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Why Bayview Hunters Point wants to Recall Maxwell
The residents of Bayview Hunters Point are fed up with being ignored and disrespected at City Hall. The recall is a last resort in our effort to have our life and death issues and our demands for representation heard.Worried about a Mayor selected replacement? Here's what to do.
WHY THE BVHP DRIVE TO RECALL THEIR SUPERVISOR?
We, the residents of Bayview Hunters Point, the most distressed community of the City, are fed up with being ignored and having no representation at City Hall.
The City, its Agencies and Elected Officials have inflicted serious harm on this community for decades. They, the people we elect and the appointed City functionaries, are responsible for the ongoing poverty, ill health, infant mortality, inferior education, joblessness, addiction, homicides, and violence born of hopelessness that plagues our neighborhood.
People are asking us, “Do we think ANY supervisor can solve the problems in Bayview Hunters point?”
Our answer is “YES. The City Government in collaboration with the Redevelopment Agency, which is endowed with privileged power from the State of California and through their policies of continuous gentrification and removal of poor people and people of Color, have created this ‘ghetto.’ These same people must undo their deadly programs against the people who live here.
City politicians in their efforts to serve the will of big business and their own political ambitions destroy the lives and families of low-income working and poor people.
When district elections were instituted we were hopeful that we would have a better chance at being heard in City Hall.
Instead, Supervisor Maxwell “servant of the people” has done NOTHING to seek remedies and redress of grievances for this brutalized and deprived community. As a matter of fact, she has furthered plans, which will destroy, disperse and destabilize this community even more, well into the future.
Residents have run out of patience at being ignored.
Life and death issues have no forum in the office of Supervisor Maxwell. Police are complicent with the abuse of youth. Gun violence goes on unchecked and homicides remain unsolved.
Supervisor Maxwell cynically says, “That situation has existed for years out there with THOSE people. What do you expect me to do about it?”
We say THOSE people are HER people and they are angry about her horrible betrayal.
Big business and the Redevelopment Agency treat people whose homes are in public housing with utter contempt. The Housing Authority is so corrupt that it is in receivership and therefore, is now working with the Redevelopment Agency and their scheme to remove whole neighborhoods surrounding the Shipyard. Why? Well, to benefit for-profit developers and their stock holders.
The theft of the Shipyard, (public land belonging to the people who have been most negatively affected by its former military use and closure) and its hand over by the SF Redevelopment Agency to Lennar Corporation is a criminal act. Only the most compliant of residents are seated on the Shipyard “Citizens Advisory Committee, (CAC)” and Supervisor Maxwell defies Federal and State Law to facilitate the deception of the people with false promises of a rosy tomorrow brought about by this private Corporate project.
Supervisor Maxwell, who gives speeches about the tragedy of environmental illnesses in BVHP, displays helpless confusion before PG&E and other power brokers of fossil fuel. She lets promises to shut down the old PG&E power plant fall by the wayside with no real closure in sight. She shows no leadership or support of resident activists’ efforts to repel energy Corporation’s ruthless dominance over the citizens of her District.
Our neighbors, hungry for work, witness jobs and contracts for City work constructing the Third Street Light Rail being given to outside contractors who bring in their own laborers. Businesses along this corridor have been bankrupted and forced to close. Small businesses, instead of being protected, supported and sustained, are driven away.
Our children are bussed all over the city to far away schools where the stress of their minority status is amplified and long bus rides make school work more challenging. Please read the recent Civil Grand Jury’s Report on educational resources in Bayview Hunters Point to see the shocking inequality and inferior educational conditions foisted on our youth.
Our health clinics are only open part time. We have no descent supermarket. Bus service is inadequate and dangerous and the Highway Patrol descends on our neighborhoods to cite people for mechanical problems with their old cars.
Our Supervisor does NOTHING.
Pride in “diversity” in San Francisco is a blatant lie. This City grows whiter and richer with each passing day and is proud of that. Our Mayor says our recall effort is a trivialization of the process and declares our supervisor innocent of malfeasance. Then he uses our predicament with a dysfunctional Supervisor as a way to discredit district elections.
We say Supervisor Maxwell IS guilty of malfeasance. In a country where justice and equality is supposed to be a core value in the creation of laws, an elected representative who violates these principles with regard to a specific class and particular neighborhood, thereby denying equal services and access to this class is committing an illegal act in our so called Democracy.
What is the solution? We say fair and equal representation in City Hall of all neighborhoods and classes and ethnicities in District 10 is the solution.
Our petition to recall our Supervisor is a last resort in our efforts to make our difficulties known to her and to the rest of district 10. She has stated that she does not know “who THOSE people are who are demanding her recall.” Ironically this remark states exactly what our problem is.
We are sounding the alarm that our Supervisor has failed to fulfill the duties of her office. We declare that all other means to appeal for just representation have been exhausted. We have experienced repeated denials of requests for her attention. Without compensation from the City we have worked tirelessly to advocate for remedies and creative solutions to vexing life threatening injustice in law enforcement, housing, jobs, and environmental health only to meet with refusals of serious and respectful consideration. The situation of our neighbors and ourselves has become desperate and urgent, and this is why we demand a recall.
We are well aware that we are a minority and may be out-voted by the dominant class in this wealthy City. We know that Ms Maxwell enjoys the loyal support of other neighborhoods and people who are blessed with privilege and money. With this in mind we intend to make our desperate situation caused by inadequate representation, known to the whole City whatever the outcome of this recall effort. It does not matter to us weather Ms Maxwell remains in office or the Mayor appoints someone to replace her. We have nothing to loose. We will amplify our calls for justice and equality until they are heard by the entire City.
To those of you who are worried about the consequences of another Mayor appointed Supervisor replacing Ms Maxwell on the Board, we suggest that you use your influence and energy to help the people of Bayview Hunters Point bring the crises of ongoing Civil Rights abuses to the attention of the entire Board and the Mayor. Call upon Politicians to acknowledge the harm done to them by this City’s continued fostering of the delusional and unimaginative belief that the private investment community functions in the public interest. Dare them to look at the obvious social costs of this fallacy.
Kevyn Lutton
Manager of the Recall Supervisor Sophie Maxwell effort.
kevyn11 [at] yahoo.com
We, the residents of Bayview Hunters Point, the most distressed community of the City, are fed up with being ignored and having no representation at City Hall.
The City, its Agencies and Elected Officials have inflicted serious harm on this community for decades. They, the people we elect and the appointed City functionaries, are responsible for the ongoing poverty, ill health, infant mortality, inferior education, joblessness, addiction, homicides, and violence born of hopelessness that plagues our neighborhood.
People are asking us, “Do we think ANY supervisor can solve the problems in Bayview Hunters point?”
Our answer is “YES. The City Government in collaboration with the Redevelopment Agency, which is endowed with privileged power from the State of California and through their policies of continuous gentrification and removal of poor people and people of Color, have created this ‘ghetto.’ These same people must undo their deadly programs against the people who live here.
City politicians in their efforts to serve the will of big business and their own political ambitions destroy the lives and families of low-income working and poor people.
When district elections were instituted we were hopeful that we would have a better chance at being heard in City Hall.
Instead, Supervisor Maxwell “servant of the people” has done NOTHING to seek remedies and redress of grievances for this brutalized and deprived community. As a matter of fact, she has furthered plans, which will destroy, disperse and destabilize this community even more, well into the future.
Residents have run out of patience at being ignored.
Life and death issues have no forum in the office of Supervisor Maxwell. Police are complicent with the abuse of youth. Gun violence goes on unchecked and homicides remain unsolved.
Supervisor Maxwell cynically says, “That situation has existed for years out there with THOSE people. What do you expect me to do about it?”
We say THOSE people are HER people and they are angry about her horrible betrayal.
Big business and the Redevelopment Agency treat people whose homes are in public housing with utter contempt. The Housing Authority is so corrupt that it is in receivership and therefore, is now working with the Redevelopment Agency and their scheme to remove whole neighborhoods surrounding the Shipyard. Why? Well, to benefit for-profit developers and their stock holders.
The theft of the Shipyard, (public land belonging to the people who have been most negatively affected by its former military use and closure) and its hand over by the SF Redevelopment Agency to Lennar Corporation is a criminal act. Only the most compliant of residents are seated on the Shipyard “Citizens Advisory Committee, (CAC)” and Supervisor Maxwell defies Federal and State Law to facilitate the deception of the people with false promises of a rosy tomorrow brought about by this private Corporate project.
Supervisor Maxwell, who gives speeches about the tragedy of environmental illnesses in BVHP, displays helpless confusion before PG&E and other power brokers of fossil fuel. She lets promises to shut down the old PG&E power plant fall by the wayside with no real closure in sight. She shows no leadership or support of resident activists’ efforts to repel energy Corporation’s ruthless dominance over the citizens of her District.
Our neighbors, hungry for work, witness jobs and contracts for City work constructing the Third Street Light Rail being given to outside contractors who bring in their own laborers. Businesses along this corridor have been bankrupted and forced to close. Small businesses, instead of being protected, supported and sustained, are driven away.
Our children are bussed all over the city to far away schools where the stress of their minority status is amplified and long bus rides make school work more challenging. Please read the recent Civil Grand Jury’s Report on educational resources in Bayview Hunters Point to see the shocking inequality and inferior educational conditions foisted on our youth.
Our health clinics are only open part time. We have no descent supermarket. Bus service is inadequate and dangerous and the Highway Patrol descends on our neighborhoods to cite people for mechanical problems with their old cars.
Our Supervisor does NOTHING.
Pride in “diversity” in San Francisco is a blatant lie. This City grows whiter and richer with each passing day and is proud of that. Our Mayor says our recall effort is a trivialization of the process and declares our supervisor innocent of malfeasance. Then he uses our predicament with a dysfunctional Supervisor as a way to discredit district elections.
We say Supervisor Maxwell IS guilty of malfeasance. In a country where justice and equality is supposed to be a core value in the creation of laws, an elected representative who violates these principles with regard to a specific class and particular neighborhood, thereby denying equal services and access to this class is committing an illegal act in our so called Democracy.
What is the solution? We say fair and equal representation in City Hall of all neighborhoods and classes and ethnicities in District 10 is the solution.
Our petition to recall our Supervisor is a last resort in our efforts to make our difficulties known to her and to the rest of district 10. She has stated that she does not know “who THOSE people are who are demanding her recall.” Ironically this remark states exactly what our problem is.
We are sounding the alarm that our Supervisor has failed to fulfill the duties of her office. We declare that all other means to appeal for just representation have been exhausted. We have experienced repeated denials of requests for her attention. Without compensation from the City we have worked tirelessly to advocate for remedies and creative solutions to vexing life threatening injustice in law enforcement, housing, jobs, and environmental health only to meet with refusals of serious and respectful consideration. The situation of our neighbors and ourselves has become desperate and urgent, and this is why we demand a recall.
We are well aware that we are a minority and may be out-voted by the dominant class in this wealthy City. We know that Ms Maxwell enjoys the loyal support of other neighborhoods and people who are blessed with privilege and money. With this in mind we intend to make our desperate situation caused by inadequate representation, known to the whole City whatever the outcome of this recall effort. It does not matter to us weather Ms Maxwell remains in office or the Mayor appoints someone to replace her. We have nothing to loose. We will amplify our calls for justice and equality until they are heard by the entire City.
To those of you who are worried about the consequences of another Mayor appointed Supervisor replacing Ms Maxwell on the Board, we suggest that you use your influence and energy to help the people of Bayview Hunters Point bring the crises of ongoing Civil Rights abuses to the attention of the entire Board and the Mayor. Call upon Politicians to acknowledge the harm done to them by this City’s continued fostering of the delusional and unimaginative belief that the private investment community functions in the public interest. Dare them to look at the obvious social costs of this fallacy.
Kevyn Lutton
Manager of the Recall Supervisor Sophie Maxwell effort.
kevyn11 [at] yahoo.com
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Newsome a person can be Recalled for "Wanting" which fits Ms. Maxwell to a tee.
Strike One!
