Chronicle lies about SF AIDS Foundation exec's $207K salary

The following letter is from the incredible AIDS accountability activist Patrick Monette-Shaw. He has been posting this great letter on assorted AIDS activists boards around the web, and I pray that the Examiner runs his letter this week. We need to keep attention focused on the SFAF and how it operates, especially with the funds it receives from the board of supes and the DPH.

You can thank Patrick for his letter about the greed at SFAF through his email, which is: pmonette-shaw [at] earthlink.net.


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June 18, 2002

Letters Editor
San Francisco Examiner
988 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Letter to the Editor,

Regarding Paul Wisotsky’s letter to the editor (The Examiner, June 17), defending Pat Christen’s salary at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, what can you expect of a yes-man appointed to SFAF’s Board?

Witsotsky wrongly claims Christen’s $207K salary is “within the range offered by many nonprofits of similar size and scope of work.” He’s lying.

Take, for example, San Francisco’s Project Open Hand. Comparing Open Hand’s tax return to SFAF’s for the period ending June 2000, the two organizations’ sizes are comparable (125 employees for the former, and 111 for the latter). Yet, Open Hand’s Executive Director, Tom Nolan, earned only $113K compared to Christen’s $200K, while each managed roughly the same number of employees. The two organizations’ budgets differed by a mere $10 million, which is insignificant compared to the Mayor’s or Governor’s respective budgets and number of employees.

On June 18, The Examiner reported SFAF has laid off 25% of its workforce and that Christen took no pay cut to save these employees their jobs. Contrast that to Nolan, who recently took a pay cut and eliminated pay raises for his subordinates in order to avoid as many layoffs at Open Hand as feasible. Wisotsky doesn’t get the message that Christen can well afford a 50% pay cut from her $207K salary in order to save jobs at SFAF.

After all, with fewer prevention workers employed at SFAF, HIV/AIDS rates are bound to climb; when AIDS rates soar five years from now, Christen will have blood on her hands, having directly contributed to an increased epidemic because she is unwilling to cut her, and her top five paid employees salaries by 50%, saving SFAF $500K from the $1 million paid these six people. How many jobs, and how many additional seroconversions prevented, could have been saved with that $500,000? How many single-mothers raising two kids who are SFAF’s lowest-paid employees will lose their jobs so that Christen can keep her fat-cat salary?

SFAF’s next Board of Director’s meeting is Monday, June 24, at 7:30 p.m., 995 Market, 2nd Floor. This meeting needs to be packed by community members, demanding that the SFAF Board re-examine its flawed priorities. Advance 24-hour pre-registration is required; call the Board Liaison at 415/487-3053 before 5:00 p.m. Friday to register. To request a three-minute public testimony slot, 48-hour advance notice is required; call before Thursday, June 20.

SFAF pays a lot of lip service in its mission statement to “stopping the human suffering caused by AIDS.” With blood on her hands, Christen is not helping alleviate human suffering; she’s causing it. Anyone doubting this might want to search out Patricia Nell Warren’s current (June 2002) A&U magazine article, “Dollars and Death,” which keenly analyzes how many people with AIDS have died owing to AIDS-funding fiscal crimes, such as Christen’s unethical salary and fiduciary nincompoopism, Wisotsky’s apologist misinformation notwithstanding.

Patrick Monette-Shaw
San Francisco

Monette-Shaw is an Independent Community Observer/AIDS Accountability Research Investigator based in San Francisco.

Thanks to the Sunshine Ordinance for nonprofits receiving city funds, the SF
AIDS Foundation will soon be holding one of its required open board meetings.
As to be expected by apathy of the BAR's editor, Cynthia Liar, not a single
story has appeared about this upcoming meeting. Those wishing to attend the
meeting, should follow the strict guidelines established by the SFAF board
for attendance and put in a request to attend.

Would be nice for the Examiner, the Chronicle, the Weekly and the Guardian,
maybe even the Independent, to send reporters to the meeting and to give
readers an accounting of what happens. The apathy around AIDS accountability
at the BAR guarantees it will not send a writer to the meeting.



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http://www.sfaf.org/takeaction/board.html

2002 Meeting Dates

The Board's two designated public meetings in 2002 will be held 5:30-9pm on
Monday, April 15, and 7:30-9pm on Monday, June 24.

Meetings take place at the AIDS Foundation office, located at 995 Market
Street at Sixth, in the Main Conference Room on the second floor.



Public Attendance at Board Meetings

Members of the public are welcome to attend regularly scheduled meetings of
the Board of Directors. Occasionally selected portions of meetings will be
held in executive session and guests will be asked to leave. Individuals
wishing to attend must notify the Board Chair by telephone through the Board
Liaison at 415/487-3053 at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. The request
should include the name of the individual wishing to attend and a contact
phone number. The Board Chair will review the request and contact the
individual prior to the commencement of the meeting.



Public Testimony at Meetings of the Board of Directors

Members of the public are welcome to address the Board of Directors. In order
to plan our agenda, we would appreciate as much advance notice as possible
(at least ten days notice is preferred) but we will accept requests up to 48
hours prior to the commencement of the meeting. In addition, the following
steps must be followed:

Notify the Board Chair in writing or by telephone through the Board Liaison
at 415/487-3053 at least 48 hours prior to the meeting.

Include in the request the topic and the time requested to present the
information to the Board and a contact telephone number and contact name.

The Chair, and when possible the Executive Committee of the Board and/or its
members, will review the request and, when appropriate, invite members of the
public to present to the Board.

If a request cannot be honored, the Board Chair will identfy an alternative
form of communication with the organization.



Community Outreach by the Board of Directors

During the year, members of the Board of Directors will regularly meet with
members of the public who demonstrate an active, determined commitment to
hasten the end of the pandemic and to promote the basic human rights and
well-being of people affected by HIV disease. Individuals and organizations
wishing further information and/or involvement in community outreach with
SFAF board members should contact the Chair of the Board.