall – the influence of
private money, the misapplication of
purpose of the money, the automatic defense of incompetent administrators, and most of all the acceptance of corruption as “business as usual” all the way to the top."
James Chafee
If the City had hoped to silence Kerr by firing him, the retaliation backfired, leading the whistleblower doctor to not only speak out more forcefully, the retaliation led to a huge settlement when Kerr prevailed in his wrongful-termination lawsuit.
As Dr. Kerr and Dr. Rivero wrote in their July 2012 Westside Observer article, “Secret Investigations,” whistleblowers should not be silenced in the resolution of the alleged misconduct they risked their careers to challenge. But that’s exactly what the City of San Francisco attempted to do: To silence the pair of doctors.
When Dr. Kerr and Dr. Rivero filed a trio of Ethics complaints, they believed that a collection of laws would protect them from retaliation. They believed that their fundamental First Amendment rights to free speech and their Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process would protect them from exposing fraud, waste, and corruption. They believed 42 U.S.C. §1983, which provides protections for citizen’s injured by deprivation of Constitutional rights and which provides redress for violations of due process, would help protect them. They hoped that the federal Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012 might help protect them.
They believed that California Government Code §53298, California Health and Safety Code §1432, and California Labor Code §1102.5 — which each provide separate prohibitions against employee retaliation — would protect them.
And they believed the letter of the law in San Francisco Administration Code §4.115, Protection of Whistleblowers, which clearly prohibits termination, demotion, or suspension of City employees as retaliation for reporting waste, fraud, and inefficiencies in City government to the Ethics Commission, City Controller, District Attorney, or City Attorney.
Kerr and Rivero were wrong. None of these so-called “laws” ended up protecting them, and Kerr was forced to sue after being wrongfully terminated.
“I didn’t want to sue the City,” Kerr testified to the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee on March 7, 2013. “But Dr. Maria Rivero and I stumbled upon wrongdoing involving Laguna Honda Hospital’s CEO that we couldn’t ignore,” he testified. [Editor’s Note: Kerr was diplomatically referring to Mivic Hirose, LHH’s then- and current-CEO.]
A Public Spanking: Kerr’s Settlement Award
Kerr and Rivero were represented by the law firm of Kochan & Stephenson — Deborah Kochan and Mathew Stephenson — whose law practice is devoted entirely to representing employees who have suffered discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or — as in Dr. Kerr’s case — retribution for whistleblowing.
Dr. Rivero testified, “What is the message you send when a CEO … is still in office?
It shows that you condone whistleblower
retaliation and violations of laws that
protect whistleblowers.” Rivero added,
“It shows that you will accept executives
who pilfer public funds donated to the poorest of the poor, violating a sacred trust.”
In addition to Kerr’s $750,000 settlement award, there were a number of non-monetary concessions that amount to a public spanking and public apology that are important to him, including:
- A retraction of the “Statement Concerning the Laguna Honda Gift Fund” posted on LHH’s website by Katz and Hirose on September 2, 2010 alluding to Kerr and Rivero as “detractors” who had intentionally made false or inaccurate statements regarding the patient gift fund, since the September 2010 letter presented incorrect representations of the two doctors. The retraction will be via a notice signed by the Health Department’s current director, Barbara Garcia, to be posted on DPH’s web site within 10 business days following final approval of the settlement by the Board of Supervisors on March 26, for a minimum 10-month period.
- LHH must install a plaque as soon as practicable in a clearly visible location, recognizing Kerr’s contributions to the hospital generally, and his contributions to LHH’s Hospice and Palliative Care Program in particular, in either LHH’s new Hospice or the gazebo/garden area, once it is completed.
- LHH must provide Kerr, within 10 business days of the final settlement approval, a commendation letter signed by defendant Colleen Riley, MD, and LHH’s Chief of Staff, Steven Thompson, MD, stating that Kerr was a physician in good standing and widely respected by his LHH colleagues for his skills and accomplishments as a hospice and palliative care physician, and commending his work establishing and running LHH’s hospice and palliative care program.
- LHH’s CEO, Mivic Hirose must announce at both the next scheduled meeting of the Health Commission and the next meeting of LHH’s 40-member Senior Staff/Leadership Forum, both the pending installation of Kerr’s plaque and read into the minutes the letter signed by Riley and Thompson.
- The City must provide training to LHH’s Executive Committee regarding whistleblower rights, and First Amendment rights, of City Employees.
For their part, Kerr’s lawyers Kochan and Stephenson, note: “In our experience, negotiating non-monetary terms as part of a settlement is relatively rare. But here, we believed it very important that LHH’s administration publicly acknowledge the lies they told about Drs. Kerr and Rivero, as well as acknowledge the extraordinary service the two MD’s provided to the community during their long and distinguished careers at LHH.”
As for the two doctors, the monetary and non-monetary awards help convey that their complaints had all along been valid, and that wrongful, retaliatory termination and harassment had ensued.
The Defendants
Dr. Kerr — a former physician in good standing at Laguna Honda Hospital for over 21 years — filed a lawsuit seeking monetary and non-monetary damages, in part, to recover his good name.
Named as defendants in his lawsuit were the City and County of San Francisco and three named individuals — Dr. Mitchell Katz, former Director of Public Health; Mivic Hirose, RN, Laguna Honda Hospital’s Executive Administrator; and Colleen Riley, MD, Laguna Honda Hospital’s Medical Director.
Legal documents filed in the case show the defendants may have been motivated by retaliatory animus towards Kerr. They subjected him to retaliation for having brought complaints related to the care of patients and services at LHH. Had Kerr’s case proceeded to trial, it is very likely a jury would have concluded the defendants had been highly motivated to silence Kerr by subjecting him to retaliatory termination — and a jury would likely have awarded him much more than three-quarters of a million dollars, if for no other reason than sympathy for LHH’s patients.
Basis of Kerr’s Lawsuit
Dr. Kerr’s Complaint for Damages and Demand for Jury Trial lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court on November 16, 2010 — subsequently transferred to a Federal District Court over First Amendment freedom of speech issues — listed five causes of action for violations of Federal and State law:
- • Deprivation of his First Amendment freedom of speech activities;
- • Deprivation of due process rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment;
- • Violation of California Government Code §53298 that prohibits reprisals against employees who file complaints regarding gross mismanagement or a significant waste of funds, or an abuse of authority;
- • Violation of California’s Health and Safety Code §1432 that prohibits discrimination or retaliation against employees for initiating or participating in proceedings relating to care, services, or conditions of a long-term health facility; and
- • Violation of California Labor Code §1102.5 that prohibits retaliation against any employee for disclosing information to a government or law enforcement agency when an employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a violation of state or federal statutes, or a violation or noncompliance with a state or federal rule or regulation.
Four of the five causes of action noted that the individual defendants participated in, directed, or knew of the retaliatory termination, and they collectively failed to act to prevent it. The causes of action also alleged that the gross retaliation by the individual defendants was done with malice, fraud, or oppression, in reckless disregard of Dr. Kerr’s constitutional rights.