How To Steal Millions From A Low-Income Community of Color: Course 101. Mz. Sophie Maxwell, Supervisor of District 10, never called for an Investigation of this Conflict of Intrest.
Hunters Point Development
FBI probe focuses on bayfront property proposals
2 projects involved mayor's pal Charlie Walker
By Chuck Finnie and Lance Williams
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF, Aug 11, 1999
More recently, according to authoritative information obtained by The Examiner, the FBI demanded that a city agency turn over records related to Lennar Homes, a subsidiary of Lennar Corp. of Florida, which won Redevelopment Commission approval in March to build housing on the 500-acre Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.
The Port industrial park proposal and the shipyard redevelopment project both involved controversial city trucker Charlie Walker, a friend, political supporter and former law client of Mayor Brown. Walker is a focus of the FBI city contracting probe.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/990811/0811probe.html
When a Florida development firm, Lennar Corp., began assembling a team last year for a bid on the rights to another piece of the southeast Bayfront, the 500-acre Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, it also turned to Walker. As its local jobs broker — a firm that would be charged with ensuring people from the Bayview were hired to work on the project — Lennar retained the Bayview Hunters Point Builders Exchange, another of Walker's companies.
Joe Petrillo, a lawyer for Lennar, said the developer wanted to get better connected to the people in the neighborhood.
Walker also brought connections — not only to Brown, but also to the then-Redevelopment Commission President Lynette Sweet, treasurer of Walker's nonprofit.
On March 30, when the commission selected a developer for the shipyard, Sweet voted to give the contract to Lennar, joining three other commissioners on a 4-3 vote to reject a consultant's recommendation that the project go to another firm.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/990627/0627walker.html
Lennar steals Hunters Point deal
San Francisco's redevelopment agency gave development rights for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard to a team led by Lennar Corp. -- abandoning the recommendation of an outside consultant. The Lennar team, which is also redeveloping Mare Island in Vallejo, won a 7-0 vote and beat out Catellus Corp. and the consultant's pick, Forest City Enterprises. The agency said Lennar had done a better job mustering community support and was the best off financially
Source: http://www.amcity.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/03/29/daily15.html
Lennar steals Hunters Point deal
San Francisco's redevelopment agency gave development rights for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard to a team led by Lennar Corp. -- abandoning the recommendation of an outside consultant. The Lennar team, which is also redeveloping Mare Island in Vallejo, won a 7-0 vote and beat out Catellus Corp. and the consultant's pick, Forest City Enterprises. The agency said Lennar had done a better job mustering community support and was the best off financially
Source: http://www.amcity.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/03/29/daily15.html
Current Status of CA Base Reuse: Hunters Point Naval Annex http://www.cedar.ca.gov/military/current_reuse/hunterpt.htm
A report is prepared by: California Trade and Commerce Agency Office of Business Development - February 1999
The City of San Francisco has retained Peat Marwick to analyze three development proposals for the 500-acre former Hunter's Point Naval Annex (BRAC 1991). Three development groups were chosen to implement the City's reuse plan from among those that responded to an RFQ in 1998. The Plan includes a master-planned, waterfront community of residential, commercial mixed-use and light industrial uses. The three successful respondents include Forest City Development, Lennar/BVHP Partners/ Mariposa Management/Luster Group and the Catellus Development Corporation/WDG Ventures, Inc.
Upon receipt of Peat Marwick's recommendations and following a public hearing, the Redevelopment Agency Commission is expected to make a final decision on March 23, 1999.
Source: http://www.cedar.ca.gov/military/bc_news/99mar/story8.htm
Related Links:
Lennar Corp. -
#5 at Builder 100
Profile - Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN)
ArtSpan produces San Francisco Open Studios
http://www.artspan.org/
The Artists Community at Hunters Point
http://www.zpub.com/sf/thepoint/
Hunters Point Shipyard at SF Redevelopment Agency
http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/sfra/hps.htm
Discuss
How To Steal Millions From A Low-Income Community of Color: Course 101. Mz. Sophie Maxwell, Supervisor of District 10, never called for an Investigation of this Conflict of Intrest.
Hunters Point Development
FBI probe focuses on bayfront property proposals
2 projects involved mayor's pal Charlie Walker
By Chuck Finnie and Lance Williams
OF THE EXAMINER STAFF, Aug 11, 1999
More recently, according to authoritative information obtained by The Examiner, the FBI demanded that a city agency turn over records related to Lennar Homes, a subsidiary of Lennar Corp. of Florida, which won Redevelopment Commission approval in March to build housing on the 500-acre Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.
The Port industrial park proposal and the shipyard redevelopment project both involved controversial city trucker Charlie Walker, a friend, political supporter and former law client of Mayor Brown. Walker is a focus of the FBI city contracting probe.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/990811/0811probe.html
When a Florida development firm, Lennar Corp., began assembling a team last year for a bid on the rights to another piece of the southeast Bayfront, the 500-acre Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, it also turned to Walker. As its local jobs broker — a firm that would be charged with ensuring people from the Bayview were hired to work on the project — Lennar retained the Bayview Hunters Point Builders Exchange, another of Walker's companies.
Joe Petrillo, a lawyer for Lennar, said the developer wanted to get better connected to the people in the neighborhood.
Walker also brought connections — not only to Brown, but also to the then-Redevelopment Commission President Lynette Sweet, treasurer of Walker's nonprofit.
On March 30, when the commission selected a developer for the shipyard, Sweet voted to give the contract to Lennar, joining three other commissioners on a 4-3 vote to reject a consultant's recommendation that the project go to another firm.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/990627/0627walker.html
Lennar steals Hunters Point deal
San Francisco's redevelopment agency gave development rights for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard to a team led by Lennar Corp. -- abandoning the recommendation of an outside consultant. The Lennar team, which is also redeveloping Mare Island in Vallejo, won a 7-0 vote and beat out Catellus Corp. and the consultant's pick, Forest City Enterprises. The agency said Lennar had done a better job mustering community support and was the best off financially
Source: http://www.amcity.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/03/29/daily15.html
Lennar steals Hunters Point deal
San Francisco's redevelopment agency gave development rights for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard to a team led by Lennar Corp. -- abandoning the recommendation of an outside consultant. The Lennar team, which is also redeveloping Mare Island in Vallejo, won a 7-0 vote and beat out Catellus Corp. and the consultant's pick, Forest City Enterprises. The agency said Lennar had done a better job mustering community support and was the best off financially
Source: http://www.amcity.com/sanfrancisco/stories/1999/03/29/daily15.html
Current Status of CA Base Reuse: Hunters Point Naval Annex http://www.cedar.ca.gov/military/current_reuse/hunterpt.htm
A report is prepared by: California Trade and Commerce Agency Office of Business Development - February 1999
The City of San Francisco has retained Peat Marwick to analyze three development proposals for the 500-acre former Hunter's Point Naval Annex (BRAC 1991). Three development groups were chosen to implement the City's reuse plan from among those that responded to an RFQ in 1998. The Plan includes a master-planned, waterfront community of residential, commercial mixed-use and light industrial uses. The three successful respondents include Forest City Development, Lennar/BVHP Partners/ Mariposa Management/Luster Group and the Catellus Development Corporation/WDG Ventures, Inc.
Upon receipt of Peat Marwick's recommendations and following a public hearing, the Redevelopment Agency Commission is expected to make a final decision on March 23, 1999.
Source: http://www.cedar.ca.gov/military/bc_news/99mar/story8.htm
Related Links:
Lennar Corp. -
#5 at Builder 100
Profile - Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN)
ArtSpan produces San Francisco Open Studios
http://www.artspan.org/
The Artists Community at Hunters Point
http://www.zpub.com/sf/thepoint/
Hunters Point Shipyard at SF Redevelopment Agency
http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/sfra/hps.htm
Discuss
For more information:
http://sftimes.editthispage.com/stories/st...
Why are you quoting articles from 1999 when Supervisor Maxwell took office in 2001?
Next time, do your homework.
Next time, do your homework.
Doctors see strange asthma, violence link
Staying indoors is safer for children, but there's no fresh air
Fred Alvarez, Los Angeles Times
Sunday, August 15, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Dr. Chris Landon looks at the boundaries of Oxnard's recently imposed gang injunction, he sees the outlines of a health crisis.
Already, the Ventura doctor has seen a high incidence of childhood asthma in the same area mapped by police as a gang zone. And he suspects that other health threats, such as childhood obesity, could be lurking there as well.
He believes the problems are linked, at least in part, to a reluctance by parents to let children go outdoors for fear of neighborhood violence. Landon sees the gang injunction as a positive force, one that ultimately could improve the health and welfare of youngsters in some of Oxnard's poorest and meanest neighborhoods.
"I see this as a blueprint for providing the things that children need," said Landon, whose Ventura-based pediatric foundation has launched several health initiatives in the 6.6-square-mile safety zone established by police last month. Gang members are barred from meeting in public within the zone.
"We need to increase outdoor activity, increase access to medical care and access to education," Landon added. "We're talking about letting people feel safe about their neighborhoods, safe about walking to the store, safe about going to the park. That's going to make a difference not just in their social health but in their physical health, too."
Physicians and researchers are starting to take a closer look at the link between community violence and children's health.
A number of studies already point to a connection between exposure to violence and childhood psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. And there is ongoing work to examine the tie between high-crime communities and physical disease, said Dr. Rosalind J. Wright, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Wright co-wrote a study published in April in the American Journal of Public Health that explores the link between violence in poor metropolitan areas and asthma.
"Violence exposure, unfortunately, is a pervasive fact of life in many inner-city communities in this country," Wright said. "Living with violence not only impacts mental health, but has now been tied to physical health."
Dr. Howard Spivak, director of the Center for Children at Tufts University and chairman of the Youth Violence Taskforce for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said it's well-known that communities with the highest health risks tend to be crowded, urban and poor. In that light, he said, it stands to reason that violence would also play a role.
"It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find health issues that are significantly affected by the presence or prevalence of violence in the community," Spivak said. "The impact of stress around violence and the fear of violence must be taking their toll."
Those health issues could manifest themselves in various ways, physicians said.
The stress of living amid violence could by itself be enough to trigger health problems. People in high-crime areas may fail more often to keep medical appointments or follow prescribed exercise programs. And the fear of violence could lead parents to keep children indoors longer, lulling youngsters into a sedentary lifestyle that increases the risk of obesity or exposes asthma sufferers to mold and dust.
Until she moved out of Oxnard's gang-plagued La Colonia neighborhood last year, Maria Silva said she had been afraid to let her 3-year-old son, Joel, play outside because of the threat of violence. Then she learned that keeping him indoors was probably triggering his asthma and allergies.
She moved to another part of the city where violence wasn't as pervasive.
"I think it was bad for him," Silva said of keeping Joel cooped up. "Now, I think he's better. He gets to go out all the time and run around like children should."
At the Landon Pediatric Foundation, doctors view the gang injunction as an opportunity to create a "kid zone" where doctors and others can treat a range of childhood health issues.
The foundation has two grant proposals pending to improve asthma care in some of Oxnard's low-income neighborhoods. Among Ventura County cities, Oxnard has the highest rate of children admitted to hospitals for respiratory illness.
While waiting for the grant money, Landon's foundation is pressing forward with several health initiatives.
They include an obesity-prevention program called "Get Moving," which last week launched its second season at a La Colonia elementary school.
Led by a Spanish-speaking Ronald McDonald, youngsters at Cesar Chavez Elementary School danced the funky chicken and gobbled down green vegetables in an effort to promote fitness and healthy eating habits.
The first session ended with the McDonald's mascot leading youngsters on a walk along the school's perimeter, which for Dr. Tracy Tran was as much about exercise as it was about reclaiming a neighborhood.
"Our goal is really to get them exercising outside the school, to tell parents and children this is something they should be able to do every day," said Tran, who oversees the program.
"We want them to say, 'This is my community, and I'm going to take charge. ' "
Staying indoors is safer for children, but there's no fresh air
Fred Alvarez, Los Angeles Times
Sunday, August 15, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Dr. Chris Landon looks at the boundaries of Oxnard's recently imposed gang injunction, he sees the outlines of a health crisis.
