The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco is obstructing mandated disclosure in its refusal to provide public access regarding its contacts with Supervisor Connie Chan in a campaign to demolish Car Free JFK Drive.
I have made two Public Records Requests (PRR) with the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (FAMSF).
Both responses from the FAMSF lack transparency and are a mockery to the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance process. I received the following FAMSF response to my second Request today.
Supervisors Connie Chan (above left) and Board President Shamann Walton (above right) are two vocal opponents of a car free JFK Drive. In March 2021 Chan and Walton may have collaboratively met with Fine Arts Museum CEO Thomas Campbell to discuss the status of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park (see attached). This is the only responsive document I have received from the FAMSF.
It was several weeks later when Supervisor Walton made his now thoroughly debunked statement comparing a Car Free JFK Drive to the segregated South in Jim Crow America.
San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan is ethically and politically compromised. She cannot render a fair judgment.
Supervisor Chan needs to drop her legislation to open JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park to cars. She must recuse herself from any debate on this issue.
Since taking office in early 2021 District 1 Supervisor Chan has been one of the most strident foes of a Car Free JFK Drive. It is documented that she held her first of 14 meetings with the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco lobbyists in March 2021. These contacts have continued to the present time.
This is by far the greatest number of meetings any San Francisco Supervisor has held with FAMSF lobbyist, Platinum Advisors.
Supervisor Chan, FAMSF management and Platinum Advisors have engaged in a well documented relationship for over a year.
On April 5, 2022 Supervisor Chan introduced legislation which would bring back cars to JFK Drive. That very same day she received a phone call from Platinum Advisors Ryan Blake, the lobbyist for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.During her brief time as an elected official Connie Chan has walked in lock step with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. A historic, wealthy and well connected San Francisco institution. FAMSF and its lobbyist, Platinum Advisors, have worked on Supervisor Chan non stop in their attempt to destroy car free JFK Drive.
It is a well documented record.
I have submitted Public Records Requests with both Supervisor Chan and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The responsive documents to date provide only a partial picture of what has transpired during Connie Chan’s time in office.
What has been provided is revealing.
In the following telephone transcript of July 27, 2021 RB is Ryan Blake, lobbyist for Platinum Advisors. Tom Campbell is the CEO for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The San Francisco Ethics Commission database shows that Supervisor Chan and/or her legislative Staff held 13 meetings with Platinum Advisors, lobbyists for the Corporation of Fine Arts Museums through February 2022, per the attachment from the Ethics Commission website. There was a 14th meeting in March 2022 which has yet to be reported. (see attached 3.16.2022 emails)
Sad to say but all the alleged Police Reforms notwithstanding, the attitude of SFPD, and law enforcement in general, is grab ’em and lock ’em up. Probable cause, facts and truth are irrelevant.
Reading the article carefully the Reader will learn this SFPD misconduct was the second egregious act by the same SFPD homicide inspectors. Their misconduct resulted in an innocent person being imprisoned for 18 years and cost the City Millions when the SFPD was found culpable.
This is yet another example of why San Francisco needs a District Attorney who looks after the Rights of all People. The Chronicle should not have added the words “He insists” in the Headline. “He spent 30 years in prison for a murder he insists he didn’t commit”. He would not be freed after 30 years in prison, the result of blatant SFPD misconduct, solely based on protestations of innocence.
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 4.18.2022
Joaquin Ciria was arrested in 1990 for a murder in San Francisco that he insists he didn’t commit.
“Our office is proud of and grateful for the work of the Innocence Commission in rectifying the wrongful conviction of Mr. Ciria,” San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said in an emailed statement. “Although we cannot give him back the decades of his life lost we are grateful that the court has corrected this miscarriage of justice.”
Joaquin Ciria shakes the hand of Lara Bazelon, chair of the San Francisco Innocence Commission that determined Ciria had been wrongfully arrested and convicted of a 1990 murder and recommended his exoneration, at San Francisco Superior Court on Monday, April 18, 2022.Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle
The original San Francisco Police Department investigation was led by retired officers including Art Gerrans and Jim Crowley. Gerrans and Crowley were also involved in the 1991 wrongful conviction of Maurice Caldwell, who sued the city after serving 20 years and won $8 million in 2021.
On Monday, 32 years later, Superior Court Judge Brendan Conroy overturned the conviction and granted a new trial after a request from San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Boudin was following a recommendation made by his Innocence Commission. A prosecutor said in court that the DA’s office would dismiss the case against Ciria, clearing the way for him to go free.