The Set Up: Pretext for Termination
According to Kerr’s lawyers’ “Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment,” dated August 9, 2012, there were a number of reasons to suspect the defendants manufactured various pretexts to justify terminating Kerr.
It appears that Dr. Katz and Ms. Hirose had already determined by December 15, 2009 that they were going to lay off Dr. Kerr, hoping to shut him up. They needed a pretext, or pretexts, to do so, since Kerr and Rivero’s Sunshine requests on October 31, 2009 for patient gift fund records had put Katz and Hirose on notice that they were under scrutiny for a host of improper, if not illegal, practices. Hirose had to have known there was a lot at stake over her management, or mismanagement, of the patient gift fund, and that she was likely in deep trouble.
After all, by that point Kerr and Rivero had already filed in September 2009 two Whistleblower complaints about DPH contracts tainted by conflicts of interest, and had put the City on notice with their October 31 request for 10 years of patient gift fund public records that the two whistleblower doctors were serious about investigating the gift fund scandal. The defendants knew Kerr’s and Rivero’s records requests were very serious, and that the two doctors had a demonstrated record of investigating and thoroughly analyzing data. Hirose was on notice that she was under Kerr’s and Rivero’s microscope, and that it could be damaging to Hirose’s career.
Much of the City’s defense regarding Kerr’s termination was pretextual — pretexts the City manufactured to justify his dismissal, but were actually pretexts for retaliation. The pretexts to lay off Kerr included false claims that:
- Kerr was terminated as a mid-year budget savings reduction, claiming a budget crisis. During FY 09-10, DPH had nearly 8,000 employees on its payroll, but only one employee — Dr. Kerr — was terminated, ostensibly to “save money.” Notably, LHH’s Medical Services Department staff increased by 10% after Kerr’s layoff, and the physician who replaced him — Dr. Denis Bouvier — quickly zoomed to being the City’s highest-paid employee, earning $332,000 that year. In addition, the City added a Clinical Nurse Specialist, Anne Hughes, RN, PhD, to the Hospice’s budget, paying her $160,000 annually. LHH’s expenses on Hospice, and throughout the hospital, went up after Kerr’s “mid-year budget reduction” layoff. Obviously, money wasn’t the problem, but a clear pretext for retaliation.
- Kerr had limited himself to a 25-patient case load and was unwilling to take on additional patients, even if keeping his job depended on it.
- The hospice physician in the new hospital would have to carry a 60-patient case load, which didn’t apply to doctors on admitting wards, such as the Hospice where Kerr was an admitting physician.
- Kerr wouldn’t cover wards outside the Hospice, clearly disproven during depositions.
- The hospice would be undergoing a “fundamental program change,” which Hirose eventually testified there had never been any discussion about a “program change.”
- Kerr was terminated for budgetary reasons, which was false because when Kerr left LHH in June 2010, he was immediately replaced by another budgeted physician.
Another glaring pretext was Hirose’s claim that her decision in mid-December 2009 to terminate Kerr was based on information Dr. Riley had provided indicating Kerr was unwilling to take on covering additional Wards.
During depositions, Riley indicated that she hadn’t reported to Hirose Kerr’s reluctance to take on additional ward coverage until late February 2010, and that she, Riley, had never asked Kerr if he was willing to take on more patients if retaining his job depended on it.
During Hirose’s own initial deposition, she was unable to explain the impossibility of knowing in mid-December 2009 an allegation about Kerr from Riley, since Riley testified she had not shared this information with Hirose until late February 2010. The conversation with Riley that Hirose claimed to have relied on to terminate Kerr wouldn’t happen for at least a month until after she and Katz had already cooked up a pretext to eliminate Kerr.
In a follow-up to Hirose’s deposition nine months after her first deposition, Hirose sill couldn’t explain the “timing problem” that had made her explanation to terminate Kerr clearly impossible, given Riley’s false claim that Kerr wouldn’t take on additional patients. As set-ups and pretexts often are, Hirose’s claim that Kerr wouldn’t provide additional Ward coverage was completely insane.
Depositions: Discovery Mountain
Given public records in the case, the mountain of evidence against the City obtained during discovery and depositions in Kerr’s case was appalling.
During depositions and discovery, one defendant after another was crushed. Kerr’s lawyers deposed a dozen or so City employees; the City Attorney, in return, deposed only Kerr and Rivero. The City didn’t bother deposing Kerr’s union, UAPD, knowing that the union’s deposition would likely be damaging against the City. Kerr’s lawyers obtained approximately 3,000 pages of documents and issued multiple interrogatories.
Eventually, the City realized how bad their case looked for Laguna Honda and the Department of Public Health after its own witnesses performed poorly during depositions, and when plenty of smoke rose during discovery.
The City stonewalled Kerr’s lawsuit for two years, until his case was finally scheduled for jury trial on November 13, 2012. In mid-summer 2012, the City submitted a Motion for Summary Judgment that would have effectively dismissed Kerr’s case had the motion succeeded. Kerr’s lawyers submitted a Plaintiff’s Opposition to the City’s Motion for Summary Judgment on August 9, stating that given the “genuine issues of disputed fact … the defendants’ motion for summary adjudication … should be denied.”
Judge Claudia Wilken denied the City’s Motion for Summary Judgment in part and approved it on other parts in a 47-page ruling dated September 6, 2012. Wilken’s Order Granting In Part And Denying In Part Motion For Summary Judgment noted: “Plaintiff has offered sufficient evidence that he disclosed to his government employer possible violations of state or federal law based on the conflicts of interest involving Dr. Ja and Ms. Sherwood in [Kerr and Rivero’s] “A Job Half Done” critique, and that this was causally connected to his termination.”
Wilken also wrote: “[Kerr’s] media and formal complaints about the mismanagement and misuse of the Gift Fund also implicated several state laws … However, the public records requests related to the Gift Fund did not show any reasonable belief on Plaintiff’s part that he was disclosing alleged violations of [several] sections [of California’s Business and Professional Code]. The media reports about the Gift Fund were not complaints directed to a government or law enforcement agency, as required to come under the protection of [California Labor Code] section 1102.5(b).”
Wilken’s partial denial — which kept Kerr’s lawsuit alive and headed to jury trail — suggests the City then knew it had to settle with Kerr or risk a jury’s outcome, since it appeared Kerr had a potentially valid case. Only when the City realized it was on notice to proceed to jury trial did it conclude negotiating an equitable settlement with Kerr.
Laughably, the defendants appeared to have argued that Kerr’s speech was not protected by the First Amendment because it “did not address matters of public concern,” and would not reach the public at large, as if the raid of funds intended for patients didn’t concern public donors to the fund. The City also lamely tried to exonerate the defendants by claiming that Kerr’s and Rivero’s serial requests for gift fund records was not protected speech because it was “nothing more than a request for [public] information.” To support its defense, the City ignored that defendant Hirose had lied repeatedly about the status of the Gift Fund as it existed in late 2009, according to legal documents.