Already, the Ventura doctor has seen a high incidence of childhood asthma in the same area mapped by police as a gang zone. And he suspects that other health threats, such as childhood obesity, could be lurking there as well.
He believes the problems are linked, at least in part, to a reluctance by parents to let children go outdoors for fear of neighborhood violence. Landon sees the gang injunction as a positive force, one that ultimately could improve the health and welfare of youngsters in some of Oxnard's poorest and meanest neighborhoods.
"I see this as a blueprint for providing the things that children need," said Landon, whose Ventura-based pediatric foundation has launched several health initiatives in the 6.6-square-mile safety zone established by police last month. Gang members are barred from meeting in public within the zone.
"We need to increase outdoor activity, increase access to medical care and access to education," Landon added. "We're talking about letting people feel safe about their neighborhoods, safe about walking to the store, safe about going to the park. That's going to make a difference not just in their social health but in their physical health, too."
Physicians and researchers are starting to take a closer look at the link between community violence and children's health.
A number of studies already point to a connection between exposure to violence and childhood psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. And there is ongoing work to examine the tie between high-crime communities and physical disease, said Dr. Rosalind J. Wright, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Wright co-wrote a study published in April in the American Journal of Public Health that explores the link between violence in poor metropolitan areas and asthma.
"Violence exposure, unfortunately, is a pervasive fact of life in many inner-city communities in this country," Wright said. "Living with violence not only impacts mental health, but has now been tied to physical health."
Dr. Howard Spivak, director of the Center for Children at Tufts University and chairman of the Youth Violence Taskforce for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said it's well-known that communities with the highest health risks tend to be crowded, urban and poor. In that light, he said, it stands to reason that violence would also play a role.
"It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find health issues that are significantly affected by the presence or prevalence of violence in the community," Spivak said. "The impact of stress around violence and the fear of violence must be taking their toll."
Those health issues could manifest themselves in various ways, physicians said.
The stress of living amid violence could by itself be enough to trigger health problems. People in high-crime areas may fail more often to keep medical appointments or follow prescribed exercise programs. And the fear of violence could lead parents to keep children indoors longer, lulling youngsters into a sedentary lifestyle that increases the risk of obesity or exposes asthma sufferers to mold and dust.
Until she moved out of Oxnard's gang-plagued La Colonia neighborhood last year, Maria Silva said she had been afraid to let her 3-year-old son, Joel, play outside because of the threat of violence. Then she learned that keeping him indoors was probably triggering his asthma and allergies.
She moved to another part of the city where violence wasn't as pervasive.
"I think it was bad for him," Silva said of keeping Joel cooped up. "Now, I think he's better. He gets to go out all the time and run around like children should."
At the Landon Pediatric Foundation, doctors view the gang injunction as an opportunity to create a "kid zone" where doctors and others can treat a range of childhood health issues.
The foundation has two grant proposals pending to improve asthma care in some of Oxnard's low-income neighborhoods. Among Ventura County cities, Oxnard has the highest rate of children admitted to hospitals for respiratory illness.
While waiting for the grant money, Landon's foundation is pressing forward with several health initiatives.
They include an obesity-prevention program called "Get Moving," which last week launched its second season at a La Colonia elementary school.
Led by a Spanish-speaking Ronald McDonald, youngsters at Cesar Chavez Elementary School danced the funky chicken and gobbled down green vegetables in an effort to promote fitness and healthy eating habits.
The first session ended with the McDonald's mascot leading youngsters on a walk along the school's perimeter, which for Dr. Tracy Tran was as much about exercise as it was about reclaiming a neighborhood.
"Our goal is really to get them exercising outside the school, to tell parents and children this is something they should be able to do every day," said Tran, who oversees the program.
"We want them to say, 'This is my community, and I'm going to take charge. ' "
For more information:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...
In 1999, Mz. Sophie Maxwell was already in bed with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. Sophie was President of the Bay-View Hunters Point Project Area Committee. Mz. Sophie knew about this transaction before she became Supervisor of District 10. Also, What Developer or Business paid for Mz. Sophie Campaign in her race for Supervisor in 2000??????
The making of a political insider
Fund raising gave Lee access to City Hall, but she alienated some allies along the way
Lance Williams, Vanessa Hua, Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff Writers
Sunday, August 15, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She was a grassroots activist in San Francisco's Chinese American community who transformed herself into a City Hall insider through her prowess as a political fund-raiser.
An immigrant who became a multimillionaire from real estate deals on the city's west side, she contributed $274,712 to the campaigns of Mayor Willie Brown, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley and many other politicians while raising tens of thousands more to benefit the causes and candidates she favored.
In response to her aggressive fund raising, critics say, the politicians provided many benefits to Julie Lee, 57, a Sunset District real estate agent and president of the city's Housing Authority Commission:
Insider access at City Hall. Fast-track approval of her zoning and building permits. Grants and contracts totaling $698,998 for a new Sunset District community center she promoted but never built. Government jobs for her son, Andrew, a former rapper whom Lee promoted as a budding political star.
Now, the aggressive fund raising that made Lee a major player in San Francisco politics is the focus of overlapping federal and state corruption investigations.
After disclosures in The Chronicle, the FBI raided Lee's office last week, probing whether $125,000 that was donated to Shelley during his 2002 campaign had been illegally diverted from a state grant to Lee's nonprofit.
The Chronicle also reported that $80,000 in donations appears to have been funneled to Shelley, a longtime ally whom Lee is said to have touted as a future governor, from two real estate deals in which Lee was involved.
Shelley has denied wrongdoing and said he had no knowledge of illegal donations. Lee has declined to be interviewed, but she told the Chinese- language newspaper Sing Tao Daily that this controversy was just a case of Westerners' gossip about the Chinese.
For some people who have encountered her at City Hall, the story of Lee's rise to political prominence -- and her current troubles -- are another example of the patronage politics that infused city government since former Assembly Speaker Brown's two terms as mayor.
"The story of Julie Lee is the story of the Brown administration," said Barbara Meskunas, a former Housing Authority commissioner and longtime Brown critic. "In exchange for the Housing Authority appointment, she started raising money for Willie." Brown didn't respond to a request for comment.
"She has raised tons of money for people. It helps her (real estate) business, and then she's always pushing Andrew on them," she said, referring to Lee's son, who has worked as an aide to both Brown and Shelley.
'We love development!'
According to people who know her, Julie Lee was born in Shanghai, the daughter of a tailor. The family moved to Hong Kong, and Lee immigrated to the United States in 1969. She is married to Shing-Kit Lee, her business partner. The couple have four grown children.
The Lees went into real estate in the Sunset District, representing Chinese American clients on home sales. Later, they bought rental units and began building what contractors call "Richmond specials": teardowns or dramatic remodelings that replace small homes with much larger units.
Lee was enthusiastic about real estate -- "We love development!" she told Asian Week in a 1997 interview -- and the couple's businesses, First National Realty and First Financial Services, have made them rich. Public records reviewed by The Chronicle show that the Lees own 37 properties in San Francisco, Daly City and Sacramento, worth more than $12 million. Since 1994, they have been involved in more than $63 million worth of real estate transactions, including properties in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, records show.
As landlady or real estate agent, Lee can be tough, court records reflect. She has been sued at least 12 times in San Francisco, accused of wrongful eviction, keeping rentals in substandard condition and improperly handling real estate deals. The cases have been settled or dismissed.
Lee has filed seven lawsuits herself, most in connection with disputed real estate deals. All but three of those have been settled or dismissed as well. In February, after the United Schneerson's Synagogue on Geary Boulevard fell $50,000 behind in lease payments, Lee sued to evict the congregation. That case is pending.
Real estate drew Lee into politics. Many Asian American homeowners were complaining that city permit restrictions made it unduly difficult to remodel and expand their homes. Lee and local activist Rose Tsai formed the San Francisco Neighbors Association in the early 1990s to fight City Hall over the issue.
Defeating Jordan on housing
In 1995, when then-Mayor Frank Jordan backed an ordinance that would have restricted the construction of new "Richmond special" projects, Lee and Tsai rallied their new organization in opposition. After a series of stormy public hearings, Jordan buckled, and the ordinance was scrapped.
In 1997, she took on a new cause: the Central Freeway, which was shut down and marked for demolition after it had been damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Viewed as a vital transportation artery by west-side merchants and residents, the Central Freeway was considered an eyesore by others.
Lee and Tsai mounted a petition drive to get the freeway rebuilt. That started a bitter, expensive political fight that went on for two years.
Opposed by environmentalists and much of the city's political establishment, including Mayor Brown, Lee and Tsai nevertheless got a pro- freeway measure on the 1997 ballot and enacted by voters -- only to have it reversed by another initiative the next year.
In those days, Lee was an outsider, a bitter critic of City Hall, which she said ignored the needs of the city's growing Asian American community. She showed she could play political hardball.
She and Tsai began hosting KEST-AM's "Neighborhood Voice," a Cantonese- language radio program that became popular in the Chinese American community. Lee used the broadcasts to rally support for the freeway and to trash her foes. Sometimes, her anti-establishment rhetoric was over the top, opponents said.
Accused of airwave tirade
Rose Pak, head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and a Brown loyalist, said Lee singled her out in about 1998, when Pak and Brown were leading a city trade mission to China.
"She was on the air cursing us out and hoping the plane would crash, and we'd all be killed," Pak recalled. "And she called Willie Brown some awful, derogatory racist remarks. I'm embarrassed to repeat them."
The freeway campaigns also involved political money. City records show that Lee, her family business and her political committee, San Francisco Neighbors for Better Government, donated $107,000 into the pro-freeway campaign.
In addition, the freeway fight cemented Lee's friendship with Shelley. The first-term assemblyman, who had represented the Sunset on the Board of Supervisors before going to Sacramento, had been one of Lee's chief allies in the campaign.
Lee's group got Mayor Brown's attention. Although he had opposed the first measure to rebuild the freeway, he sat out the second campaign.
Then, in January 1999, Brown named Lee to the commission of the scandal- racked Housing Authority, where a midlevel executive had been indicted in a bribery scheme.
"Willie Brown was very slick, to give her a crumb, for her to be happy, to be like a big shot," said Ling-Chi Wang, professor of Asian American studies at UC Berkeley and political observer. "I have no sympathy for her because I am totally opposed to the kind of money game she plays."
Exploiting legal loopholes
By the time Brown appointed her to the housing post, Lee was a skilled and effective money-raiser. City records show that starting with the 1997 freeway campaign, Lee, her family and businesses and the political committee contributed $274,712 to San Francisco politicians and causes.
Often Lee has exploited a legal loophole in the city's $500 limit on individual political donations to help elect officials she favors.
Brown was a special beneficiary. In 1999, Lee's San Francisco Neighbors for Better Government political action committee spent more than $26,000 on an independent ad campaign on television and in the Chinese-language press to boost the mayor's re-election. Because Brown had no control over what Lee's independent committee did, the spending by law wasn't subject to the $500 donation cap. In the 2000 race for the Board of Supervisors, Lee's committee spent as much as $78,000 promoting candidates and initiatives backed by Brown, the records show.
Other beneficiaries represent a cross section of the city's political life, from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, whose political committee obtained $1,000, to the local Republican Party, which got $2,800. Mayor Gavin Newsom received $4,000 for his 2003 campaign for mayor from donors and businesses associated with Lee.
In 2002, Lee and her husband donated $20,000 to Shelley's campaign for secretary of state.
Benny Yee, a real estate agent who sits on the Redevelopment Agency Commission, has worked on numerous political fund-raisers with Lee. They supported Shelley because he was "young, energetic and a good public figure," Yee said.
Lee is good at fund raising, an effective and genuine leader, Yee said.
"Once she believes certain candidates should be supported, she goes right into it," Yee said. "She's motivated."
People familiar with Lee say the political money she herself donates is only part of her fund-raising power. She also has raised uncounted thousands of dollars for favored candidates in the Chinese American community, they say. Lee raises money in several ways, says one political professional who asked not to be quoted by name because of the federal investigation.
