Activists take Kim to task for supporting Mirkarimi
The uproar over former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s spousal-abuse case may have faded for most folks, but not for local anti-domestic-violence activists and tech titan Ron Conway.
Conway and the activists have been willing to wait for years for a chance to take out the supervisors who blocked Mirkarimi’s removal from office in 2012. So far the score is two down and two to go, with Supervisor Jane Kim now squarely in their crosshairs.
The tech millionaire is funding a $200,000 (and counting) TV and Internet ad campaign aimed at defeating Kim in her state Senate battle with fellow Supervisor Scott Wiener. Two years ago, Conway paid big bucks to prevent
Supervisor David Campos from prevailing over David Chiu in their race for state Assembly, and ex-Supervisor Christina Olague’s pelt is also on Conway’s wall — he helped fund her election defeat in 2012.
It may have been four years since the Mirkarimi fight, but Conway and his allies in the anti-domestic-violence forces don’t forget.
“We are holding her (Kim) accountable, and we will be doing that on every level,” said activist Andrea Shorter, who has helped spearhead the hits on Kim and the others.
Kim is being targeted in two ads, one featuring Mauryne Lees, a retired worker in the County Jail’s domestic violence program, whose daughter was killed by her partner in a domestic violence incident 20 years ago in Aurora, Colo.
The second features Shorter, who says the fact that Kim said she would support a Mirkarimi recall after she voted not to bounce him as sheriff shows that she plays it both ways.
Kim declined to comment on the ads, but campaign spokeswoman Julie Edwards slammed the attacks — saying, “This isn’t about Mirkarimi. This is about raw power. The establishment is clearly worried about a leader like Jane Kim who isn’t afraid to stand up to the special interests and fight for the working people of this city.”
History shows Conway will dig deeper into his wallet to defeat Kim if he has to. Olague’s 2012 election loss in District Five came after a $300,000 campaign waged by Conway, his wife, Gayle, Shorter and others in the anti-domestic-violence community.
Campos was nailed by an $800,000 TV, Internet and mailer blitz paid for by Gayle Conway and LinkedIn co-founder and Airbnb investor Reid Hoffman in the final weeks of his race with Chiu.
Campos and Olague, plus Kim and Supervisor John Avalos, provided the votes on the board needed to block Mayor Ed Lee’s attempt to throw Mirkarimi out of office for an incident involving his wife, in which the then-sheriff eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor false imprisonment. Avalos has been spared Conway’s wrath only because he was unopposed when he ran for re-election, and now he’s termed out.
As for Mirkarimi himself ? He overwhelmingly lost his re-election bid last year. The outcome was such a foregone conclusion that Conway and Co. didn’t even bother with the heavy artillery.
Ax falling: Within a day of being made the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s chief executive officer, Max Hollein was cleaning house.
Sources tell us that as many as a half-dozen employees were handed pink slips as part of an administrative reorganization that Hollein, the museums’ director since March, launched after getting his additional title last week.
And it may not stop there. We hear that Chief Operating Officer Richard Benefield, who had been widely viewed as helping to bolster philanthropist and board boss Dede Wilsey during her tumultuous reign, is heading out the door for another job.
“Max has a different style how he wants to organize the musuems,” said one longtime insider, who wasn’t authorized to speak for the record.
Among those who found themselves on the chopping block was Ken Garcia, the former Chronicle news columnist who served in recent years as the museums’ government and community affairs director. He was the museums spokesman who provided the statement in July that suggested Wilsey was preparing to step down from her roles as president and CEO to “focus on other areas where her skills and expertise will have a positive impact.”
Wilsey immediately pledged to stay on as leader of the de Young and Legion of Honor. Last week, however, she did relinquish her CEO job, and her board title was changed from president to chair.
Rock ’n’ roll ’em: It seems like a natural fit — Berkeley’s legendary Amoeba Music and a pot club.
The Telegraph Avenue store hopes that becomes a reality within the next six months, now that it’s landed the city’s single new permit to open a medical marijuana dispensary.
Appropriately, the pot club will go into what is now the store’s “jazz room.”
“With record sales slowing, we’ve been looking for way to diversify our product line to make enough money to save our store and keep our people working,” Amoeba co-owner Marc Weinstein said after the City Council approved the permit. “This seems to be the best way to do it.”
For years, merchants along the avenue have been frustrated by the once-popular street’s decline.
“To be honest, I was expecting them to oppose the idea” of a weed dispensary at Amoeba, said Mayor Tom Bates. “Instead, they all supported it.”
In part because of the rules for pot clubs.
“We have to keep the area completely clean and safe, with security guys with eyes and ears on the street — something the city certainly hasn’t provided for,” Weinstein said.
And while the doors will initially open up for medical marijuana, Weinstien also has an eye on what might happen if voters legalize recreational weed in November.
“Who knows?” Weinstein said. “Someday we might have pairings of different types of weed to fit different kinds of music.”