The City also attempted to exonerate Director of Public Health, Mitch Katz, claiming Katz wasn’t a policymaker “decider,” he was simply a decision-maker. Katz had delegated to Hirose the decision of which staff to lay off (terminate), but Kerr’s lawyers adroitly noted that layoff decisions were within the sole discretion of the Director of Public Health, Katz, responsibility for which could not be avoided by delegating that decision to Hirose.
The City also attempted to assert that the Civil Service Commission, not the DPH’s Department Head, had final policymaking authority to remove Kerr, though that assumption is supported neither by facts nor applicable law, since appointments of doctors are exempt from Civil Service merit system protections and, instead, serve at the pleasure of their appointing authorities.
The defendants conceded that Katz made a deliberate choice fingering Kerr for layoff from among several competing proposals on how to implement mid-year budget reductions. Katz could have, but failed to, rescind Kerr’s layoff notice. Instead, Katz participated in, and explicitly supported, Hirose’s decision to terminate Kerr.
Commenting on the discovery and deposition process, Kerr’s lawyer Deborah Kochan says, “The deceitfulness and small-mindedness exhibited by members of LHH’s administration and its Human Resources Department was, at times, breathtaking.”
“The City was boxed in by the inconsistent accounts of its own witnesses and the absolute nonsense of some of their testimony on critical issues,” adds Kochan’s law firm partner, Mathew Stephenson.
Acting Under “Color of Law”: A Federal Crime
42 U.S.C. §1983 provides that every person acting under the “color of law” who causes any United States citizen to be deprived of any Constitutional rights shall be liable to the party injured. “Color of law” involves actions taken that superficially appear to be within an individual’s lawful power, but are actually in contravention of the law. Acting under “color of law” is misuse of power, since it involves acting under real or apparent government authority by people who misuse their authority to violate rights guaranteed by federal law. Depriving a person of his or her federal civil rights under color of law is illegal and grounds for a cause of legal action.
The City acted under the color of law when it deprived Dr. Kerr of his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. He was terminated, in part, because he had spoken out on various matters of public concern; he had spoken as a private citizen, not as a public employee; and his protected speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the City’s termination of him.
By reaching a settlement agreement with Kerr for monetary and non-monetary damages, the City has effectively acknowledged that Riley, Hirose, and Katz had engaged in misuse of power and misuse of their authority, depriving Kerr of his Federal civil rights. Despite this, Riley and Hirose are still employed at Laguna Honda Hospital, while Dr. Katz suddenly and mysteriously vanished.
Katz abruptly moved to Los Angeles after the LHH patient gift fund scandal exploded, and after Kerr and Rivero had filed their complaints about tainted DPH contracts. Katz’s sudden departure may have been coincidental, but it was completely odd, given he had previously stated he wanted to remain as Director of Public Health until the rebuild of the new San Francisco General Hospital was completed. It’s unknown whether the City Attorney, or other City Hall Family insiders, had advised Katz to quickly resign when the issue of his HMA consulting fees income became widely known.
During the Board of Supervisor’s Rules Committee meeting on March 7, 2013 at which it recommended approval of Dr. Kerr’s settlement agreement, Dr. Rivero testified, “What is the message you send when a CEO [such as Hirose] who retaliated against a whistleblower is still in office? It shows that you condone whistleblower retaliation and violations of laws that protect whistleblowers.” Rivero added, “It shows that you will accept executives who pilfer public funds donated to the poorest of the poor, violating a sacred trust.”
That Hirose and Riley remain employed at LHH is shocking in a City that pays a lot of lip service claiming it believes in transparent, open government and public accountability.
Series of Whistleblower Complaints
Drs. Rivero and Kerr filed three complaints through the Controller’s Office and the Ethics Commission regarding fraudulent practices in the Department of Public Health, including:
- On September 18, 2009, Kerr and Rivero filed their first complaint alleging an improper award of a contract to a City employee’s relative, regarding what became known as the “Ja Report.” In July 2009, Davis Ja and Associates prepared a report examining mental health services for LHH’s residents; defendant Hirose served on the selection panel that awarded Ja his first contract to survey LHH. The Ja Report recommended replacing Laguna Honda doctors with social workers, psychologists, and nurses.
Drs. Kerr and Rivero regarded the reduction in the number of physicians as a threat to, and would negatively impact, the quality of patient care. The Ja report was so deeply flawed that Kerr and Rivero co-authored a 25-page Critical Analysis: The Ja Report – A Job Half Done, highlighting the flawed methodology of Ja’s report and recommendations. Of 22 physicians on LHH’s regular Medical Staff, 20 (91%) co-signed a petition supporting Rivero’s and Kerr’s thoughtful Critical Analysis, which detailed serious, ethical conflicts of interest involving several high-level managers in the Department of Public Health. Subsequently, Ja was awarded an additional multi-million dollar contract.
Kerr and Rivero then discovered the additional contract had more than likely been steered to Ja by his wife, Deborah Sherwood, a senior manager in the Health Department’s Community Behavioral Health Services unit. Despite the two doctors’ numerous attempts to bring this improper and probably illegal contract award to the attention of City officials, nearly two years after filing their whistleblower complaint regarding Ja, the City Controller finally stepped in and abruptly terminated Ja’s additional contract, withholding over $400,000 in remaining contract funds.
- Three days later, on September 21, 2009, Kerr and Rivero filed a second complaint alleging that the then Director of Public Health, defendant Mitch Katz, may have engaged in a conflict of interest by accepting — according to FPPC public records — somewhere between $30,000 and $300,000 in consulting fees from Health Management Associates (HMA), a City contractor performing consulting services for the Department of Public Health. Both San Francisco’s Conflict of Interest policies and the California Political Reform Act prohibit government employees from participating in making of contracts with companies in which they have a financial interest.
- On March 2, 2010, Rivero and Kerr filed their third complaint regarding the raid of LHH’s patient gift fund, which scandal has been thoroughly reported in past issues of the Westside Observer over the past three years. The scandal was also broadcast in two KGO I-Team investigative reports in May 2010, which defendants Katz and Hirose had viewed, and which Katz and Hirose had responded to by publically posting on LHH’s web site a statement that Kerr and Rivero were mere detractors who were making false statements.
The two doctors had discovered that patient funds had been quietly diverted to three separate accounts for staff perquisites and amenities, and increasingly used for the “comfort and benefit” of staff and administrators, instead of patients. This feat was engineered by LHH’s then Executive Director, John Kanaley, who had quietly authorized setting up accounts for staff training within the patient gift fund, and had permitted inter-account transfers for staff amenities.