"She will attend a (politician's) fund-raiser herself. She will collect checks (from other donors) and bundle them. And she'll maybe come (to a fund- raiser) and bring a lot of people with her. ... Her fund-raising is significant."
The fund raising has brought her access, clout and recognition: a citywide "Julie Lee Day," proclaimed by Brown on Oct. 13, 2001, and an invitation to the glitzy wedding of then-Supervisor Newsom at the Getty mansion.
Projects quickly approved
Critics said there were more substantial benefits as well.
The city's planning and zoning bureaucracy began to give quick approval to Lee's projects, even when there was substantial opposition, said land-use lawyer Stephen M. Williams, who often represents neighborhood groups in planning disputes.
Williams said he was still rankled by a 2001 case, in which the Planning Commission, despite opposition by neighbors and preservationists, gave Lee the go-ahead to demolish two "beautiful, historic" cottages built on the corner of 28th Avenue and California Street after the 1906 earthquake.
A previous applicant had been denied a permit to tear down the cottages, Williams said, but after a brief presentation Lee was given permission on the spot to put up "two very large, 40-plus-feet-high Richmond specials" in their place.
Lee also got help on her plan to build a new community center in the Sunset. In July 1999 -- before Lee had incorporated the organization that would run the center -- public records show that at Brown's direction, city officials looked into converting the Fire Department yard and offices into a community resource center. Eventually, Lee obtained $1-per-year lease on the property.
As The Chronicle has reported, Shelley, then Assembly majority leader, secured a $500,000 state grant in 2001 to build the center. Of that money, $168,750 went to associates of Lee, who then donated $125,000 to Shelley's campaign. Lee's nonprofit also obtained almost $200,000 in city grants to operate a referral hot line for immigrants and provide other services, but a Chronicle investigation showed that few services were ever provided.
Lee's connections also helped her obtain government jobs for her son.
Andrew Lee seemed more interested in music. He had set up his own company, Drew Productions. Styling himself "Drew Nasty," he performed with a rap group called C-Quence. "Rugged and Buckwild," the band's 2001 release on Kamikaze Records, included songs titled "Jailbait," "Latex Dreams" and "I Wanna F -- You," according to a promotional Web site.
But Julie Lee believed Andrew's future was in public service, people who know her say. Brown hired him as a mayoral special assistant, assigned to a neighborhood outreach effort headed by Bevan Dufty, a Brown aide and future supervisor.
Andrew eventually resigned to work as the unpaid executive director of his mother's nonprofit. He made his living as the landlord of three apartment buildings, according to an ethics report he filed. In 2002, Andrew Lee, then 28, ran for the Board of Supervisors in the Sunset, with the backing of his mother and Brown and Shelley.
Son's contentious campaign
It was a disappointing, expensive campaign.
His opponents criticized him for allegedly failing to vote in seven elections since he had first registered to vote. He also was criticized for his role in what was billed as a nonpartisan "environmental fair" and lightbulb giveaway jointly sponsored by the mayor's office and Julie Lee's nonprofit.
Mailers and posters advertising the event featured Andrew Lee's photo and a campaign-style letter with the greeting "Dear Westside Neighbors." The event itself featured speeches by both Andrew Lee and the mayor. Opponents accused him of improperly using city resources for electioneering.
Meanwhile, public records show that Andrew Lee spent $184,000 of his own money to finance the campaign. In a race eventually won by Supervisor Fiona Ma, he finished fourth, spending about $88 for each vote he received.
Struggle over son's post
The next year, Brown named Andrew Lee to the Public Utilities Commission. Supervisor Chris Daly said Lee and his mother lobbied him on the appointment.
In the course of a conversation in his office, Daly said he concluded that Andrew Lee had no interest or background in water and power issues, the Public Utility Commission's purview. As soon as the Lees left his office, "I immediately began trying to figure out how to keep this guy off the PUC," Daly said in an interview.
The chance came in October 2003, when Brown was traveling in Tibet. Daly used his power as acting mayor to void Lee's appointment to the commission, calling it "political patronage at its worst." The mayor was outraged, branding Daly's action as illegal. In the uproar that followed, the city attorney ruled Andrew Lee was entitled to serve on the PUC, but he resigned before taking office.
By then, Julie Lee had assisted her son in landing a job in the office of Shelley, the newly elected secretary of state. Initially a $55,000-per-year outreach worker, he was promoted to international business liaison, with a raise to $57, 756 annually. He often represented Shelley's office at Asian and Asian American functions.
At times, he worked as an advance man, making sure Shelley got a prominent seat on the stage at public events, said a political source. In April, Lee left work and filed a workers' compensation claim, telling colleagues he had hurt his back moving things.
Andrew Lee did not return repeated calls and e-mails for comment.
Julie Lee had long since split with most of her friends from the grassroots days. Tsai said she broke with Lee over her plan to obtain government grants to fund a cultural center in the Sunset. Tsai feared their organization would lose its political effectiveness if it were also relying on politicians for money.
"Politics has a corrupting influence, all kinds of temptation," Tsai said. "I didn't want us to be in that situation."
Sonia Ng, an activist and former Lee ally, is disappointed by what she sees as Lee's squandered leadership of the Chinese American community.
"Before, we thought we could organize the Chinese community to have power, " said Ng, 56. "After Julie Lee, everybody is afraid that somebody will use our power. No one wants to join together."
Scuffle in rest room
In 2001, according to a document filed with the Sheriff's Department, Ng's autistic son threatened to sue station KEST for invasion of privacy, saying Lee had broadcast details of his disability and mocked him for being on public assistance. The next year, Ng complained that Lee repeatedly shoved and yelled at her when the two women encountered each other in a rest room at City Hall.
"If you're still talking to the radio station, something will happen to you," Lee yelled, by Ng's account. Lee contended that Ng had started the argument. Ng told authorities that she didn't want to have her former ally arrested because "Lee is rich and powerful and could have something done to her," the report says.
The FBI probe of Lee's donations could discourage Asian Americans from voting, running for office or making campaign contributions, said David Lee of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee. Politicians, too, may become more hesitant to reach out to Asian immigrants.
"We need to pull together and put this behind us, and educate people that it's OK to give and participate -- and there are many people who do participate without getting into trouble because they follow the law."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Week in review
Since The Chronicle first reported last Sunday about questionable donations to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's 2002 campaign, there has been a whirlwind of developments:
Sunday, Aug. 8
The Chronicle reports that San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center, a nonprofit group founded by Julie Lee in 1999, paid $108,000 from a state grant arranged by then-Assemblyman Kevin Shelley to two individuals and two companies who then made donations of nearly identical amounts to Shelley's successful 2002 campaign for California secretary of state.
Monday
The Chronicle reports that Shelley calls for an investigation and pledges to put $100,000 in questionable campaign contributions into an escrow account.
Tuesday
The Chronicle reports that the FBI is probing whether taxpayer funds from the San Francisco nonprofit were diverted to Shelley's campaign. The state attorney general's office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission plan their own investigations.
Wednesday
The Chronicle reports that the state controller's office demands that the San Francisco nonprofit prove that funds from a state grant were not diverted to the Shelley campaign -- or else return the $492,000 grant by Monday. Shelley provides state finance officials with a $125,000 check drawn from his campaign account. The money will be held in escrow pending the legality of the donations.
Thursday
The Chronicle reports that Julie Lee appears to have funneled an additional $50,000 into Shelley's political coffers through a real estate deal; the donation was the largest contribution from any individual to Shelley's campaign.
The Chronicle also reports that Lee's nonprofit received nearly $200,000 in city funds to provide services to immigrants, in addition to the state grant to build the center, but the group's office was rarely open and few services were provided.
Friday
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom asks the city controller to conduct an audit to determine whether the nonprofit used its taxpayer-funded city grants inappropriately. The FBI raids Julie Lee's offices in the Sunset District.
The Chronicle on Saturday reports that Julie Lee may have diverted an additional $30,000 to the Shelley campaign as part of a three-way real estate deal.
E-mail the writers at lmwilliams [at] sfchronicle.com, vahua [at] sfchronicle.com and bwallace [at] sfchronicle.com.
Look for the connection between the PEP Boys (Benny Yee, Leeroy King, etc.)Lennar, Goggin & Goggin & Sam Singer (Dec. 2nd 2003 Redevelopment Commission Meeting) Also ook for how City Agencies attemted to Thwart Energy Efficiency Funds for the So. East Community and give it to Lee's Community
Fund raising gave Lee access to City Hall, but she alienated some allies along the way
Lance Williams, Vanessa Hua, Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff Writers
Sunday, August 15, 2004
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She was a grassroots activist in San Francisco's Chinese American community who transformed herself into a City Hall insider through her prowess as a political fund-raiser.
An immigrant who became a multimillionaire from real estate deals on the city's west side, she contributed $274,712 to the campaigns of Mayor Willie Brown, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley and many other politicians while raising tens of thousands more to benefit the causes and candidates she favored.
In response to her aggressive fund raising, critics say, the politicians provided many benefits to Julie Lee, 57, a Sunset District real estate agent and president of the city's Housing Authority Commission:
Insider access at City Hall. Fast-track approval of her zoning and building permits. Grants and contracts totaling $698,998 for a new Sunset District community center she promoted but never built. Government jobs for her son, Andrew, a former rapper whom Lee promoted as a budding political star.
Now, the aggressive fund raising that made Lee a major player in San Francisco politics is the focus of overlapping federal and state corruption investigations.
After disclosures in The Chronicle, the FBI raided Lee's office last week, probing whether $125,000 that was donated to Shelley during his 2002 campaign had been illegally diverted from a state grant to Lee's nonprofit.
The Chronicle also reported that $80,000 in donations appears to have been funneled to Shelley, a longtime ally whom Lee is said to have touted as a future governor, from two real estate deals in which Lee was involved.
Shelley has denied wrongdoing and said he had no knowledge of illegal donations. Lee has declined to be interviewed, but she told the Chinese- language newspaper Sing Tao Daily that this controversy was just a case of Westerners' gossip about the Chinese.
For some people who have encountered her at City Hall, the story of Lee's rise to political prominence -- and her current troubles -- are another example of the patronage politics that infused city government since former Assembly Speaker Brown's two terms as mayor.
"The story of Julie Lee is the story of the Brown administration," said Barbara Meskunas, a former Housing Authority commissioner and longtime Brown critic. "In exchange for the Housing Authority appointment, she started raising money for Willie." Brown didn't respond to a request for comment.
"She has raised tons of money for people. It helps her (real estate) business, and then she's always pushing Andrew on them," she said, referring to Lee's son, who has worked as an aide to both Brown and Shelley.
'We love development!'
According to people who know her, Julie Lee was born in Shanghai, the daughter of a tailor. The family moved to Hong Kong, and Lee immigrated to the United States in 1969. She is married to Shing-Kit Lee, her business partner. The couple have four grown children.
The Lees went into real estate in the Sunset District, representing Chinese American clients on home sales. Later, they bought rental units and began building what contractors call "Richmond specials": teardowns or dramatic remodelings that replace small homes with much larger units.
Lee was enthusiastic about real estate -- "We love development!" she told Asian Week in a 1997 interview -- and the couple's businesses, First National Realty and First Financial Services, have made them rich. Public records reviewed by The Chronicle show that the Lees own 37 properties in San Francisco, Daly City and Sacramento, worth more than $12 million. Since 1994, they have been involved in more than $63 million worth of real estate transactions, including properties in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, records show.
As landlady or real estate agent, Lee can be tough, court records reflect. She has been sued at least 12 times in San Francisco, accused of wrongful eviction, keeping rentals in substandard condition and improperly handling real estate deals. The cases have been settled or dismissed.
Lee has filed seven lawsuits herself, most in connection with disputed real estate deals. All but three of those have been settled or dismissed as well. In February, after the United Schneerson's Synagogue on Geary Boulevard fell $50,000 behind in lease payments, Lee sued to evict the congregation. That case is pending.
Real estate drew Lee into politics. Many Asian American homeowners were complaining that city permit restrictions made it unduly difficult to remodel and expand their homes. Lee and local activist Rose Tsai formed the San Francisco Neighbors Association in the early 1990s to fight City Hall over the issue.