After the hearing, Ciria’s son Pedro embraced loved ones, his eyes red from crying.
“It feels good,” said the 32-year-old, who was six weeks old when his father was arrested.
Ciria, 61, counts as the first person exonerated by the commission, a unique model that Boudin has sought to advance with state legislation at a time when most conviction review units nationwide have shown no results.
Monday’s ruling makes San Francisco’s only the second DA’s office in the Bay Area to help exonerate someone with their version of a conviction review unit, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. Santa Clara County’s unit has been involved in five overturned convictions dating back to 2011.
Yojana Paiz, right, embraces Lara Bazelon, chair of the San Francisco Innocence Commission, after a court hearing in which Paiz’s former common-law husband, Joaquin Ciria, had his 30-year-old murder conviction overturned. Ciria was arrested and tried for a 1990 murder in San Francisco despite Paiz insisting that Ciria was home with her on the night of the crime. Ciria also did not match the killer’s description.Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle
Though Boudin followed the commission’s recommendation, he has final authority on what to do.
The commission’s decision was largely owed to a man who came forward to say he witnessed the murder and recognized the killer as a different man.
Roberto Socorro swore in a declaration that he saw and heard the killer, a man he knew, but didn’t come forward for two reasons. First he didn’t believe in cooperating with the police. Second, because he was a close friend of the victim, Socorro said he made a vow to find the man himself and take revenge.
But Socorro’s conscience found him before he could find the man.
“I am deeply ashamed of my selfish decision to remain silent all these years,” Socorro wrote in his declaration.
Last October 24 our Street Tree was thrown off its mooring during the ferocious Atmospheric River which hit San Francisco and deluged the City with the biggest downpour in decades.
The City is responsible for maintaining thousands of street trees, many of which were damaged during the Storm. We filed a request with the Bureau of Urban Forestry which is responsible for maintaining urban foliage. It took several months negotiating with City Hall bureaucracy. It was worth the wait.
Urban Forestry manager Jason spent two hours securing the tree, putting down new stakes and providing me with solid advice on how to care for our now five year old Street Tree.
NO STOPPINGBureau of Urban Forestry arrives on the job sitePutting the Street Tree uprightJason secures the Street TreeJason at workJason takes a lookDig itStreet Tree rootsDigging around the base of the Street TreeJason inspecting the Street TreeStaking the Street TreeDropping the stakes into the groundMaking the right fitSecuring the new stakesJason checks his workPacking up
I have always danced around the edge of Ballet. My parents took ballet lessons at a ballet school in San Francisco run by Russian emigres. They had friends and acquaintances in the ballet community. Growing up I was impressed by the physical strength and ability of ballet dancers.
To a young boy growing up it was all very exotic.
My parents attended the ballet regularly. My mom worked at the San Francisco Ballet School for years.
I realize it is a genuine shock to the professional Russian ballet community to learn a lead dancer in the world reknown Bolshoi ballet has defected.
To protest her government’s brutal war against The Ukraine.
Excerpted from The New York Times 4.15.2022
AMSTERDAM — Just days after the invasion of Ukraine, Olga Smirnova, one of Russia’s most important ballerinas, posted an emotional statement on Telegram, the messaging app. “I am against war with all the fibers of my soul,” she wrote.
“I never thought I would be ashamed of Russia,” she added, “but now I feel that a line has been drawn that separates the before and the after.”
That’s certainly been true for Ms. Smirnova, 30. As the war got worse, and dissent in Russia was ruthlessly quashed, Ms. Smirnova, who had gone to Dubai to recover from a knee injury, realized that she could no longer return home. “If I were to go back to Russia, I would have to completely change my opinion, the way I felt about the war,” Ms. Smirnova said in a recent interview in Amsterdam, adding that returning would be, “quite frankly, dangerous.”
Olga Smirnova – Vogue Magazine Russia
So she left the Bolshoi, the storied company whose name is synonymous with ballet, with its gilded theaters just blocks from the Kremlin, uprooted her life and moved to Amsterdam, where she joined the Dutch National Ballet.
“We’re going back to the Cold War,” said Ted Brandsen, the artistic director of Dutch National Ballet and Ms. Smirnova’s new boss, invoking a time notable for the defections of Soviet dance stars including Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikovand Natalia Makarova. Mr. Brandsen said Russian dancers were contacting him daily saying, “I can’t be myself as an artist in this country.”
