Matier & Ross:
BART probes possible pilfering of high-end tickets.
BART is buzzing over a criminal investigation into whether a large number of tickets were stolen from the customer service center at the Lake Merritt Station and ended up on the underground market.
The probe is focused on the pass office, which sells special and high-value discount tickets and Clipper cards.
Word is, one of the office’s managers has been put on administrative leave while the cops and accountants pore over the books. The possible ticket scam was discovered by another manager over the summer.
BART won’t say how much in the way of ticket value has gone missing, or how long the possible pilfering has been going on.
“BART can confirm there is a current investigation into possible misuse of public funds,” said spokeswoman Alicia Trost. “However, because this is an ongoing investigation — as well as a personnel matter — BART cannot comment or release additional details on the specifics of
the investigation.”
Trost said BART would release results of the probe, “as appropriate, in the future.” Meanwhile: BART directors plan to break out the freebies for 2,500 people expected in San Francisco next week for the American Public Transit Association’s annual conference — Clipper cards worth an estimated $120,000 in rides.
BART General Manager Grace Crunican said the free rides are good on her system and a half-dozen others, including Muni and SamTrans. The cost will be divided by the transit systems based on where the cards are used.
A BART staff memo says the free cards for conventioneers will both “enhance their San Francisco Bay Area experience” and help them “avoid expenses related to rental cars, parking fees and gas charges.”
Guess the public transit experts need an incentive to take public transit. Too hot: Faced with a firestorm of objections from homeowners and landlords, officials at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District are dropping their call to ban wood-burning fireplaces.
The agency had considered requiring homeowners and landlords either to replace or retrofit the thousands of wood burners in the Bay Area with either gas or electric burners, or to seal off their fireplaces. It would have applied to all nine Bay Area counties — San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano.
The cost of the retrofits was estimated at anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 apiece.
“It would also have meant unbelievable delays in the sale of homes if owners were forced to go through with this type of construction,” said Jessica Epstein of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors.
The idea was to reduce wood-smoke particles. But in a series of public meetings, homeowners, landlords and real estate types turned out in force — submitting some 1,000 comments, most opposed to the plan.
“I can’t say it was entirely unexpected. That’s what public workshops are for,” said Wayne Kino, the agency’s compliance and enforcement director.
The air quality district hasn’t completely backed off. New rules will still require landlords and homeowners to inform tenants or buyers that the release of wood-burning particles can be a health hazard.
The district also is putting together a $3 million fund for rebates or subsidies for those who want to convert fireplaces to lower-emission devices, such as gas- or electric-heated logs. VIP: You’d have thought the pope had arrived, judging by the dignitary protection Friday outside the Salute e Vita restaurant on Richmond’s waterfront.
Instead, it was U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch who stopped by for lunch with 18 local police chiefs and other law enforcement officials.
While Lynch and her entourage dined on halibut and tiramisu, dozens of Secret Service agents, California Highway Patrol officers and local police on motorcycles kept watch outside. Two police boats crisscrossed the bay.
For Ethiopian-born restaurant owner Menbere Aklilu, 53, who arrived in the U.S. as a broke single mother, it was nearly as momentous as a papal blessing.
“I feel like I’m getting married,” she told us moments after the crew left.
Aklilu said she was repeatedly visited by men in suits over the past month, culminating in daily security sweeps before the lunch date.
A prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco paid the lunch bill, Aklilu said. She’s donating all the money to Richmond’s Family Justice Center, which helps victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, elder and child abuse, and human trafficking.
“I got money from the government when I was homeless,” she said, and now “I don’t need it.”