The City Controller’s audit of the clear misappropriation of charitable contributions intended for patient amenities languished for months, but the Controller’s highly-publicized audit finally ordered in November 2010 return of $350,000 improperly removed from the gift fund. [Editor: The City Controller’s restoration of funds to the patient gift fund is available in the Westside Observer’s December 2010 issue, at “Controller Restores $350,000 to Laguna Honda’s Patients.”]
Who Are These Two Doctors?
Rivero and Kerr take their professional and ethical obligations as doctors seriously. They passionately believe, having taken the Hippocratic oath to first do no harm, that among their responsibilities is to fully embrace advocating for patients.
Derek Kerr, MD, CNA attended Harvard Medical School, did his residency at Harlem Hospital and his Oncology Fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He has the rare distinction of being Board Certified in three separate medical specialties: Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Following his medical education and years of practicing medicine, he went back to school and became a Certified Nursing Assistant in 1988 to better understand patient care from a nursing perspective. Kerr was the Attending Physician of Laguna Honda’s Hospice for 21 years, was listed as LHH’s Palliative Care Consultant on the Medical Staff roster, and had been the Attending Physician assigned to LHH’s “Hospice and Palliative Care” service since 1994. During his tenure, LHH’s Hospice was widely acclaimed, receiving a national award. Kerr was Chair of the Bioethics Committee at Fairmount Hospital prior to employment at LHH.
Maria Rivero, MD, FACGS, graduated from UCSF Medical School and completed her residency at Beth Israel Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She is Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and also Geriatrics, and is a Fellow of the American College of Geriatrics Specialists. She also has been a Certified Eden Alternative Associate since 1998. Rivero worked at Laguna Honda Hospital for 22 years, and served as LHH’s Medical Director and its Assistant Medical Director between 1997 and 1999.
As former co-workers at LHH, Rivero and Kerr were highly regarded by hospital staff as among the best doctors in the hospital. As a team, they became whistleblowers at great professional risk to their careers; their core belief in ethical behavior led them to become whistleblowers, even though they never imagined initially that they would ultimately become involved in exposing fraud and corruption.
Correcting the Record: “No One Spoke Up”
In April 2012, as Kerr’s lawsuit dragged on, another former physician at Laguna Honda Hospital, Dr. Victoria Sweet, published her 348-page memoir about the hospital, titled God’s Hotel, which was riddled with errors and which, among other flaws, contained not one date to place her reporting into chronological or historical perspective. Among many other errors, Sweet incorporated three glaring untruths about Dr. Kerr. Sweet should have known better, since events in Kerr’s lawsuit had been unfolding for fully two years before she published her memoir. Sweet never bothered fact checking with Kerr or Rivero during the years she spent writing her memoir.
First, Sweet wrongly reported that a “Dr. Talley” — the pseudonym Sweet assigned to Laguna Honda’s medical director, Dr. Colleen Riley, one of the named defendants in Kerr’s lawsuit — claimed that it had been she, Dr. Talley, who had made the decision to terminate Dr. Kerr. Sweet reported that “Dr. Talley” announced during her first meeting as Medical Director of Laguna Honda’s medical staff, that it had been “entirely her decision” to lay off Dr. Kerr, and that then Director of Public Health Mitch Katz and LHH’s Executive Administrator Mivic Hirose had had nothing to do with the decision to terminate Kerr.
In fact, Mivic Hirose herself has claimed elsewhere that it was entirely her decision — not Dr. Riley’s — to terminate Dr. Kerr. Indeed, during depositions in Kerr’s case, it appears that Katz and Hirose decided on December 15, 2009, or earlier, to lay off Dr. Kerr, several weeks before Riley was appointed Medical Director at the end of December. When she learned of Katz’s and Hirose’s decision to target Kerr, Riley did nothing as Medical Director between January and March to stop the clear retaliation.
Next, Sweet wrongly opined that one of Dr. Kerr’s “principles” was that he would only take care of his own patients [at LHH, and that] he “almost never took call, or helped out, or covered other wards. So no rebellion broke out [when Kerr was terminated], and no one spoke up [when the Bell Tolled for Dr. Kerr].” But during discovery in Kerr’s case, LHH produced Ward Coverage Schedule records showing Kerr had, indeed, often provided coverage on other wards, took call, and often “helped out.” During depositions, Kerr’s lawyers showed that Kerr had, in fact, performed ward coverage, even more so than Dr. Riley had in some years. Other doctors also testified under oath that Kerr had done his share of coverage.
Sweet’s claim no one spoke up, and no rebellion broke out was a complete lie. A second petition opposing Dr. Kerr’s and Dr. Bouvier’s proposed layoffs — which requested both layoffs be rescinded — was signed by 16 physicians, including Dr. Sweet herself. The second petition, a “Statement of Concern,” was sent to defendant Dr. Colleen Riley and to Steven Thompson, MD, the Chief of Staff of LHH’s Medical Service, who forwarded it to Ms. Hirose.
Of the 20 doctors on the regular staff (excluding MD administrators), Kerr had 18 supporters, 16 of whom signed the petition — representing 80% — who were strongly opposed to Kerr’s layoff; thus, well over three-quarters of the regular Medical Staff had indeed spoken up, which Sweet had to have known but elided. [Although Bouvier’s layoff was rescinded and he went on to become the City’s highest-paid employee, Kerr’s layoff wasn’t rescinded.]
In addition, despite the environment of fear among LHH staff resulting from the culture of intimidation generated by LHH’s administration, all six members of the Hospice team risked their careers by signing and submitting a letter of support opposing Kerr’s layoff. Along with Rivero, the Hospice’s nurse manager, its social worker, and Dr. Monica Banchero-Hasson and Dr. September Williams also risked their careers by publicly testifying against Kerr’s layoff at a meeting of a Health Commission subcommittee — LHH’s so-called Joint Conference Committee made up of senior hospital administrators and three Health Commissioners.
Dr. Williams — a nationally recognized expert on Ethics, and a member of LHH’s Bioethics Committee — stated during the LHH-JCC’s March 23, 2010 meeting that she “protests the layoff of Drs. Kerr and Rivero because it will impact the provision of quality care to Laguna Honda’s most vulnerable and needy residents, and is against the principles of beneficence.” Sweet had to have known of the groundswell of support by those who, in fact, did speak up defending Kerr.
Third, Sweet also misreported the sequence of Kerr’s lay off and the timing of filing of his whistleblower complaints. Sweet sloppily reported Kerr had filed a whistleblower [law] suit “the day after his layoff … ‘alleging’ that his investigation of the drained Patient Gift Fund was the reason he was laid off.”
Sweet had to have known Kerr wasn’t making a mere “allegation,” since many of LHH’s physicians knew of the problems with the patient gift fund. The major story that Sweet completely elided from her memoir and which she had to have known of, was that everyone — including doctors on LHH’s medical service — knew Kerr was being eliminated in an act of retaliation.
