Muni ads for Breed trigger complaint
Supervisor London Breed’s campaign ads for mayor are popping up all over San Francisco, but one place they shouldn’t be appearing is the end panel of a Muni bus shelter.
That’s the gist of an ethics complaint filed Tuesday by good-government activist Larry Bush, who cited two Breed bus stop ads — one at 18th and Guerrero streets, the other at 18th and Diamond streets — saying they abuse city resources for a political purpose.
Additional Breed ads were spotted at Phelan and Ocean avenues, at Geary and Arguello boulevards, and at California and Spruce streets.
The posters feature pictures of Breed glowing
against a yellow backdrop, with the slogan “A mayor for all San Franciscans” — a line that both Breed and her political rival, Mayor Mark Farrell, have used to describe themselves. They were paid for by the London Breed for Mayor 2018 campaign.
Bush called for an ethics investigation and, if warranted, action and penalties against both Breed and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, whose spokesman expressed surprise when asked about the ads. SFMTA bans political advertising on its fleet and on its bus stop kiosks.
Breed’s campaign posters “clearly violate our advertising policy,” said SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose, noting that the agency has asked its vendor, Clear Channel Outdoor, to remove the ads immediately.
Questioned about the ads Tuesday, Breed fired back.
“I guess I just can’t get comfortable anywhere without someone trying to throw me out,” she said, referring to a vote that progressive supervisors orchestrated in January to install Mark Farrell in the mayor’s office until the June 5 election. Breed had served as acting mayor after the death of Ed Lee in December.
Her campaign spokeswoman, Tara Moriarty, blamed Clear Channel Outdoor for “mistakenly hanging ‘London Breed for Mayor’ posters at bus shelters,” even though the campaign had asked that the ads be placed there.
“The obligation falls upon Clear Channel to ensure compliance, and it failed to do that,” Moriarty said.
Clear Channel Outdoor spokesman Jason King apologized for the ads Tuesday, and said the company had taken them down.
— Rachel Swan
Another round: San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell nominated City Controller Ben Rosenfield to a second 10-year term on Tuesday.
Rosenfield, who leads an office of about 250 city accountants, auditors and analysts, has been credited with playing a key role in stabilizing San Francisco’s budget as it reeled from the 2008 financial crisis and with helping to usher in a period of unprecedented economic growth in the city’s history.
“It’s been a fascinating 10 years,” Rosenfield said. “I think we’ve gotten a lot of things done.”
Rosenfield is unassuming, widely respected and outwardly apolitical, so it’s unlikely his nomination will be held up in the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee, which must first approve the nomination before it goes to the full board.
As controller, Rosenfield provides oversight of the city’s $10.1 billion budget and is responsible for, among other things, the disbursement of city funds and departmental performance analyses.
“Ben has played an integral role in our city’s financial management for the last 10 years, helping usher in financial solvency and responsibility unlike any this city has seen,” Farrell said in an email. He cited the city’s recent creditrating upgrade as one example of the city’s “responsible fiscal governance” under Rosenfield’s leadership. Farrell served as the chairman of the budget committee while on the Board of Supervisors.
Rosenfield said his office has prided itself on taking a long-term view of the city’s economic health. He was instrumental in creating a successful 2009 ballot measure that shifted the city to a two-year budget cycle and required city officials to create and adopt a five-year financial plan.
More recently, Rosenfield has overseen an overhaul of the city’s internal payroll and human resources technology, as well as its contract procurement system, which has been described as the largest technology overhaul in San Francisco’s history.
Prior to his first appointment to the controller’s office in 2008, Rosenfield served as the deputy city administrator from 2005 to 2008 and as the budget director for mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom. — Dominic Fracassa
A sweeter smell: The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission signed off on a $1.3 billion plan to replace the 60-year-old solid wastewater processing facilities at the city’s Southeast Treatment Plant.
The so-called biosolid digester facilities project represents the cornerstone of the SFPUC’s 20-year, $6.9 billion plan to modernize and improve the city’s aging sewer infrastructure. The Southeast Treatment Plant, located in Bayview-Hunters Point, is the workhorse of the city’s sewer treatment system, processing about 80 percent of San Francisco’s wastewater.
In addition to making the city’s solid wastewater treatment more efficient — the SFPUC will build five digesters to replace the nine that exist today— the new facility will also be built farther away from people’s homes, helping to limit the foul odors that can emanate from the plant. The SFPUC has pledged to keep the odor contained to the treatment plant’s fence line.
To help offset some of the costs of planning and construction, the SFPUC is working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to secure a $625 million low-interest loan through federal Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. The agency is also seeking a $651 million loan from the State Revolving Loan fund.
The SFPUC anticipates construction will begin this fall and last through May 2024.
— Dominic Fracassa