Corruption in the Executive Branch of San Francisco government has been less of an issue in the mayor’s race than I would have expected. Two of Mayor London Breed’s most senior department heads are now in federal prison. Another senior administrator had to resign as part of the ongoing corruption scandal. The head of Breed’s Human Rights Commission just resigned.
The Police Department couldn’t seem to keep track of money spent by a contractor that is now under criminal investigation.
It’s possible, as Breed insists, that she knew nothing about any of these problems, which were happening right in front of her, until the FBI started raiding homes and offices and the news media started exposing conflicts. If that’s the case, one could certainly question her management abilities.
But so far, the voters seem to be focused more on public safety, housing, homelessness, and neighborhoods than on a pattern of ongoing civic corruption.
Sups. Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safai, who are both running for mayor, have called for a hearing Thursday/17 at the Board of Supes Government Audit and Oversight Commitee to identify what and when departments knew about fraudulent activities within the Executive Branch Departments, such as the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and Human Rights Commission (HRC), and their contractors, as well as what preventative follow-up steps were implemented after, including review for conflicts of any staff taking over these functions and duties; and requesting the Mayor, City Controller, Human Resources Department, and SFPD to report.
I doubt very seriously that the mayor will show up.
But the hearing might shine some light on how this pattern of cheating and bribery and misuse of taxpayer dollars (often at embarrassingly modest levels) has endured for so many years, with so little oversight.
The same committee will consider paying $650,000 to settle a lawsuit over allegations of systemic racism in the Police Department. Yulanda Williams, who rose to the rank of captain in the department, was also for years the head of Officers for Justice, which advocates for Black cops.
She endured, according to the lawsuit, years of attacks from department supervisors and the Police Officers Association.
And now the taxpayers will pay for it.
That meeting starts at 10am.
The Planning Commission will consider Thursday/24 a fairly unusual piece of legislation by Sup. Myrna Melgar that would change the way below-market-rate condos can be sold on the market.
The problem: Some (a very small number of) owners of these condos paid more for them years ago than the city will allow them to sell for. That’s because the city has changed its rules for what income and price qualifies at “affordable.”
In this case, there appears to be only one family, owning a unit on Valencia St., that is facing the dilemma. They want to sell to be closer to an aging parent, but with a soft market, high interest rates, and city rules capping the sales price they will lose so much money they can’t afford to sell.
The BMR ownership units were never meant to be speculative commodities; owners can sell and get some equity, but not market-rate profits.
Melgar’s bill would increase the selling price for some older units a level affordable to people making 130 percent of the Area Median Income (that’s two people with a combined income of $155,000) and increase the eligibility to people with up to 150 percent AMI ($179,850).
That might make some of the older units easier to sell—at a higher price.
From the commission’s staff report:
The proposed Ordinance creates a new waiver for the price and qualifying income limits. This is needed to offset some structural changes in the Program. The Valencia Street unit is an older BMR unit, and the current owners are the second owners. When these owners purchased the unit in 2018, the affordable price was calculated using a method MOHCD now finds is not reflective of current affordable pricing. MOHCD used the newer methodology in 2022 to calculate the new affordable price for the Valencia Street unit. This resulted in an affordable price approximately $60,000 less than the original purchase price. The proposed waiver allows MOHCD to reset the affordable price to the original purchase price, instead of relying on all the standard factors and assumptions to calculate the price. This is also meant to make the repricing process for eligible BMR units simpler and easier for staff and the public to understand. …
After the price is adjusted, the qualifying income is also adjusted to make sure that buyers have enough income to afford the new, higher price. This adjustment is limited to an increase of 20% of the qualifying income AMI, up to a maximum of 150%. If the qualifying income is not adjusted in conjunction with this price increase, future buyers would likely spend more than 33% of their household income on housing costs. This would make the unit inherently unaffordable moving forward. Therefore, the price adjustment also needs the corresponding qualifying income adjustment to make sure the unit is affordable to buyers in the future.
The commissioners last week were dubious. Several suggested that the plan needed more work, and Theresa Imperial specifically suggested that the legislation should sunset after several years, because market conditions might change.
Commissioner Amy Campbell moved that the panel send the measure to the supes with a recommendation for approval, but Imperial, joined by Gilbert Williams and Kathrin Moore, voted No. With one member absent, the motion died, 3-3.
Then the commissioners agreed to continue the matter for a week, so it will be back on Thursday.
Housing activist Calvin Welch testified at the hearing and told the commissioners that the basis of the BMR program was “an exaction on market-rate units” to provide affordable units, and that the developers who profited from the luxury projects were supposed to subsidize the lower-priced units. He urged them to “make sure that deal is still in place.”
The hearing starts at noon.