In fact, the timeline shows that Kerr and Rivero submitted their patient gift fund whistleblower complaint to the Ethics Commission at 12:02 p.m. on March 4, 2010, which was promptly faxed to San Francisco’s District Attorney. Two hours later, Dr. Riley confirmed during a Medical Staff meeting that the only planned physician cut was a previously announced cut of a half-time position that wasn’t Dr. Kerr’s position.
But three-and-a-half hours later on the same day, March 4, Kerr’s Union (the Union of American Physicians and Dentists) was informed by LHH’s H.R. department that Kerr would be receiving a permanent layoff notice. Kerr was orally notified of his layoff on Monday, March 8 and was handed the printed layoff notice that was signed on Friday, March 5. It was ten days later — not one day later under Sweet’s misuse of literary license — when Kerr filed a Whistleblower Retaliation Complaint (not a lawsuit) with San Francisco’s Ethics Commission. Sweet should also have known that it was fully eight months later, on November 16, 2010, when Kerr filed his wrongful termination lawsuit in Superior Court, not the day after receiving his layoff notice, as she deliberately misreported.
Lightning Strikes Twice
The wrongful termination of Kerr in 2010 follows on the heels of Laguna Honda Hospital’s wrongful termination of Dr. John Ulrich, Jr. in 1998. Ulrich — who had also spoken up in 1998 about patient care during a Laguna Honda medical staff meeting and called the health department’s decision to cut two medical staff positions “an injustice to patients” — was summarily terminated by Laguna Honda Hospital, just as was Dr. Kerr. Ulrich was forced to sue the City, after the state medical board had cleared him of any medical wrongdoing and found no problems with Ulrich’s care of patients.
Ulrich, whose case had advanced to jury trial, won a $4.3 million judgment in federal court in 2004, subsequently reduced to a $1.5 million negotiated settlement. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper reported in its June 24, 2004 issue, a U.S. District Court of Northern California jury concluded that LHH “had violated Ulrich’s first amendment rights to free speech, and denied him a fair hearing to clear his name.”
Strikingly, the then San Francisco City Attorney spokesperson, Matt Dorsey, claimed in 2004 that Ulrich’s dismissal was “not an instance of reprisal.” Dorsey went on to claim there was “not a shred of credible evidence to indicate wrongdoing on the part of the City.” Dorsey foamed, “We consider this outcome [Ulrich’s award] an aberration.”
A decade later, Dorsey is still the City Attorney’s spokesperson. Given Kerr’s settlement, it’s clear Dorsey may be unable to distinguish an aberration from a clear pattern.
Given Kerr’s precedent-setting settlement award, it’s also clear there is a past- and current-practice pattern documenting that LHH’s senior management engages in wrongful termination and willful retaliation against employees who exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech.
The pattern isn’t limited to just Laguna Honda Hospital; it happens all too frequently in many City departments.
The Costs of 100% Retaliation
The Ethics Commission did nothing to protect Kerr’s career after he submitted his patient gift fund whistleblower complaint with Dr. Rivero. Instead, he was told to get a lawyer, and Ethics took two years to complete investigating Kerr’s complaint.
“In retrospect, a lawsuit was our only hope, because Ethics hasn’t sustained a single whistleblower retaliation claim since it was founded, not one,” Kerr laments. “Many studies show that reprisals against whistleblowers are common, with retaliation rates up to 90%. But with San Francisco’s Ethics Commission, the retaliation rate is always zero,” Kerr says.
Kerr was referring to the fact that in November 2012 the City Attorney’s Office reported that between 2007 and 2012, the City settled 103 cases involving prohibited personnel practices for a total of $11 million, including wrongful, retaliatory termination; racial-, age-, and disability-discrimination; sexual harassment; and other prohibited personnel practices.
Despite the City Attorney having concluded that at least 13 wrongful termination settlement cases have cost the City $1.3 million since 2007, San Francisco’s Ethics Commission has dismissed every whistleblower retaliation complaint filed at Ethics. Ethics has “dismissed” at least 18 cases alleging prohibited retaliation, for a 100% “clearance” rate, hoping to suggest there is zero retaliation against City employees. Studies show that nationwide, retaliation against whistleblowers is common, with rates up to 90%.
Only in San Francisco would our Ethics Commission dismiss every retaliation complaint received, claiming that zero retaliation ever occurred. Despite Ethics’ nonsense that there have been zero retaliation cases, it appears that, in fact, San Francisco may well have a 100% retaliation rate.
Prominent San Francisco open government, public-interest, and accountability advocate James Chaffee — who was an inaugural member of San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force serving as its first Vice Chair, and is now affiliated with San Francisco’s ad hoc Sunshine Posse — wrote to the Board of Supervisors on March 30, 2013, noting “Dr. Kerr’s case has many themes that reverberate throughout City Hall — the influence of private money; the misapplication of purpose of the money; the automatic defense of incompetent administrators; and, most of all, the acceptance of corruption as ‘business as usual,’ all the way to the top.”
Drs. Kerr and Rivero, for their part, hope some public benefit will come from the delayed justice they have endured.
As William Bennett Turner, a faculty member who teaches courses on the First Amendment at U.C. Berkeley noted in his book “Figures of Speech: First Amendment Heroes and Villains” published last year, First Amendment heroes are those who say what they believe, and have the courage to face the consequences.
Villains — such as the defendants in Kerr’s lawsuit — are those who want to suppress free speech that they disagree with.
Kerr and Rivero accidentally became First Amendment heroes. We owe them a debt of gratitude for risking their careers exposing fraud and corruption, and for advocating on behalf of LHH’s patients, who are often the poorest of the poor.
Kerr’s monetary and non-monetary settlement awards don’t begin to adequately reimburse him for the damage to his and Rivero’s careers. But there’s a vast community grateful for his and Rivero’s courage to speak out.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
Postscript: The City and LHH’s CEO, Mivic Hirose, Still Don’t Get It
On March 26, 2013 — at the same hour that the Board of Supervisors voted to approve Kerr’s monetary and non-monetary settlement terms — Drs. Kerr and Rivero, and this reporter, instead attended a meeting of the LHH-JCC (Joint Conference Committee), consisting of three Health Commissioners and LHH’s senior leadership, which meets every other month.
Following Hirose’s customary Executive Administrator’s report, the JCC took public comment. Kerr, for his part, testified that bullying and getting rid of whistleblowers is both counter-productive and illegal. As he began to testify that his retaliation settlement agreement requires that LHH’s Executive Committee be provided a one-hour training on employee’s whistleblowing and First Amendment rights — which training Kerr feels should be expanded to all LHH senior managers — Hirose began to openly smirk, just seconds after I took this photo.
I blurted, quite out of order, “There’s nothing funny about this Mivic, why are you smirking?” She quickly wiped the smirk off of her face, glaring at me, obviously not contrite. Hirose clearly doesn’t get it, or seem to understand the gravity of the $750,000 settlement plus the City Attorney’s hefty legal fees spent defending the pretext that Hirose, Katz, and Riley were was innocent of retaliatory termination. Maybe she thinks money grows on trees in LHH’s new orchard.