Defeating Jordan on housing
In 1995, when then-Mayor Frank Jordan backed an ordinance that would have restricted the construction of new "Richmond special" projects, Lee and Tsai rallied their new organization in opposition. After a series of stormy public hearings, Jordan buckled, and the ordinance was scrapped.
In 1997, she took on a new cause: the Central Freeway, which was shut down and marked for demolition after it had been damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Viewed as a vital transportation artery by west-side merchants and residents, the Central Freeway was considered an eyesore by others.
Lee and Tsai mounted a petition drive to get the freeway rebuilt. That started a bitter, expensive political fight that went on for two years.
Opposed by environmentalists and much of the city's political establishment, including Mayor Brown, Lee and Tsai nevertheless got a pro- freeway measure on the 1997 ballot and enacted by voters -- only to have it reversed by another initiative the next year.
In those days, Lee was an outsider, a bitter critic of City Hall, which she said ignored the needs of the city's growing Asian American community. She showed she could play political hardball.
She and Tsai began hosting KEST-AM's "Neighborhood Voice," a Cantonese- language radio program that became popular in the Chinese American community. Lee used the broadcasts to rally support for the freeway and to trash her foes. Sometimes, her anti-establishment rhetoric was over the top, opponents said.
Accused of airwave tirade
Rose Pak, head of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and a Brown loyalist, said Lee singled her out in about 1998, when Pak and Brown were leading a city trade mission to China.
"She was on the air cursing us out and hoping the plane would crash, and we'd all be killed," Pak recalled. "And she called Willie Brown some awful, derogatory racist remarks. I'm embarrassed to repeat them."
The freeway campaigns also involved political money. City records show that Lee, her family business and her political committee, San Francisco Neighbors for Better Government, donated $107,000 into the pro-freeway campaign.
In addition, the freeway fight cemented Lee's friendship with Shelley. The first-term assemblyman, who had represented the Sunset on the Board of Supervisors before going to Sacramento, had been one of Lee's chief allies in the campaign.
Lee's group got Mayor Brown's attention. Although he had opposed the first measure to rebuild the freeway, he sat out the second campaign.
Then, in January 1999, Brown named Lee to the commission of the scandal- racked Housing Authority, where a midlevel executive had been indicted in a bribery scheme.
"Willie Brown was very slick, to give her a crumb, for her to be happy, to be like a big shot," said Ling-Chi Wang, professor of Asian American studies at UC Berkeley and political observer. "I have no sympathy for her because I am totally opposed to the kind of money game she plays."
Exploiting legal loopholes
By the time Brown appointed her to the housing post, Lee was a skilled and effective money-raiser. City records show that starting with the 1997 freeway campaign, Lee, her family and businesses and the political committee contributed $274,712 to San Francisco politicians and causes.
Often Lee has exploited a legal loophole in the city's $500 limit on individual political donations to help elect officials she favors.
Brown was a special beneficiary. In 1999, Lee's San Francisco Neighbors for Better Government political action committee spent more than $26,000 on an independent ad campaign on television and in the Chinese-language press to boost the mayor's re-election. Because Brown had no control over what Lee's independent committee did, the spending by law wasn't subject to the $500 donation cap. In the 2000 race for the Board of Supervisors, Lee's committee spent as much as $78,000 promoting candidates and initiatives backed by Brown, the records show.
Other beneficiaries represent a cross section of the city's political life, from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, whose political committee obtained $1,000, to the local Republican Party, which got $2,800. Mayor Gavin Newsom received $4,000 for his 2003 campaign for mayor from donors and businesses associated with Lee.
In 2002, Lee and her husband donated $20,000 to Shelley's campaign for secretary of state.
Benny Yee, a real estate agent who sits on the Redevelopment Agency Commission, has worked on numerous political fund-raisers with Lee. They supported Shelley because he was "young, energetic and a good public figure," Yee said.
Lee is good at fund raising, an effective and genuine leader, Yee said.
"Once she believes certain candidates should be supported, she goes right into it," Yee said. "She's motivated."
People familiar with Lee say the political money she herself donates is only part of her fund-raising power. She also has raised uncounted thousands of dollars for favored candidates in the Chinese American community, they say. Lee raises money in several ways, says one political professional who asked not to be quoted by name because of the federal investigation.
"She will attend a (politician's) fund-raiser herself. She will collect checks (from other donors) and bundle them. And she'll maybe come (to a fund- raiser) and bring a lot of people with her. ... Her fund-raising is significant."
The fund raising has brought her access, clout and recognition: a citywide "Julie Lee Day," proclaimed by Brown on Oct. 13, 2001, and an invitation to the glitzy wedding of then-Supervisor Newsom at the Getty mansion.
Projects quickly approved
Critics said there were more substantial benefits as well.
The city's planning and zoning bureaucracy began to give quick approval to Lee's projects, even when there was substantial opposition, said land-use lawyer Stephen M. Williams, who often represents neighborhood groups in planning disputes.
Williams said he was still rankled by a 2001 case, in which the Planning Commission, despite opposition by neighbors and preservationists, gave Lee the go-ahead to demolish two "beautiful, historic" cottages built on the corner of 28th Avenue and California Street after the 1906 earthquake.
A previous applicant had been denied a permit to tear down the cottages, Williams said, but after a brief presentation Lee was given permission on the spot to put up "two very large, 40-plus-feet-high Richmond specials" in their place.
Lee also got help on her plan to build a new community center in the Sunset. In July 1999 -- before Lee had incorporated the organization that would run the center -- public records show that at Brown's direction, city officials looked into converting the Fire Department yard and offices into a community resource center. Eventually, Lee obtained $1-per-year lease on the property.
As The Chronicle has reported, Shelley, then Assembly majority leader, secured a $500,000 state grant in 2001 to build the center. Of that money, $168,750 went to associates of Lee, who then donated $125,000 to Shelley's campaign. Lee's nonprofit also obtained almost $200,000 in city grants to operate a referral hot line for immigrants and provide other services, but a Chronicle investigation showed that few services were ever provided.
Lee's connections also helped her obtain government jobs for her son.
Andrew Lee seemed more interested in music. He had set up his own company, Drew Productions. Styling himself "Drew Nasty," he performed with a rap group called C-Quence. "Rugged and Buckwild," the band's 2001 release on Kamikaze Records, included songs titled "Jailbait," "Latex Dreams" and "I Wanna F -- You," according to a promotional Web site.
But Julie Lee believed Andrew's future was in public service, people who know her say. Brown hired him as a mayoral special assistant, assigned to a neighborhood outreach effort headed by Bevan Dufty, a Brown aide and future supervisor.
Andrew eventually resigned to work as the unpaid executive director of his mother's nonprofit. He made his living as the landlord of three apartment buildings, according to an ethics report he filed. In 2002, Andrew Lee, then 28, ran for the Board of Supervisors in the Sunset, with the backing of his mother and Brown and Shelley.
Son's contentious campaign
It was a disappointing, expensive campaign.
His opponents criticized him for allegedly failing to vote in seven elections since he had first registered to vote. He also was criticized for his role in what was billed as a nonpartisan "environmental fair" and lightbulb giveaway jointly sponsored by the mayor's office and Julie Lee's nonprofit.
Mailers and posters advertising the event featured Andrew Lee's photo and a campaign-style letter with the greeting "Dear Westside Neighbors." The event itself featured speeches by both Andrew Lee and the mayor. Opponents accused him of improperly using city resources for electioneering.
Meanwhile, public records show that Andrew Lee spent $184,000 of his own money to finance the campaign. In a race eventually won by Supervisor Fiona Ma, he finished fourth, spending about $88 for each vote he received.
Struggle over son's post
The next year, Brown named Andrew Lee to the Public Utilities Commission. Supervisor Chris Daly said Lee and his mother lobbied him on the appointment.
In the course of a conversation in his office, Daly said he concluded that Andrew Lee had no interest or background in water and power issues, the Public Utility Commission's purview. As soon as the Lees left his office, "I immediately began trying to figure out how to keep this guy off the PUC," Daly said in an interview.
The chance came in October 2003, when Brown was traveling in Tibet. Daly used his power as acting mayor to void Lee's appointment to the commission, calling it "political patronage at its worst." The mayor was outraged, branding Daly's action as illegal. In the uproar that followed, the city attorney ruled Andrew Lee was entitled to serve on the PUC, but he resigned before taking office.
By then, Julie Lee had assisted her son in landing a job in the office of Shelley, the newly elected secretary of state. Initially a $55,000-per-year outreach worker, he was promoted to international business liaison, with a raise to $57, 756 annually. He often represented Shelley's office at Asian and Asian American functions.
At times, he worked as an advance man, making sure Shelley got a prominent seat on the stage at public events, said a political source. In April, Lee left work and filed a workers' compensation claim, telling colleagues he had hurt his back moving things.
Andrew Lee did not return repeated calls and e-mails for comment.
Julie Lee had long since split with most of her friends from the grassroots days. Tsai said she broke with Lee over her plan to obtain government grants to fund a cultural center in the Sunset. Tsai feared their organization would lose its political effectiveness if it were also relying on politicians for money.
"Politics has a corrupting influence, all kinds of temptation," Tsai said. "I didn't want us to be in that situation."
Sonia Ng, an activist and former Lee ally, is disappointed by what she sees as Lee's squandered leadership of the Chinese American community.
"Before, we thought we could organize the Chinese community to have power, " said Ng, 56. "After Julie Lee, everybody is afraid that somebody will use our power. No one wants to join together."
Scuffle in rest room
In 2001, according to a document filed with the Sheriff's Department, Ng's autistic son threatened to sue station KEST for invasion of privacy, saying Lee had broadcast details of his disability and mocked him for being on public assistance. The next year, Ng complained that Lee repeatedly shoved and yelled at her when the two women encountered each other in a rest room at City Hall.
"If you're still talking to the radio station, something will happen to you," Lee yelled, by Ng's account. Lee contended that Ng had started the argument. Ng told authorities that she didn't want to have her former ally arrested because "Lee is rich and powerful and could have something done to her," the report says.
The FBI probe of Lee's donations could discourage Asian Americans from voting, running for office or making campaign contributions, said David Lee of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee. Politicians, too, may become more hesitant to reach out to Asian immigrants.
"We need to pull together and put this behind us, and educate people that it's OK to give and participate -- and there are many people who do participate without getting into trouble because they follow the law."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Week in review
Since The Chronicle first reported last Sunday about questionable donations to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's 2002 campaign, there has been a whirlwind of developments:
Sunday, Aug. 8
The Chronicle reports that San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center, a nonprofit group founded by Julie Lee in 1999, paid $108,000 from a state grant arranged by then-Assemblyman Kevin Shelley to two individuals and two companies who then made donations of nearly identical amounts to Shelley's successful 2002 campaign for California secretary of state.
Monday
The Chronicle reports that Shelley calls for an investigation and pledges to put $100,000 in questionable campaign contributions into an escrow account.
Tuesday
The Chronicle reports that the FBI is probing whether taxpayer funds from the San Francisco nonprofit were diverted to Shelley's campaign. The state attorney general's office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission plan their own investigations.
Wednesday
The Chronicle reports that the state controller's office demands that the San Francisco nonprofit prove that funds from a state grant were not diverted to the Shelley campaign -- or else return the $492,000 grant by Monday. Shelley provides state finance officials with a $125,000 check drawn from his campaign account. The money will be held in escrow pending the legality of the donations.
Thursday
The Chronicle reports that Julie Lee appears to have funneled an additional $50,000 into Shelley's political coffers through a real estate deal; the donation was the largest contribution from any individual to Shelley's campaign.
The Chronicle also reports that Lee's nonprofit received nearly $200,000 in city funds to provide services to immigrants, in addition to the state grant to build the center, but the group's office was rarely open and few services were provided.
Friday
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom asks the city controller to conduct an audit to determine whether the nonprofit used its taxpayer-funded city grants inappropriately. The FBI raids Julie Lee's offices in the Sunset District.
The Chronicle on Saturday reports that Julie Lee may have diverted an additional $30,000 to the Shelley campaign as part of a three-way real estate deal.