Ballet in Russia is something of a national pastime — a cultural jewel, but also the focus of intense emotion and close scrutiny by its discerning audiences, even if it’s less popular with the pop-culture obsessed young. Ballet is “beloved by Russian people like no other place in the world,” said David Hallberg, who in 2011 became the first American dancer to become a principal at the Bolshoi, half a century after Nureyev became the first major Soviet dancer to defect to the West.
Elon Musk’s Twitter hostile take over attempt is just another publicity stunt in this never ending soap opera to dominate the news cycle.
Most alarming is Musk’s plan to take down the guard rails which put some constraints in what is deemed appropriate in Twitter land.
Donald Trump’s blatant lies and incendiary rants resulted in his suspension from Twitter along with violent reactionaries responsible for the attempted Coup d’etat on January 6, 2021.
Perhaps Elon Musk can secure financing for his hostile takeover from Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase.
In the top photo a cyclist is pedaling by Twitter headquarters in San Francisco at 10th and Market Street. A CAR FREE thoroughfare all the way to the historic Ferry Building. The Corner site was formerly a Chase Bank branch.
Excerpted from The New York Times 4.14.2022
Twitter’s board is considering a defensive move known as a poison pill that would severely limit Elon Musk’s ability to acquire the social media giant, two people with knowledge of the situation said.
Prince Al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who described himself as one of Twitter’s largest and most long-term shareholders, said that Twitter should reject Mr. Musk’s because the offer was not high enough to reflect “intrinsic value” of the company.
The board met on Thursday to discuss Mr. Musk’s offer to buy the company, according to one of the people, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The directors are weighing whether to move ahead with the poison pill — formally called a shareholder rights plan — that would limit the ability of a single shareholder, like Mr. Musk, to acquire a critical mass of shares in the open market and force the company into a sale.
The poison pill defense is a common tactic used by companies that want to fend off unwelcome takeover offers. It essentially lets the company flood the market with new shares or allow existing shareholders other than the potential acquirer to buy shares at a discount. This dilutes the bidder’s stake and makes buying shares more expensive.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Twitter was weighing a poison pill.
Twitter headquarters in San Francisco
If Twitter’s board rejects Mr. Musk’s bid, he could put his offer directly to shareholders, rather than the board, by launching a so-called tender offer. If Twitter’s other shareholders like Mr. Musk’s offer, which is currently at $54.20 a share, they could sell their stock directly to the billionaire, allowing him to gain control of the company.
“It would be utterly indefensible not to put this offer to a shareholder vote,” Mr. Musk said in a Twitter post on Thursday. “They own the company, not the board of directors.”
But Twitter’s investors on Thursday seemed underwhelmed with Mr. Musk’s bid, potentially over concerns as to how he would finance it. While share of companies typically rise when there is takeover speculation, Twitter’s were down almost 2 percent on Thursday.
Twitter’s other top shareholders, according to FactSet, include The Vanguard Group, the company’s largest shareholder, with a 10.3 percent stake; Morgan Stanley Investment Management, with a 8 percent stake; and BlackRock Fund Advisors, with a 4.6 percent stake. Vanguard and Morgan Stanley Investment Management declined to comment on Mr. Musk’s bid. BlackRock did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Musk turned down a seat on Twitter’s board over the weekend, leaving directors who had recently welcomed him to their ranks to weigh a proposal in which Mr. Musk said he had no confidence in their management of the company.
Eleanor Ohman died in 2006 at the age of 87. Eleanor was a political artist ahead of her time who has never received the recognition she richly deserves.
Her legacy of generally unseen and unsung political cartoons would have passed into history except for a collection available at the San Francisco Public Library.
I got to know Eleanor when I worked as News Editor at San Francisco’s Black community newspaper, The Sun Reporter. Eleanor was the personal assistant to the Publisher Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett. Outspoken dynamo publisher, practicing physician and political force in San Francisco and beyond.
Eleanor was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
Eleanor’s cartoons appeared regularly in The Sun Reporter editorial page. Her work took aim at War, racism, the cops, politicians. Her career as a political cartoonist spanned decades.
I got to know Eleanor. She was smart, politically saavy and kind. This is a woman who worked with Carlton Goodlett aka “The Doc” for decades and undoubtedly was a soothing influence to his fiery personality.
Eleanor Ohman was awarded the 1963 top cartoon in what was then called the Negro Press
Following is a representative sampling of her work.
The totalitarian Fascist like tactics of the DA Recall supporters is an afront to democracy and free speech.