Next, Dr. Rivero testified on March 26 that a recent Coalition on Compassionate Care award to LHH’s Hospice and Palliative Care Service tells a different story than Hirose’s and LHH’s new press release. Rivero noted that the award honors 25 years of hospice care, which couldn’t have happened without Kerr’s 21 years as Hospice physician. Rivero testified that it is shameless self-promotion to aggrandize LHH and Anne Hughes, RN, by ignoring the founder of the hospice program, Dr. Kerr.
Later, I testified that the City’s and Defendant’s defense pretext that Hirose was innocent is over, or Kerr’s settlement deal would never have been reached. Hirose has clearly cost taxpayers over $1 million — at minimum — between Kerr’s $750,000 settlement and the $350,000 ordered restored to LHH’s patient gift fund.
I testified that the Health Commission should recommend that DPH terminate Hirose at once, the sham of her “I’m innocent!” pretext being over.
But there were just more smirks and blank stares all around the table.
As Mr. Chaffee has noted, the acceptance of corruption as “business as usual, all the way to the top,” is what runs San Francisco’s so-called “City Family.” Just ask the current mayor. Or our former mayor, Willie Brown, who both probably view the $11 million in prohibited personnel actions and wrongful termination settlements awarded during their tenures as mayor— and the ensuing damage to the careers of innocent employees — to just be a cost of doing corrupt business-as-usual. Between corrupt friends, perhaps $11 million is considered chump change.
April 2013
The High Cost of City Government
Voracious Management Salaries Rob the City’s Lowest-Paid Workers
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
Even while skyrocketing salaries for upper management in San Francisco City government now costs $1.6 billion, excluding fringe benefits, the City has proposed imposing a “reverse pay equity” (pay cut) for 45 lower-paid job classification codes for new hires, creating a two-tiered salary structure for performing the same work.
Bloated salaries for San Francisco’s top City managers contribute significantly to the purported $4.4 billion in so-called unfunded City pension contributions, since City salaries drive pensions paid out.
Warning: Taxpayers who want to know what our local government is up to with our tax dollars, extensive salary data is presented ahead, which clearly shows City Hall's penchant for robbing from the lowest-paid in order to feed the voracious appetite of upper-management salaries. It's a story of robbing form the poorest to feed the already reich.”
Inequities in salaries of City employees deserve a close look-see, since nearly one-quarter — 7,327 — of all City employees are half-time or less, employees who averaged just $12,492 in annual base pay in FY 10-11. Fully 32 percent — 11,783 City employees — earned less than $50,000 in base pay in calendar year 2012, averaging just $22,491 in total pay.
Contrast that to the glut of City staff who in calendar year 2012 earned over $100,000 in base pay — 7,864 such employees, or 21.6 percent — who averaged $124,715 in base pay and averaged a staggering $143,131 in total pay. Or contrast it to the 12,309 employees — 33.5% — who earned over $90,000 in total pay in calendar year 2012, averaging $110,473 in regular pay and $129,622 in total pay.
Given the salary inequities between the lowest- and highest-paid City employees, the stench of probable political patronage using taxpayer funds begins to waft through the air.
Chops to the Lowest Paid
The City has proposed trimming 10% from new-hire salaries for payroll and personnel clerks, certified nursing assistants, and hospital eligibility workers, claiming they are overpaid compared to the Bay Area market. The City also proposes a seven-and-a-half percent pay cut for psychiatric technicians, child support officers, legal process clerks, legal secretaries, psychiatric social workers, and museum guards. The City also wants its pharmacists, custodians/porters, medical social workers, various health care workers, employment and training specialists, and diagnostic imaging technicians to take five percent new-hire pay cuts.
At the same time, the City is not proposing pay cuts from the 722 senior managers earning more than $90,000 in base pay in the 0900-series of management job classifications, who averaged $136,242 in base pay.
Between calendar years 2008 and 2012, the City has already eliminated 734 positions across the 45 job classifications the City now proposes to cut salaries of, pocketing $20 million to $30 million in base pay from the lost 734 positions, and probably transferring the duties to higher-paid employees. Should its new pay cut proposal prevail for the 45 job classifications, the City may realize approximately $13.7 million in additional “salary savings” — albeit, spread across several decades — through attrition and replacement with new hires who will be paid at the lower salaries.
At the end of June 2011, the 3,864 employees remaining in these 45 job classifications earned average base-pay salary of just $49,061. Of the 3,864 remaining, fully 18%, nearly one-fifth, worked less than half-time status, averaging salaries of just $12,389. Only 49.5 percent of employees in these job codes worked full-time, at an average salary of $60,913. The City will likely convert many of the new hires in these job classifications to part-time status, and extract pay cuts of up to ten percent from half-time employees who are already averaging just $12,389 in base pay.
This follows on the heels of “de-skilling” of clerical and secretarial employees in the 1440-series, who forfeited 452 positions between calendar years 2008 and 2012, allowing the City to pocket another $13.4 million in salaries. “De-skilling” involves assigning the work of higher job classification clerical employees to lower-paid clerical staff — or alternatively, of handing the work of skilled clerical employees to highly-paid management staff, where the work is performed for much higher pay, if at all.
In FY 2010-11, the City’s 1,600 clerical employees in the 1400-series job classification codes averaged just $42,026 in base pay, but the sad fact is that of those 1,600 clerical employees, 21 percent worked less than half-time and averaged just $7,970 in base pay.
Combining the 452 clerical positions eliminated between calendar years 2008 and 2012, and the 734 positions already eliminated from the 45 job classification codes, the City has eliminated at least 1,186 lower-paid and part-time positions, pocketing between $33 million and $50 million, which the City then used to increase the number of, and salaries of, highly-paid managers.
Much of the work formerly performed by clerical workers has been given to far-higher-paid managers, although the City has attempted to hire so-called “as needed” public service aides to fill the gap. Knowledgeable and experienced clerical workers are being replaced by aides.
In the three-year period between FY 08-09 and FY 10-11, the City added 587 part-time public service aides in the 9900-series job classifications to replace the 452 clerical employees eliminated in the 1440-series, bringing the total number of public service aides to 1,309, of whom 1,211, 92.5 percent — work less than half-time (so the City doesn’t have to pay them any fringe benefits), and who averaged just $4,590 (yes, less than $5,000 each, on average) during FY 10-11.
The City has also forced many of the higher-skilled secretaries formerly in the 1440-series into the lower-paid 1406 Senior Clerk classification. During the same time period of the public service aide hiring binge, the City added 106 additional 1406 Senior Clerks, who now average just $43,665 in base pay; 12.4 percent of the now 201 Senior Clerks work less than half time, averaging just $10,543 in base pay annually.
Another example, to be clear, of the part-time direction the City is headed in, is that 494, 21.2 %, of 2,330 Muni drivers earned average salaries in FY 10-11 of just $11,030, having worked less than 1,040 hours, which is half-time, or 0.5 FTE (“full-time equivalent”) status.
