Paul Kozakiewicz: Get Dirty Campaign Tactics
Out Of the Richmond District

There is a cancer growing on our electoral process.

The downtown groups Save Our City (SOS) and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA) have been spending large sums of money to defame and pervert the positions and candidacy of incumbent supervisor Jake McGoldrick. The groups are hell-bent on removing McGoldrick because they deem him a threat to their pro-business agenda.

Save Our City is chartered as a non-partisan group to advocate for its downtown business interests. There is nothing wrong with that. But SOS is circumventing campaign financing limits and distorting the political process by spending tens of thousands of dollars to influence the outcome of district elections. District 1 residents' have a right to a fair and impartial debate about the important issues facing the Richmond District.

I am not endorsing any candidates in the upcoming Nov. 2 election, but I will always do whatever I can to endorse a clean and fair election and set the public record straight. The attacks by SOS and GGRA are the most vitriolic personal attacks I've seen in my 16 years on the beat.

An outside "non-partisan" group spending unlimited funds to hold sham public meetings, while lying and distorting about a candidate's position, is wrong and taints the reputations of those supporting such an effort.

According to Bruce Cuthbertson, who helps coordinate SOS activities, there were 10 groups that sponsored a Sept. 13 debate at the University of San Francisco among District 1 candidates and that SOS is being singled out unfairly. He said a complaint concerning SOS's tactics filed by the McGoldrick campaign with the SF Department of Elections was an excuse for McGoldrick to duck the meeting.

"It's a frivolous claim to divert attention away from answering questions," Cuthbertson said.

But the attacks on McGoldrick, and SOS's lead in the effort to remove him from office, are obvious.

At a May 24 public meeting sponsored by SOS, McGoldrick was initially not invited to participate. When two of the four moderators for the event, local organizer Tim Himes and Planning Association for the Richmond President Ron Miguel, refused to participate unless McGoldrick was invited, SOS capitulated.

At the University of San Francisco Sept. 13, the group did invite the former college professor to its second meeting but he declined to participate because of the group's "transparent" efforts to attack him. District 1 candidate Rose Tsai said she was not invited.

During the debate - if it can be called that - the moderator's questions were obviously a set-up for the four moderate candidates on stage, Lillian Sing, David Heller, Matt Tuchow and Leanna Dawydiak. All gave the same responses to all questions asked, with the exception of Sing, who said she would consider increasing taxes to support city programs.

"This is really getting boring," Sing said toward the end of the meeting.

In a flier distributed door-to-door to Richmond residents urging them to attend the event, SOS presented four candidates in a favorable light, with first-person responses to tailored questions. All of the candidates gave the same responses.

But when it came to McGoldrick, the group pulled a low-quality picture from his website and created McGoldrick's responses for the flier, all of which were contrary to the other candidates. McGoldrick said he was never asked to give responses for the flier and that SOS's representations of his positions were mischaracterized and outright wrong.

"It was a total setup," McGoldrick said.

The SOS flier claimed McGoldrick supported giving illegal immigrants the right to vote - McGoldrick supports giving legal immigrants the right to vote, not illegal. He said four of the six positions highlighted in SOS's flier were wrong, including his position on neighborhood schools (supports) and Care Not Cash (supports as approved by city voters).

When asked why the supervisor wasn't given the opportunity to respond to the flier's questions, Cuthbertson would only say that the group's leadership felt it was best not to do so.

In response to the actions of SOS, McGoldrick and Tsai have filed a complaint with the SF Ethics Commission. Unfortunately, any decision by the commission will probably come long after the election is over and the damage done.

According to McGoldrick, SOS is after him in-part because he is sometimes opposed to privatizing city services (because the level of services to city residents sometimes drops); opposes the proliferation of large chains stores; and because he wants large downtown corporations to "pay their fair share" to support city services.

Save Our City also paid to have an automated telephone call go to Richmond District residents attacking McGoldrick.

According to published reports, the group is comprised of 24 of the biggest companies in San Francisco, including those headed by Warren Hellman, Charles Schwab and Don Fisher. They have contributed about a half million dollars to SOS's war chest, as well as about $2.3 million to President George Bush's reelection effort. That's not surprising, given the fact that more than half of SOS's membership are Republicans - and support a Republican agenda.

What if, in two years, these or other groups decide to preemptively attack progressive candidates in the Sunset District and across the City? As an incumbent, McGoldrick has resources to help counter the attacks, but a challenger struggling to get elected perceived as being unfriendly toward business, would not have a chance if attacked by SOS or the GGRA with unlimited funding. If these dirty tactics go unchecked, these groups could have a corrupting influence, not only concerning a candidate's position, but whether or not they will run for office.

I think SOS and GGRA also want to eliminate district elections - which are supposed to level the playing field and give the little guy a fighting chance - with an eye toward going back to high-priced citywide elections that put large downtown corporations back in the driver's seat at City Hall.

An Ugly Ally

The Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA) has been distributing fliers door-to-door, posting street signs and sending out mass mailings and e-mails attacking the supervisor for missing votes and being an absentee supervisor.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

According to the Aug. 27 SF Examiner, McGoldrick had the best attendance record of all supervisors from 2003 - 2004, with only three unexcused absences out of 185 public meetings.

The supervisor claims an overall 98 percent attendance record and a 90 percent voting record.

"I've never ducked a single important vote," McGoldrick said.

The GGRA's flier also claims McGoldrick voted to give himself a $75,000 raise. Even a political novice in this town knows the SF Civil Service Commission, acting independently, determines the salary of the city's supervisors. (The commission voted recently to reduce the supervisors' salaries.)

"Maybe it's time we said 'good-bye' to Jake McGoldrick for good," the flier extols.

Maybe it's time to say good-bye to the Golden Gate Restaurant Association.

I wonder if the members of the restaurant association know how their money is being spent. Maybe a good old-fashioned citywide boycott, led by members of the community fed up with dirty politics, would get the attention of the restaurants that are feeding the GGRA-attack machine.

The people who comprise the GGRA and SOS should be ashamed that their groups are lying, distorting and corrupting the political process in the Richmond by circumventing the $500 spending limit per candidate with so-called -soft money.-

The residents of the Richmond District deserve better - they deserve the truth.

Paul Kozakiewicz is the publisher of the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers and a member of the SF Neighborhood Newspaper Association.