This disruptive Fascist strategy reared its ugly face again when the District Attorney was in Chinatown announcing a lawsuit to stop frivolous lawsuits targeting small Asian business owners.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed even though she is no supporter of DA Chesa Boudin needs to be a Leader. Speak out and condemn this Fascist type activity.
Mayor London Breed swears in DA Boudin as his wife Dr. Valerie Block looks on 1.8.2020
This is only one strategy in the perverse playbook of the DA Recall cadres who hired mercenaries to qualify the Recall. Spending nearly $1,500,000 to paid mercenary signature gathers.
Recall supporter disrupting DA Boudin event 3.5.2022
Possessing an unlimited bank account funded by the most rabid right wing conservative Political Action Committees the Fascist like campaign to unseat a Progressive DA will continue in all its vile incarnations until June 7.
Distributing the worst kind of Red baiting artwork targeting the District Attorney is just one vile tool in their playbook.
Red baiting literature distributed in Fascist style campaign by DA Recall supporters
I witnessed this Fascist behavior on March 5 when these people engaged in a display of disruption and intolerance at a Rally in Alamo Square.
Rather than be chastened these people proudly Trumpet their vile activies.
Today’s disruption occurred in front of the Media. Hopefully outlets other than The Standard will expose these Fascist like actions for what they really are. An assault on Democracy.
Excerpted from The Standard 4.11.2022
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced a lawsuit Monday against a Southern California law firm that allegedly abused the Americans with Disabilities Act to target small businesses for financial gain.
SF DA Chesa Boudin announces ADA lawsuit. Supervisor Connie Chan stands at his side
Monday’s press conference turned chaotic as several pro-recall protesters gathered outside of the shop and began shouting at Boudin. The recall campaign also issued a statement after the news conference.
DA Recall supporters engage in Fascist tactics disrupting campaign events
Boudin—the progressive prosecutor who’s facing a recall in June—is teaming up with Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who formerly served as DA in San Francisco, to sue Potter Handy, LLP, a San Diego-based law firm that has represented clients who filed numerous lawsuits against small businesses based on ADA laws. Many cases were based on fraudulent claims, Boudin said, and they are believed to have ended with business owners paying thousands of dollars in settlements.
“Small businesses are such a valuable part of our city and our community,” Boudin said in the news conference at Magical Ice Cream shop on Grant Avenue in Chinatown. “This is also one of the 250 small businesses that have been victimized by fraudulent lawsuits.”
The lawsuit is asking the firm to immediately stop filing similar ADA lawsuits and to return settlement money it has received to small businesses. Potter Handy didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Boudin—the progressive prosecutor who’s facing a recall in June—is teaming up with Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who formerly served as DA in San Francisco, to sue Potter Handy, LLP, a San Diego-based law firm that has represented clients who filed numerous lawsuits against small businesses based on ADA laws. Many cases were based on fraudulent claims, Boudin said, and they are believed to have ended with business owners paying thousands of dollars in settlements.
DA Boudin supporters
“Small businesses are such a valuable part of our city and our community,” Boudin said in the news conference at Magical Ice Cream shop on Grant Avenue in Chinatown. “This is also one of the 250 small businesses that have been victimized by fraudulent lawsuits.”
The lawsuit is asking the firm to immediately stop filing similar ADA lawsuits and to return settlement money it has received to small businesses. Potter Handy didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Supervisor Connie Chan met with Platinum Advisors, Lobbyist for the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 14 times in a 12-month period beginning in March 2021.
The most recent meeting occurred on March 16, 2022.
On April 5, 2022 Supervisor Chan, harsh foe of Car Free JFK Drive in San Francisco’s historic Golden Gate Park, introduced legislation.
If approved it will open a 1.5 mile safe strip of peace and tranquility to cars. This now quiet Peopleway has been car free the past two years.
The afternoon Chan introduced her legislation, she received a phone call from Platinum Advisors lobbyist Ryan Blake. See attached.
Transcipt of phone message from Platinum Advisors lobbyist Ryan Blake to Connie Chan the same day she introduced legislation to bring back cars to JFK Drive – 4.5.2022
Platinum Advisors, a powerful national lobbying firm whose deep local connections date back to Willie Brown’s time as mayor, started going to work on Supervisor Chan in March 2021, right after she took office.
Platinum Advisors contacted Chan four times over the next two weeks, according to disclosures required by the city’s Ethics Commission.