E-mail the writers at lmwilliams [at] sfchronicle.com, vahua [at] sfchronicle.com and bwallace [at] sfchronicle.com.
Look for the connection between the PEP Boys (Benny Yee, Leeroy King, etc.)Lennar, Goggin & Goggin & Sam Singer (Dec. 2nd 2003 Redevelopment Commission Meeting) Also ook for how City Agencies attemted to Thwart Energy Efficiency Funds for the So. East Community and give it to Lee's Community
For more information:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file...
Show us the money: It's no surprise that much of the money raised this election season was aimed at getting voters to pass or fail four of Nov. 5's most contentious ballot initiatives: Propositions D, L, N, and R. Big corporate money - to the tune of at least $4 million - was collected to defeat or pass those measures, depending on what best suits the interests of the city's biggest businesses. More than $2 million was raised against Prop. D, the energy efficiency-public power measure aimed at giving customers a chance to get away from Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s electricity monopoly. At least $633,000 was raised to sink Prop. L, which would raise the transfer fee on real estate sales worth more than $1 million so city services to less fortunate residents wouldn't have to be slashed. Then there's Prop. N, Sup. Gavin Newsom's initiative to reduce cash subsidies for the homeless. According to the San Francisco Ethics Commission, Newsom's proposal, considered draconian by many activists, netted $626,343 by Nov. 4. And, finally, Prop. R, which would end rent control on 40 percent of the city's housing units over a 25-year period, garnered at least $563,000 in support. Those are big issues with big socioeconomic ramifications. The outcomes will do much in determining who can afford to stay in the city and under what terms. (By way of comparison, $8.7 million has been spent on all candidates and initiatives so far this year - and that includes the March election.) On another note, many corporate backers gave handsomely to more than one of these four initiatives. PG&E, for example, which singlehandledly accounted for the more than $2 million against Prop. D, chipped in $20,000 to Props. N and R. (Savannah Blackwell)
Promoting on the city's dime: Early in the campaign season, District Four supervisorial candidate Andrew Lee mailed out a postcard to Sunset District residents bearing the city seal and urging folks to attend an Aug. 24 environmental fair put on by Mayor Willie Brown's Office of Neighborhood Services, where Lee has a post as liaison to the city's west side. The move raised some eyebrows, because, according to San Francisco's law governing campaigns, no one is supposed to use city resources to promote a candidate.
Apparently, Lee is at it again. And this time, someone has complained - to the city's Ethics Commission. According to the Oct. 22 complaint, a copy of which was obtained by the Bay Guardian with the understanding the filer would remain anonymous, Lee ran an ad on cable television channel 26 featuring footage from the energy fair, and the voice-over implied that the people wandering around at the event were Lee supporters.
Aside from violating city law, this is "false advertising," the complaint says, because "most people went to the fair to get energy sav[ing] lightbulbs and various items."
Officials at the Ethics Commission said they could not comment on the charges against Lee. For Lee's part, Jeffrey Chen, a member of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission who also happens to be the chair of Lee's campaign committee, told us the candidate had no comment either - since he hasn't seen the complaint yet.
As for the postcard bearing the city's seal, it did not mention specifically that Lee is running for office. But it certainly read like campaign material, quoting Lee: "As the Executive Director of the [San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center - an anti-tenant property owners' group], I have seen how the Westside has often been neglected. As a concerned citizen of the Westside, I will continue to use all my efforts to get the City to provide the Westside with services and resources such as this Environmental Fair." He then told postcard recipients he was "looking forward to personally meeting [them] at the fair." (Blackwell)
Housing the homeless: For years, activists have called for the city to use its surplus property to build housing for those who have none. And now a supervisor is attempting to get into the act. At the San Francisco Board of Supervisor's Oct. 28 meeting, Sup. Chris Daly convinced colleagues to approve an ordinance that would create a centralized database of surplus city property. That way, officials can determine which parcels could be used as places to build units and which could be sold to pay for housing elsewhere in the city. According to Daly, the benefits must go to the homeless. (Blackwell)
Potrero Shocker: Potrero activists were flabbergasted to learn that the city's electricity resources plan has disappeared from the Web. As the Bay Guardian reported Oct. 30, the plan - put together by the SFPUC and the Department of the Environment - was removed from the city's official Web site after representatives from Mirant Corp. complained, at an Oct. 9 California Energy Commission meeting, that the report indicates San Francisco is moving toward "creating a public power empire'' (see "Last Minute Intelligence," 10/30/02).
"The implication is, what does this mean for the [future of] the plan?" asked Bob Boileau, a member of the Potrero Power Plant Citizens Advisory Task Force. "The question is, what is the city's real energy plan?"
If followed, the plan would allow the city to do without Mirant's planned expansion of the Potrero power plant - one of the largest sources of pollution in San Francisco. Apparently, Mirant isn't too thrilled about that. (Blackwell)
Promoting on the city's dime: Early in the campaign season, District Four supervisorial candidate Andrew Lee mailed out a postcard to Sunset District residents bearing the city seal and urging folks to attend an Aug. 24 environmental fair put on by Mayor Willie Brown's Office of Neighborhood Services, where Lee has a post as liaison to the city's west side. The move raised some eyebrows, because, according to San Francisco's law governing campaigns, no one is supposed to use city resources to promote a candidate.
Apparently, Lee is at it again. And this time, someone has complained - to the city's Ethics Commission. According to the Oct. 22 complaint, a copy of which was obtained by the Bay Guardian with the understanding the filer would remain anonymous, Lee ran an ad on cable television channel 26 featuring footage from the energy fair, and the voice-over implied that the people wandering around at the event were Lee supporters.
Aside from violating city law, this is "false advertising," the complaint says, because "most people went to the fair to get energy sav[ing] lightbulbs and various items."
Officials at the Ethics Commission said they could not comment on the charges against Lee. For Lee's part, Jeffrey Chen, a member of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission who also happens to be the chair of Lee's campaign committee, told us the candidate had no comment either - since he hasn't seen the complaint yet.
As for the postcard bearing the city's seal, it did not mention specifically that Lee is running for office. But it certainly read like campaign material, quoting Lee: "As the Executive Director of the [San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center - an anti-tenant property owners' group], I have seen how the Westside has often been neglected. As a concerned citizen of the Westside, I will continue to use all my efforts to get the City to provide the Westside with services and resources such as this Environmental Fair." He then told postcard recipients he was "looking forward to personally meeting [them] at the fair." (Blackwell)
Housing the homeless: For years, activists have called for the city to use its surplus property to build housing for those who have none. And now a supervisor is attempting to get into the act. At the San Francisco Board of Supervisor's Oct. 28 meeting, Sup. Chris Daly convinced colleagues to approve an ordinance that would create a centralized database of surplus city property. That way, officials can determine which parcels could be used as places to build units and which could be sold to pay for housing elsewhere in the city. According to Daly, the benefits must go to the homeless. (Blackwell)
Potrero Shocker: Potrero activists were flabbergasted to learn that the city's electricity resources plan has disappeared from the Web. As the Bay Guardian reported Oct. 30, the plan - put together by the SFPUC and the Department of the Environment - was removed from the city's official Web site after representatives from Mirant Corp. complained, at an Oct. 9 California Energy Commission meeting, that the report indicates San Francisco is moving toward "creating a public power empire'' (see "Last Minute Intelligence," 10/30/02).
"The implication is, what does this mean for the [future of] the plan?" asked Bob Boileau, a member of the Potrero Power Plant Citizens Advisory Task Force. "The question is, what is the city's real energy plan?"
If followed, the plan would allow the city to do without Mirant's planned expansion of the Potrero power plant - one of the largest sources of pollution in San Francisco. Apparently, Mirant isn't too thrilled about that. (Blackwell)
For more information:
http://www.sfbg.com/37/07/x_hall_monitor.html
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is trying to close the $352 million dollar budget deficit projected for next year. He's considering every possible idea to save a buck. How about this list of 30 city properties, each being leased out for just a dollar a year?
Julie Lee owns a San Francisco real estate company, but her passion is local politics. It's the main topic on a weekly Chinese-language radio program she hosts. As a result, Lee's become quite the powerbroker.
Julie Lee: "All of a sudden the whole Bay Area, cause the radio wave goes to the Bay Area, in Oakland, up to Sacramento, down to San Jose. They all know me."
Lee can deliver a crowd to a rally and bring donations into a campaign. She's done both for Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom.
Julie Lee: "I have a lot of friends. I talk to them, asked them to help."
Dan Noyes: "To help Gavin Newsom?"
Julie Lee: "Yes."
And Lee knows how to use her connections. Four years ago, she came up with the idea for a non-profit group that would refer Asian immigrants to childcare and youth counseling services. Lee needed a location and spotted a city-owned property on 19th Avenue -- an old fire engine repair yard with an office. She called Willie Brown.
Julie Lee: "So, I ask, he say fine, if there's nothing going on, we lease to you."
And it was quite a deal -- just one dollar a year. The neighbors in the Sunset District were excited about the center, and they waited for it to open.
Dan Noyes: "Well, it says it's a neighbor's resource center. Have you ever gotten any resources out of here?"
Moan Won, Sunset Resident: "No, what do I know? Maybe you?"
Dan Noyes: "Not me."
Moan Won, Sunset Resident: "Okay, not me, none of us got anything from this center."
Dan Noyes: "Is this place ever open?"
Betty Yip, Sunset Resident: "Never, never open. You see the garbage."
We found Lee's resource center closed and the mail and newspapers piled up.
Edward So, Sunset Resident: "See, I live right down the corner, I go by here all the time, it's always like this."
Ed Lee, Sunset Resident: "I think it's a waste of tax payers' money."
The neighbors say Julie Lee opened up the property just twice in the past four years for health and environmental fairs. They featured her son, Andrew Lee, who was running for supervisor at the time. Some residents picketed the events.
Dan Noyes: "The neighbors complain that this is a neighbor's resource center, and they've never gotten any resources out of this center."
Julie Lee: "Yes, how can you get-, if I-, how can you do anything if you have no money?"
But, Lee has received nearly $170,000 from city agencies. And the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families awarded Lee a $50,000 a year grant for a hotline, until the Board of Supervisors stepped in.
Chris Daly, SF Supervisor: "We put the money for the hotline on hold, and it's currently on finance committee hold."
The committee found that Lee was spending more than $300 for each person served by her hotline.
Tony Hall, SF Supervisor: "I wonder where that money has gone. And, what the purpose of the raising money was for, and where it's gone."
Julie Lee tells us, she's spent every dollar that's come in to keep the center going.
Julie Lee: "And I got all this attack, personal attack come up against me. It's… it breaks my heart sometimes."
Still, Supervisor Tony Hall says the city should cancel Lee's dollar-a-year lease, and sell the property to help solve the budget crisis. Lee says she's being unfairly singled out.
Julie Lee: "We talk about one dollar rent. We find out there's more than 30 much bigger organizations, they got free rent. Why they don't pick on them?"
The I-Team took a look at that list. It includes the UCSF Dental Clinic that provides free treatment to thousands of people each year who can't afford to see a dentist; a day-care center in the Hunters Point neighborhood; a soup kitchen run by the Missionaries of Charity, the group founded by Mother Teresa. Then there's Julie Lee and her struggling Neighbor's Resource Center.
Dan Noyes: "Is that a good deal for the city?"
Tony Hall, SF Supervisor: "No, no, that's not a good deal. That's why I brought it to the attention of the mayor's office, and they assured me they were going to look into it."
The Mayor's office tells us they are reviewing every lease of city property.
To voice your concern over this issue, e-mail the San Francisco Supervisors or the Mayor's Office. We've set up links below:
Michela Alioto-Pier
Tom Ammiano
Chris Daly
Bevan Dufty
Matt Gonzalez
Tony Hall
Fiona Ma
Sophie Maxwell
Jake McGoldrick
Aaron Peskin
Gerardo Sandoval
Mayor Gavin Newsom
>>Talk about this story
>> Get ABC7 News in your inbox
Julie Lee owns a San Francisco real estate company, but her passion is local politics. It's the main topic on a weekly Chinese-language radio program she hosts. As a result, Lee's become quite the powerbroker.
