Lee Heidhues 8.22.2023
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco continues its campaign of stonewalling and treachery to smash down the effort by one citizen to force accountability.
The saga of the nearly million dollar attempt by the FAMSF to destroy JFK Promenade is a story which needs to see the light of day. It is a tale of the never ending saga of San Francisco where the wealthy and politically connected are able to hide in the shadows and escape accountability.
This fight will have its next hearing before the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force October 4 in City Hall. Heidhues v. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco – File 22052.
At its August 22 meeting in City Hall a task force committee agreed the dispute “must be decided once and for all.”
The committee continued my case and asked the City Attorney to draft a memorandum to address the FAMSF/COFAM refusal to provide the public documentation of its political activities to destroy JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park.
I filed my case with the task force in May 2022. The matter has now been argued three times. May 2022. July 2023 and August 2023. At its July meeting the task force ruled that FAMSF “violated” the Sunshine Ordinance “by failing to disclose public records in a timely and complete manner.”
The San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force has now upped the ante in my effort to force accountability and obtain records from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF).
The refusal of FAMSF is a sore point with the task force. It is a fact that this well endowed, politically connected institution is one of the worst agencies in San Francisco when it comes to public accountability.
The task force has seen and heard enough of the FAMSF hiding behind its non-profit entity, The Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums (COFAM).
The sought after documents concern the FAMSF/COFAM effort to destroy JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park. The main vehicle being last November’s Proposition I which was bankrolled by the Museum and its wealthy patrons. Primarily political power broker and chair emerita of the FAMSF Board of Directors Dede Wilsey.
I made public records requests of FAMSF in spring and summer 2022.
FAMSF continues to argue it is exempt from public scrutiny. It argues that The Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums (COFAM) has all the responsive documents. As a 501C3 non-profit FAMSF stridently contends it is exempt from the Sunshine Ordinance. This argument belies the fact that FAMSF and COFAM are tightly bound together in a very symbiotic relationship.
Lee's Perspective 