Across all job classification codes in FY 10-11, fully 21.3 percent, 7,327 City employees, were half-time (or less), averaging just $12,492 annually in base pay. They stand in stark contrast to the 7,864, or 21.6 percent, of employees who earned over $100,000 in base pay and averaged $143,131 in total pay.
Excesses for the Highest Paid
After former Supervisor Tom Ammiano first noted in 2003 that City managers earning over $90,000 were a problem, voracious management salaries have climbed steadily upward for over a decade. Indeed, on February 20, Matier and Ross lamented in the San Francisco Chronicle that the days when it was news that a handful of City managers were earning $100,000-plus salaries were long gone — now such highly-compensated employees has somehow become acceptable.
Matier and Ross reported that approximately 572 San Francisco city employees are paid more than Governor Jerry Brown’s $173,987. Indeed, San Francisco does have 379 City employees who were paid more in base pay in 2012 than the governor earned; those 379 averaged an astounding $193,415 in base pay each, sucking out a combined $78.6 million in total pay from the City’s payroll. They also reported that 195 City employees made more than $200,000, and that one quarter of City employees make more than $100,000 without overtime.
Across the decade since 2003, the City has added another 553 managers in the 0900-series job classification codes, bringing the total to 722 of such managers in 2012. Of the 722 managers, we have 570 in the 0922 to 0943 manager series (up to Manager VII), and another 131 Deputy Directors of Departments and Department Heads (Deputy Directors I through V and Department Heads I through V) in the 0951 to 0965 series, even though the City’s core business has not changed sufficiently in the past decade to warrant the hiring of 533 more managers in these job classifications. This single increase costs taxpayers an additional $82.4 million annually, and now costs at least $101.5 million in base salary alone for the 722 incumbent senior managers.
Why does San Francisco need at least 722 senior managers — or more, since there are many other job classification codes that include the word “manager” in their job titles — to run just (approximately) 60 City departments?
Matier and Ross failed to note that in the five years between 2007 and 2012, the City felt the need to add an additional 1,461 employees earning over $150,000 in total pay, at an increased cost of $269.3 million. The City now has 2,777 employees earning over $150,000 annually in total pay, at a combined cost of $496.1 million.
While City Hall turns a blind eye towards the City’s $4.4 billion in purported unfunded pension contributions, it is simultaneously turning a blind eye to the ever-escalating unfunded liability of salaries for top City managers who apparently feel an entitlement to excessive salaries. Their top salaries drive top pensions, just as night follows day.
Until taxpayers say enough is enough, expect these City managers to keep earning far more than our State governor, the president of the United States, and private sector CEO’s, while the City’s lowest-paid workers are robbed of their jobs, or face drastic pay cuts.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com
March 2013
Laguna Honda’s Continuing Scandals
A Sordid Tale of Two Non-Profits
By Patrick Monette-Shaw
The recent sordid history of two non-profits that purport to serve residents of Laguna Honda Hospital (LHH) appears to have resulted in the dissolution of one of the non-profits, declining contributions to the hospital from the other, and an eight-year low in public contributions to Laguna Honda Hospital’s patient gift fund.
“We were so shocked at being driven out of Laguna Honda, right after reporting irregularities with the Patient Gift Fund in 2010, that we figured we had touched on major violations that Laguna Honda and the Department of Public Health were desperate to hide,” former Laguna Honda Hospital physicians Dr. Maria Rivero and Dr. Derek Kerr said.”
All of this may have been avoidable. But a confluence of factors appears to have contributed to unintended consequences for all three programs. Former City Attorney Louise Renne’s unfortunate statements in June 2004 may have set the stage for their downward trajectory.
Renne—who claims that she was responsible for the ground-breaking lawsuit against tobacco companies that provided much of the rebuild funds, when it was former Supervisor Angela Alioto who accomplished that feat—and though she failed to raise a single dime towards new furnishings for the rebuilt hospital, Renne was awarded an engraved plaque in Laguna Honda’s new facilities.
Renne appears to be finally throwing in the towel, and is reportedly dissolving her foundation following an apparent investigation by the Registry of Charitable Trusts, a division of California’s Attorney General.
RIP Laguna Honda Foundation
In response to a fairly innocuous “show us the money” request placed on January 13 by this Observer columnist for audited financial statements of Ms. Renne’s Foundation, Melanie Beene, CEO and President of Community Initiatives—the “fiscal sponsor” handling the books of Renne’s non-profit Foundation—responded unexpectedly on January 14, that Renne’s foundation is no longer a sponsored project of Community Initiatives.
This loss means Renne can no longer shield her Foundation’s revenues and expenses by aggregating them under lump-sum reporting by Community Initiatives to the IRS. She has lost her IRS cover.
Beene also volunteered that, to the best of her knowledge, the Foundation is dissolving.
By mid-week, a source who spoke on condition of anonymity reported that the Attorney General’s office—presumably the A.G.’s Registry of Charitable Trusts that oversees operations of non-profits in California had either investigated or audited the Foundation.
The source further reported that Renne’s Foundation may have had to return a $50,000 grant to one of its donors, and may have expended the last of the foundation’s funds responding to the A.G.’s investigation. The A.G. noted that it is highly improper and very unusual business practice for a foundation that has received independent non-profit, public-benefit corporation status from the IRS—as Renne’s Foundation has—to also operate as a so-called “project” of fiscal-sponsor entities such as Community Initiatives.
By January 18, not only had Laguna Honda Hospital removed from its web site its previous philanthropy web page link to the foundation, Attorney General investigators also reported they would neither confirm nor deny any investigation.
“We were so shocked at being driven out of Laguna Honda, right after reporting irregularities with the Patient Gift Fund in 2010, that we figured we had touched on major violations that Laguna Honda and the Department of Public Health were desperate to hide,” former Laguna Honda Hospital physicians Dr. Maria Rivero and Dr. Derek Kerr said.
“So we reported our findings about the patient Gift Fund; Volunteers, Inc., and the Laguna Honda Foundation to the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, the U.S. Attorney’s Tax Division, and the IRS. Had we not been ‘laid-off’ and harassed, we would have reported solely to the City’s Whistleblower Program,” the two doctors disclosed. The Attorney General’s office apparently followed up on their ethical concerns.
Dissolution the Foundation appears to be delayed fallout from the scandal involving Laguna Honda Hospital’s raid of its patient gift fund in order to fund staff amenities, set in motion by previous Executive Administrator, John Kanaley, who died in 2009. The gift fund was eventually restored some $350,000, following a long-delayed audit by the Controller.
Gift Fund Donations Plummet Again
The “Annual Report of Gifts Received,” issued by the Department of Public Health’s CFO, shows that in Fiscal Year 2011-2012 ending in June 2012, private giving to Laguna Honda’s patient gift fund dropped to just $7,042, excluding a one-time $20,000 donation from Safeway, Inc. for a nutrition project in the hospital.