Julie Lee: "All of a sudden the whole Bay Area, cause the radio wave goes to the Bay Area, in Oakland, up to Sacramento, down to San Jose. They all know me."
Lee can deliver a crowd to a rally and bring donations into a campaign. She's done both for Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom.
Julie Lee: "I have a lot of friends. I talk to them, asked them to help."
Dan Noyes: "To help Gavin Newsom?"
Julie Lee: "Yes."
And Lee knows how to use her connections. Four years ago, she came up with the idea for a non-profit group that would refer Asian immigrants to childcare and youth counseling services. Lee needed a location and spotted a city-owned property on 19th Avenue -- an old fire engine repair yard with an office. She called Willie Brown.
Julie Lee: "So, I ask, he say fine, if there's nothing going on, we lease to you."
And it was quite a deal -- just one dollar a year. The neighbors in the Sunset District were excited about the center, and they waited for it to open.
Dan Noyes: "Well, it says it's a neighbor's resource center. Have you ever gotten any resources out of here?"
Moan Won, Sunset Resident: "No, what do I know? Maybe you?"
Dan Noyes: "Not me."
Moan Won, Sunset Resident: "Okay, not me, none of us got anything from this center."
Dan Noyes: "Is this place ever open?"
Betty Yip, Sunset Resident: "Never, never open. You see the garbage."
We found Lee's resource center closed and the mail and newspapers piled up.
Edward So, Sunset Resident: "See, I live right down the corner, I go by here all the time, it's always like this."
Ed Lee, Sunset Resident: "I think it's a waste of tax payers' money."
The neighbors say Julie Lee opened up the property just twice in the past four years for health and environmental fairs. They featured her son, Andrew Lee, who was running for supervisor at the time. Some residents picketed the events.
Dan Noyes: "The neighbors complain that this is a neighbor's resource center, and they've never gotten any resources out of this center."
Julie Lee: "Yes, how can you get-, if I-, how can you do anything if you have no money?"
But, Lee has received nearly $170,000 from city agencies. And the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families awarded Lee a $50,000 a year grant for a hotline, until the Board of Supervisors stepped in.
Chris Daly, SF Supervisor: "We put the money for the hotline on hold, and it's currently on finance committee hold."
The committee found that Lee was spending more than $300 for each person served by her hotline.
Tony Hall, SF Supervisor: "I wonder where that money has gone. And, what the purpose of the raising money was for, and where it's gone."
Julie Lee tells us, she's spent every dollar that's come in to keep the center going.
Julie Lee: "And I got all this attack, personal attack come up against me. It's… it breaks my heart sometimes."
Still, Supervisor Tony Hall says the city should cancel Lee's dollar-a-year lease, and sell the property to help solve the budget crisis. Lee says she's being unfairly singled out.
Julie Lee: "We talk about one dollar rent. We find out there's more than 30 much bigger organizations, they got free rent. Why they don't pick on them?"
The I-Team took a look at that list. It includes the UCSF Dental Clinic that provides free treatment to thousands of people each year who can't afford to see a dentist; a day-care center in the Hunters Point neighborhood; a soup kitchen run by the Missionaries of Charity, the group founded by Mother Teresa. Then there's Julie Lee and her struggling Neighbor's Resource Center.
Dan Noyes: "Is that a good deal for the city?"
Tony Hall, SF Supervisor: "No, no, that's not a good deal. That's why I brought it to the attention of the mayor's office, and they assured me they were going to look into it."
The Mayor's office tells us they are reviewing every lease of city property.
To voice your concern over this issue, e-mail the San Francisco Supervisors or the Mayor's Office. We've set up links below:
Michela Alioto-Pier
Tom Ammiano
Chris Daly
Bevan Dufty
Matt Gonzalez
Tony Hall
Fiona Ma
Sophie Maxwell
Jake McGoldrick
Aaron Peskin
Gerardo Sandoval
Mayor Gavin Newsom
>>Talk about this story
>> Get ABC7 News in your inbox
For more information:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/iteam/0504...
Newsom's pal, Julie Lee: on fire for illegal contributions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key Newsom Ally Charged With Misuse of Public Funds
Julie Lee
Randy Shaw 09.AUG.04
The Chronicle’s Sunday front-page expose on the channeling of illegal campaign donations from power-broker Julie Lee to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley missed a key point: Lee is a close advisor, major fundraiser and sitting Commissioner for Mayor Gavin Newsom. Only a few days after Newsom circumvented city ethics laws to free up a supervisor’s seat for a mayoral appointment, the mayor is now confronted with allegations of ethical and even criminal wrongdoing on the part of a close ally and member of his administration.
Credit the Chronicle for breaking the story of how Julie Lee set up a nonprofit—the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center-- that secured state funds for building a community center and then diverted the money to Kevin Shelley’s political campaign. But as is so often the case, the Chronicle focused on the wrong target and failed to connect the dots.
Kevin Shelley was the recipient of the illegal funds, but anyone familiar with the former Supervisor would know that he would never knowingly participate in an illegal scheme to launder campaign money. Despite the Chronicle’s focus on Shelley, the story provided no evidence that he even could have known that public money had been funneled to his campaign.
Shelley, like Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, sought to build westside Asian-American political support by associating with the ethically-challenged Julie Lee. Brown appointed Lee to the Housing Authority Commission despite her not having supported him in either mayors race. While serving in the Assembly, Shelley secured the state funds for Lee’s nonprofit to construct the community center. Secretary of State Shelley now employs Andrew Lee, Julie Lee’s son.
Oddly, the name of Mayor Gavin Newsom never appears in the Chronicle story. Lee’s close relationship to the Mayor is omitted despite a story where space was certainly not limited: the piece took up half the front page, and was 63 paragraphs long.
On the night before Mayor-elect Newsom’s inauguration, Julie Lee organized a major fundraiser for the Mayor. Two days later she held another fundraiser to reduce the campaign debt of her close political ally, Gavin Newsom.
Newsom made campaign ethics the centerpiece of his campaign, and has repeatedly and publicly questioned the business practices of Walter Wong. The Chronicle has dutifully echoed Newsom’s attacks on Wong, who rebuffed requests by Julie Lee and others that he support Newsom in the Mayor’s race.
There are two rival political factions in the city’s Asian-American community, and Wong and Lee are on opposite sides. By attacking and seeking to undermine Wong, Newsom scores points with Lee and her allies.
Lee’s conservative westside Asian-American voter base strongly supported Newsom in the December runoff. Since many of these voters are angry at the Mayor over his support for gay marriage, the Mayor has been careful to maintain his close relationship with community power-broker Julie Lee.
According to the Chronicle, Lee’s nonprofit failed to use state funds for the purpose they were awarded and instead directed the funds to individuals who then donated the money to Shelley’s Secretary of State campaign. If someone without Lee’s powerful political friends engaged in such behavior, we would be looking at multiple felony counts and jail time.
But there’s much more to the Julie Lee story than simply the misuse of public funds and the violation of nonprofit laws.
Lee has been associated with a series of questionable real estate dealings involving illegal demolitions, wrongful evictions, and misrepresentations to the California Department of Real Estate. She has evaded public attention for these acts for the same reason that her newly-formed nonprofit got the state grant it misspent---because she raises money and gets votes for politicians and they take care of her in turn.
Mayor Newsom has said time and time again that the unethical practices of the past must stop. He has promised to end “business as usual” in the city and told the media that they should hold him accountable for failing to do so.
To this end the Mayor must start requiring his political allies and financial backers like Julie Lee to meet the same ethical standards he asks of his political adversaries.
Julie Lee is currently President of the San Francisco Housing Authority commission. Mayor Newsom should demand that she take a leave from the Commission pending resolution of the charges surrounding her nonprofit.
The Mayor should also audit all funds his campaign raised from Julie Lee fundraisers to ensure that her nonprofit was not engage in additional siphoning of public funds. A list of all those attending these fundraisers should be made public so that the city is reassured that no illegal donations occurred.
District Attorney Kamala Harris has devoted extensive time to combating the scourge of lap dancing and prostitution in topless clubs. Now she can show she cares as much about political corruption. Harris should either file charges against the politically connected Ms. Lee or publicly explain why the facts raised by the Chronicle do not rise to criminal wrongdoing.
Newsom and Harris have skated for months on their youthful images and the carefully burnished “next generation” theme. But setting a strong tone against ethical violations by a political ally and fundraiser is a real test of leadership.
The city is watching how both will respond.
BernalGirl
Queen of Polifactics
Posts: 302
(8/9/04 12:45)
Reply Here is one of two Chronicle's articles on the issue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shelley seeks investigation of contributions
Secretary of state says he doesn't accept inappropriate donations
- Vanessa Hua and Christian Berthelsen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, August 9, 2004
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley called for an investigation Sunday and pledged to put $100,000 in questionable campaign contributions into an escrow account, following a report by The Chronicle that a San Francisco nonprofit used state grant money to pay two individuals and two companies who then made donations of nearly identical amounts to Shelley's 2002 campaign.
Also Sunday, Paul Hefner, a spokesman for the state controller, said the state may require the nonprofit -- the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center -- to refund the taxpayer-financed grant.
As majority leader in the Assembly in 2000, Shelley arranged the $500,000 grant for the nonprofit founded by Julie Lee, his political ally and president of the city's Housing Authority Commission.
According to documents obtained by The Chronicle, the nonprofit was supposed to use the grant money for the construction of a Sunset District community center, but it was never built.
"Until the San Francisco Chronicle contacted my office, I had no knowledge of any impropriety about the contributions in question to my campaign," Shelley said in a statement. "I hold myself to a very high standard, and I hold my contributors to that same high standard. I will not accept contributions that are illegal, inappropriate or tainted. ... Never have, never will."
Shelley, a Democrat, is requesting an investigation by the attorney general's office as well as the Fair Political Practices Commission. He said he will place the contributions in question into an escrow account for the state until the investigation is completed.
Reached at her home Sunday morning, Lee declined to comment and referred questions to her attorney, Cristina Arguedas. Calls to Arguedas' office on Sunday were not returned.
The donations to Shelley's campaign raise questions about possible violations of state and federal laws.
Under the state Political Reform Act, it is illegal to hide the true source of campaign contributions by channeling money through other donors. Under state law, it is illegal to use taxpayer money for political campaigns. Federal law also prohibits charities with tax-exempt status like the center from contributing to political campaigns.
Between September 2001 and October 2002, the nonprofit issued checks totaling $108,000 to Eric Zhu, Steve Chen, Cabrillo Construction and Gemini Advisors for services such as "project management," "consultant services" and "development fees," according to sources and records of the nonprofit's bank transactions obtained from the state controller's office under the California Public Records Act.
State campaign finance records show the four recipients of those payments made donations of similar amounts to Shelley's secretary of state campaign fund within weeks of receiving the money. Those donations totaled $100,000.
Reached by phone on Sunday, Zhu said "this has nothing to do with me. I don't really know anything," before he hung up.
Calls to Steve Chen, Joseph Chen of Cabrillo Construction and Jeffrey Chen of Gemini Advisors were not returned.
Documents obtained by The Chronicle also indicate the state Department of Parks and Recreation exercised minimal oversight in disbursing the grant to Lee's community center in the first place.
The department is supposed to issue grants as reimbursement only after the organization submits an invoice for work already completed.
The nonprofit submitted an alleged invoice on the letterhead of San Francisco engineer James Li. However, Li said the document was an estimate and he does not recall labeling it as an invoice.
Hefner, the spokesman for the state controller, which is auditing the grant, said the center has yet to provide invoices to substantiate its costs.
"If the center is unable to do that, we'll have no choice but to demand repayment," Hefner said.
A spokesman for the state attorney general had no comment.
The state Fair Political Practice Commission, which enforces campaign finance, did not return calls for comment on Sunday.
Jesse Weller, spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service, said the agency "always takes seriously any reports about alleged violations of the tax law." He said he could not comment specifically on Lee's nonprofit.
The state Department of Parks and Recreation began its own internal audit of the grant several weeks ago.