Contacts between lobbyist Platinum Advisors and Supervisor Chan have continued to the present time. Supervisor Chan’s relationship includes being cultivated by FAMSF CEO Thomas Campbell who, the public record shows, has worked relentlessly on the first term legislator.
Transcript of exchange between Connie Chan’s office and Platinum Advisor lobbyist Ryan Blake (RB) – 7.27.2021
At the same time Chan met with Platinum Advisors, the first rally on JFK Drive in March 2021 was held by car free supporters. I asked the organizers, “Where’s Connie?” Connie Chan was not a participant. I was told “she is not a supporter” of the effort to keep JFK Drive car free.
JFK Car Free rally 3.20.2021
On a recent tour of the museum, Helena Nordström, an employee of the non-profit Corporation of the Fine Arts Museum (COFAM), acting on behalf of the Fine Arts Museum told The Standard that officials are “incredibly desperate” to see JFK Drive reopened.
COFAM is so “desperate” that it, “went on a spending spree, rolling out a new lobbying campaign last Fall called Park Access 4 All, with its own webpage and ads being blasted out across a variety of platforms. COFAM has spent roughly $133,000 since October to lobby city officials and blast out political ads,” according to The Standard.
Supervisors Connie Chan, Hillary Ronen and Shamann Walton at Mayor London Breed’s State of City Address – 2022
German authorities launched another crackdown on the Neo-Nazi groups which, 77 years after the collapse of Hitler’s reign of terror, continue to make their presence felt.
On February 26, 2020, authorities arrested five members of Atomwaffen Division, including former Texas state Atomwaffen leader John Cameron Denton. These are just the latest detentions targeting the neo-Nazi group, whose active membership has been decimated in the last two years by a steady stream of federal charges and arrests.
America needs to be more zealous in cracking down on these extremist groups. Their part in the January 6, 2021 insurrection was their most most blatant attempt to destroy the American system of governance. Given the opportunity these reprehensible peoplewill try, again, in an increasingly right wing leaning country. The United States.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 4.4.2022
Almost 800 police officers in 11 of Germany’s 16 federal states took part in raids on far-right extremist groups on Wednesday, German media reported.
The raids began in the early morning and the neo-Nazi groups “Atomwaffen Division” (AWD), “Combat 18” (C18) and “Knockout 51” (K51) were the main focus.
A spokesperson for the state prosecutor’s office said four suspects were arrested, German magazine Der Spiegel reported. The suspects are believed to be leaders of K51, one of whom is also being investigated in connection with AWD.
Some of the suspects face charges of being members of terrorist groups, others of being part of a criminal organization, according to Der Spiegel.
AWD is a neo-Nazi terror organization that started out in the US and is made up of leaderless terror cells. Members of the US group have been linked to at least five murders.
A splinter group was set up in Germany in 2018. Their flyers were spotted around Berlin as well as in a neighborhood in Cologne that was targeted by the neo-Nazi terror group National Socialist Underground (NSU) more than a decade prior.
People claiming to be members of the organization also sent death threats to German Green politicians Cem Özdemir and Claudia Roth in October 2019.
The state prosecutor’s office is investigating 10 suspected members of the group, five of whom were targeted by Wednesday’s raids. The office said investigations had begun in September 2019.
According to Der Spiegel, one of the suspected members of AWD is a former military officer cadet. He had been under observation by the German military counter-intelligence organization (MAD) that keeps tabs on neo-Nazi activity in the Bundeswehr, but they were unable to cut off his access to weapons and munitions.
C18 first appeared in the UK in the 1990s as the street-fighting wing of the far-right British National Party (BNP).
Authorities were aware of the group’s presence in Germany by the end of the decade. They were involved in neo-Nazi events and far-right music festivals.
Combat 18 was eventually declared illegal in 2020, a move that was heavily criticized as being too little too late, German broadcaster Tagesschau reported.
The other group under fire, K51, were targeted after they tried to set up a “Nazi hood” in the town of Eisenach in the eastern German state of Thuringia. Germany’s attorney general named the group a criminal organization and ordered the arrest of four suspected members.
The federal prosecutor’s office said that members of the group were involved in protests against hygiene measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 in cities such as Leipzig and Kassel that resulted in violent clashes with police and counter-protesters.
During her brief time as an elected official Connie Chan has walked in lock step with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. A historic, wealthy and well connected San Francisco institution. FAMSF and its lobbyist, Platinum Advisors, have worked on Supervisor Chan non stop in their attempt to destroy car free JFK Drive.
Lee's Perspective 