That $7,042 represents the lowest level of private contributions to the patient gift fund since FY 2006-2007, when donations to the gift fund were 14 times higher, at $97,915. Even going back to FY 2004-2005, the year after the Foundation’s formation, donations to the gift fund were ten times higher, at $77,003.
Of interest, donations to the patient gift fund took a drastic “fiscal cliff” fall between Fiscal Years 2006–2007 and 2007–2008, plummeting from $97,915 to just $28,656, the year after Renne installed, former Deputy City Attorney Marc Slavin, as Laguna Honda’s Director of Communications in 2007.
Slavin’s abrasiveness with members of the public may have contributed to the decline in donations to the patient gift fund.
Volunteers, Inc. Support Dries Up
Since 1957, Laguna Honda’s Volunteers, Inc. has financially supported both the patients at Laguna Honda, and its cadre of volunteers. In March 2012, Volunteers, Inc. re-branded itself, changing its name to “Friends of Laguna Honda.” It also decamped from Laguna Honda Hospital, and moved its offices from 90 New Montgomery to an address in Mountain View, after its former president Joseph Lehrer stepped down.
As the graph of data from the Health Department shows, donations from Volunteers, Inc. to Laguna Honda and its Volunteer’s Department have declined in the past five fiscal years, dropping by half—from $91,292 in FY 2006-2007, to just $46,294 in FY 2011-2012. But the CFO’s data only shows part of the story.
Turning to Volunteers, Inc.’s Form 990 tax returns from calendar year 2010 to calendar year 2011, grants awarded by Volunteers, Inc. to Laguna Honda for patient recreation and other services (including bus trips off campus) plunged from $171,261 in 2010 to just $20,018 in 2011 (albeit, the $20,018 grant more than likely came from Safeway, and may have been misreported by DPH’s CFO as a donation to the patient gift fund).
The $151,243 outright reduction in Volunteer, Inc.’s grants to Laguna Honda also tells only part of the story. Overall, Volunteers, Inc. reports on its tax returns that it had spent $394,250 on patient amenities, recreation, refreshments, and other “program services” to hospital residents in 2010, but cut that amount to $179,731 in 2011, a net loss of $214,519 in various services to patients.
In 2011, the $179,731 in program services for residents translates to 49.4% of Volunteers, Inc.’s total expenses of $363,932, down from 56.9% spent on program services from its total expense spending in 2009. The remainder in both years was eaten up by fundraising and management-and-general expense categories.
Charity watchdog groups, such as GuideStar.org and Charity Navigator, suggest that the standard benchmark for non-profits is to spend at least 70% of their total expenses on “program services” to serve actual beneficiaries. Volunteers, Inc.’s spending of just 49.4% on program services in 2011 fell short.
Although Volunteers, Inc. awarded $14,990 to LHH’s Volunteer Services in 2010, its tax return shows that it eliminated any financial support whatsoever to the Volunteer Services Department in 2011, in addition to the $151,243 grant reduction for patient amenities.
Between curtailing support to patients and completely eliminating support to actual volunteers of the hospital, Volunteers, Inc. cut its total spending on program services by $230,000 across a single calendar year. Across the same period, its tax returns show Volunteers, Inc. tripled its spending on public relations, from $11,072 to $33,693.
Who Does PR Slavin Work For?
Renne hand-picked Marc Slavin who had been her public information officer when she was the City Attorney.
Slavin informed this author shortly thereafter that his job was to “stop the negative publicity.” He never clarified whether it was to stop negative publicity for Renne’s Foundation, or for the Department of Public Health (DPH), which never had a PR officer assigned to LHH for 100+ years until Slavin’s arrival.
Between his base salary and fringe benefits, Slavin has cost taxpayers over $950,000 in six short years. His assistant, Linda Acosta, adds another $500,000 in salaries and benefits. Between them, $1.5 million in taxpayer funds may have gone up in P.R. smoke and mirrors.
Slavin, of course, is the P.R. wizard who told the I-Team’s investigative reporter Dan Noyes that LHH’s “patient gift fund isn’t for patients.” His propaganda campaign continues.
Magical Commingling of Funds
The unholy commingling of private and public sector funds began when Volunteers, Inc. awarded $375,000 to hire staff for Renne’s new Foundation in 2003. This was an expense completely unrelated to the exempt purposes for which the IRS awarded non-profit status to it.
As the Observer has reported in “A Foundation’s Dirty Laundry” (Dec ‘12), the commingling of public and private funds between the City, the Foundation and Volunteers, Inc., has never been audited, adequately or otherwise.
In addition to the $1.5 million in salaries and benefits funded by SF’s general fund for Slavin and Acosta to perform liaison work for Renne’s Foundation across the past six years, the City has provided free office space in Suite A-150 to house Renne’s Foundation, replete with janitorial services supplied by City employee staff, and free utilities.
Shooting Herself in the Foot
Renne published a guest opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle (“Laguna Honda needs more than what bonds provide” (6/3/04), claiming that the driving purpose governing formation of her Foundation was to raise private-sector funds for furniture, fixtures, and equipment for the new LHH. But by claiming that “regardless of the [patient] population mix receiving services at Laguna Honda—a policy decision in the hands of the city’s director of public health”—her Foundation had been established to meet the immediate needs of residents and other users. And she claimed the new LHH would move LHH “from a traditional medical model to a social residential model of care.”
Renne’s phrase “regardless of the patient population mix,” may have unwittingly sent the message that displacing the frail elderly and disabled that Laguna Honda had traditionally served was OK, and that using the hospital for psychosocial mental health rehabilitation, instead, was acceptable and a decision best left to then-Director of Public Health Katz.
That op-ed may have directly led to a drop in donations to LHH’s patient gift fund, and may have effectively killed any chance to attract donors. After all, Renne announced a major shift in the hospital’s mission that may have chilled philanthropic donors. Charitable donations to the elderly are one thing; but “psychosocial rehabilitation” has a much smaller universe of donors.
Ms. Renne Fails to Respond
Ms. Renne was offered an opportunity to confirm or deny whether she is, in fact, dissolving her foundation, and if not, what her plans may be, but failed to respond by press time. She appears to have chosen to withhold information again, just as she has from the IRS, the Health Commission, and the charity-donating public, any and all details concerning her foundation’s revenue and expenses.
SF’s Health Commission still has work to do: it should fully audit the commingling of funds at LHH and unplug its PR division .
The Health Commission has an ethical responsibility to formally notify Renne that the Commission expects any funds and all assets remaining in the foundation upon dissolution be donated only to Volunteers, Inc., or to LHH’s patient gift fund, for direct patient benefit.
Renne shouldn’t be let off the accountability hook quite so easily.
Monette-Shaw is an open-government accountability advocate, a patient advocate, and a member of California’s First Amendment Coalition. Feedback: monette-shaw@westsideobserver.com.
February 2013