"If there's anything improper, we would take action and turn it over to the appropriate authorities," said agency spokesman Joe Rosato.
Mayor Gavin Newsom has a policy of "zero tolerance" for any improprieties, said spokesman Peter Ragone on Sunday. "There should be a full, fair, and thorough investigation," he said. "The appropriate action will be taken, pending the findings."
When reached by phone Sunday, former Mayor Willie Brown -- who appointed Lee to the Housing Authority Commission in 1999 -- declined to comment.
The Rev. Arnold Townsend, a board member of the nonprofit, said he had no knowledge of the center's payments to the two individuals and two companies.
"I didn't know anything about it, and there's nothing wrong about that," he said. "The board of directors is not involved in day-to-day operations. I don't know what happened."
Board member John Barry, who became the center's chief financial officer late last year, said he had no knowledge of those payments and declined further comment.
In August 1999, Lee incorporated the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center and negotiated a deal with the city to rent an old Fire Department property at 2350 19th Ave. for $1 per year, contingent on the nonprofit providing benefit to the public.
Starting in 2000, the center provided limited information hot line services and hosted two environmental fairs and one health fair. However, neighbors recall the center was rarely open for public use.
Lee planned to convert a concrete yard and small offices into a $2.5 million, four-story community center with child care and a multilingual referral service, according to various filings at the city Planning Department, Real Estate Division and Department of Children, Youth and Their Families.
As Assembly majority leader, Shelley secured a line item in the 2000-01 state budget authorizing the state Parks and Recreation Department to provide up to $500,000 for "construction of the San Francisco Neighborhood Resource Community Center."
In May 2001, the center received a check for $492,500 from the state and deposited the money into its account at National American Bank. That amount represented the half-million-dollar grant, minus the state's administrative costs.
Shortly after Shelley was sworn in January 2003, he hired Julie Lee's son, Andrew, as an aide. Since April, he has been on leave and receiving workers' compensation. Previously, Andrew served as executive director to his mother's neighborhood center before resigning late last year.
Andrew Lee did not return requests for comment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Key Newsom Ally Charged With Misuse of Public Funds
Julie Lee
Randy Shaw 09.AUG.04
The Chronicle’s Sunday front-page expose on the channeling of illegal campaign donations from power-broker Julie Lee to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley missed a key point: Lee is a close advisor, major fundraiser and sitting Commissioner for Mayor Gavin Newsom. Only a few days after Newsom circumvented city ethics laws to free up a supervisor’s seat for a mayoral appointment, the mayor is now confronted with allegations of ethical and even criminal wrongdoing on the part of a close ally and member of his administration.
Credit the Chronicle for breaking the story of how Julie Lee set up a nonprofit—the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center-- that secured state funds for building a community center and then diverted the money to Kevin Shelley’s political campaign. But as is so often the case, the Chronicle focused on the wrong target and failed to connect the dots.
Kevin Shelley was the recipient of the illegal funds, but anyone familiar with the former Supervisor would know that he would never knowingly participate in an illegal scheme to launder campaign money. Despite the Chronicle’s focus on Shelley, the story provided no evidence that he even could have known that public money had been funneled to his campaign.
Shelley, like Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, sought to build westside Asian-American political support by associating with the ethically-challenged Julie Lee. Brown appointed Lee to the Housing Authority Commission despite her not having supported him in either mayors race. While serving in the Assembly, Shelley secured the state funds for Lee’s nonprofit to construct the community center. Secretary of State Shelley now employs Andrew Lee, Julie Lee’s son.
Oddly, the name of Mayor Gavin Newsom never appears in the Chronicle story. Lee’s close relationship to the Mayor is omitted despite a story where space was certainly not limited: the piece took up half the front page, and was 63 paragraphs long.
On the night before Mayor-elect Newsom’s inauguration, Julie Lee organized a major fundraiser for the Mayor. Two days later she held another fundraiser to reduce the campaign debt of her close political ally, Gavin Newsom.
Newsom made campaign ethics the centerpiece of his campaign, and has repeatedly and publicly questioned the business practices of Walter Wong. The Chronicle has dutifully echoed Newsom’s attacks on Wong, who rebuffed requests by Julie Lee and others that he support Newsom in the Mayor’s race.
There are two rival political factions in the city’s Asian-American community, and Wong and Lee are on opposite sides. By attacking and seeking to undermine Wong, Newsom scores points with Lee and her allies.
Lee’s conservative westside Asian-American voter base strongly supported Newsom in the December runoff. Since many of these voters are angry at the Mayor over his support for gay marriage, the Mayor has been careful to maintain his close relationship with community power-broker Julie Lee.
According to the Chronicle, Lee’s nonprofit failed to use state funds for the purpose they were awarded and instead directed the funds to individuals who then donated the money to Shelley’s Secretary of State campaign. If someone without Lee’s powerful political friends engaged in such behavior, we would be looking at multiple felony counts and jail time.
But there’s much more to the Julie Lee story than simply the misuse of public funds and the violation of nonprofit laws.
Lee has been associated with a series of questionable real estate dealings involving illegal demolitions, wrongful evictions, and misrepresentations to the California Department of Real Estate. She has evaded public attention for these acts for the same reason that her newly-formed nonprofit got the state grant it misspent---because she raises money and gets votes for politicians and they take care of her in turn.
Mayor Newsom has said time and time again that the unethical practices of the past must stop. He has promised to end “business as usual” in the city and told the media that they should hold him accountable for failing to do so.
To this end the Mayor must start requiring his political allies and financial backers like Julie Lee to meet the same ethical standards he asks of his political adversaries.
Julie Lee is currently President of the San Francisco Housing Authority commission. Mayor Newsom should demand that she take a leave from the Commission pending resolution of the charges surrounding her nonprofit.
The Mayor should also audit all funds his campaign raised from Julie Lee fundraisers to ensure that her nonprofit was not engage in additional siphoning of public funds. A list of all those attending these fundraisers should be made public so that the city is reassured that no illegal donations occurred.
District Attorney Kamala Harris has devoted extensive time to combating the scourge of lap dancing and prostitution in topless clubs. Now she can show she cares as much about political corruption. Harris should either file charges against the politically connected Ms. Lee or publicly explain why the facts raised by the Chronicle do not rise to criminal wrongdoing.
Newsom and Harris have skated for months on their youthful images and the carefully burnished “next generation” theme. But setting a strong tone against ethical violations by a political ally and fundraiser is a real test of leadership.
The city is watching how both will respond.
BernalGirl
Queen of Polifactics
Posts: 302
(8/9/04 12:45)
Reply Here is one of two Chronicle's articles on the issue
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Shelley seeks investigation of contributions
Secretary of state says he doesn't accept inappropriate donations
- Vanessa Hua and Christian Berthelsen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, August 9, 2004
Secretary of State Kevin Shelley called for an investigation Sunday and pledged to put $100,000 in questionable campaign contributions into an escrow account, following a report by The Chronicle that a San Francisco nonprofit used state grant money to pay two individuals and two companies who then made donations of nearly identical amounts to Shelley's 2002 campaign.
Also Sunday, Paul Hefner, a spokesman for the state controller, said the state may require the nonprofit -- the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center -- to refund the taxpayer-financed grant.
As majority leader in the Assembly in 2000, Shelley arranged the $500,000 grant for the nonprofit founded by Julie Lee, his political ally and president of the city's Housing Authority Commission.
According to documents obtained by The Chronicle, the nonprofit was supposed to use the grant money for the construction of a Sunset District community center, but it was never built.
"Until the San Francisco Chronicle contacted my office, I had no knowledge of any impropriety about the contributions in question to my campaign," Shelley said in a statement. "I hold myself to a very high standard, and I hold my contributors to that same high standard. I will not accept contributions that are illegal, inappropriate or tainted. ... Never have, never will."
Shelley, a Democrat, is requesting an investigation by the attorney general's office as well as the Fair Political Practices Commission. He said he will place the contributions in question into an escrow account for the state until the investigation is completed.
Reached at her home Sunday morning, Lee declined to comment and referred questions to her attorney, Cristina Arguedas. Calls to Arguedas' office on Sunday were not returned.
The donations to Shelley's campaign raise questions about possible violations of state and federal laws.
Under the state Political Reform Act, it is illegal to hide the true source of campaign contributions by channeling money through other donors. Under state law, it is illegal to use taxpayer money for political campaigns. Federal law also prohibits charities with tax-exempt status like the center from contributing to political campaigns.
Between September 2001 and October 2002, the nonprofit issued checks totaling $108,000 to Eric Zhu, Steve Chen, Cabrillo Construction and Gemini Advisors for services such as "project management," "consultant services" and "development fees," according to sources and records of the nonprofit's bank transactions obtained from the state controller's office under the California Public Records Act.
State campaign finance records show the four recipients of those payments made donations of similar amounts to Shelley's secretary of state campaign fund within weeks of receiving the money. Those donations totaled $100,000.
Reached by phone on Sunday, Zhu said "this has nothing to do with me. I don't really know anything," before he hung up.
Calls to Steve Chen, Joseph Chen of Cabrillo Construction and Jeffrey Chen of Gemini Advisors were not returned.
Documents obtained by The Chronicle also indicate the state Department of Parks and Recreation exercised minimal oversight in disbursing the grant to Lee's community center in the first place.
The department is supposed to issue grants as reimbursement only after the organization submits an invoice for work already completed.
The nonprofit submitted an alleged invoice on the letterhead of San Francisco engineer James Li. However, Li said the document was an estimate and he does not recall labeling it as an invoice.
Hefner, the spokesman for the state controller, which is auditing the grant, said the center has yet to provide invoices to substantiate its costs.
"If the center is unable to do that, we'll have no choice but to demand repayment," Hefner said.
A spokesman for the state attorney general had no comment.
The state Fair Political Practice Commission, which enforces campaign finance, did not return calls for comment on Sunday.
Jesse Weller, spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service, said the agency "always takes seriously any reports about alleged violations of the tax law." He said he could not comment specifically on Lee's nonprofit.
The state Department of Parks and Recreation began its own internal audit of the grant several weeks ago.
"If there's anything improper, we would take action and turn it over to the appropriate authorities," said agency spokesman Joe Rosato.
Mayor Gavin Newsom has a policy of "zero tolerance" for any improprieties, said spokesman Peter Ragone on Sunday. "There should be a full, fair, and thorough investigation," he said. "The appropriate action will be taken, pending the findings."
When reached by phone Sunday, former Mayor Willie Brown -- who appointed Lee to the Housing Authority Commission in 1999 -- declined to comment.
The Rev. Arnold Townsend, a board member of the nonprofit, said he had no knowledge of the center's payments to the two individuals and two companies.
"I didn't know anything about it, and there's nothing wrong about that," he said. "The board of directors is not involved in day-to-day operations. I don't know what happened."
Board member John Barry, who became the center's chief financial officer late last year, said he had no knowledge of those payments and declined further comment.
In August 1999, Lee incorporated the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center and negotiated a deal with the city to rent an old Fire Department property at 2350 19th Ave. for $1 per year, contingent on the nonprofit providing benefit to the public.
Starting in 2000, the center provided limited information hot line services and hosted two environmental fairs and one health fair. However, neighbors recall the center was rarely open for public use.
Lee planned to convert a concrete yard and small offices into a $2.5 million, four-story community center with child care and a multilingual referral service, according to various filings at the city Planning Department, Real Estate Division and Department of Children, Youth and Their Families.
As Assembly majority leader, Shelley secured a line item in the 2000-01 state budget authorizing the state Parks and Recreation Department to provide up to $500,000 for "construction of the San Francisco Neighborhood Resource Community Center."
In May 2001, the center received a check for $492,500 from the state and deposited the money into its account at National American Bank. That amount represented the half-million-dollar grant, minus the state's administrative costs.
Shortly after Shelley was sworn in January 2003, he hired Julie Lee's son, Andrew, as an aide. Since April, he has been on leave and receiving workers' compensation. Previously, Andrew served as executive director to his mother's neighborhood center before resigning late last year.
Andrew Lee did not return requests for comment.
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