Call it what you will - inquiry, preliminary investigation or full-blown inquest - but the U.S. attorney's office has begun gathering information about Progress for All, the now-disbanded group behind the "Run, Ed, Run" campaign to draft interim Mayor Ed Lee into running for a full term, a source told City Insider.
The group has been the subject of complaints by both local Democratic Party Chairman Aaron Peskin and retired Superior Court Judge Quentin Kopp, who have asked for investigations into its conduct.
Peskin's request went to the city's Ethics Commission over campaign finance issues and the possibility that Progress for All was coordinating its activities with Lee in violation of election law.
Kopp requested a criminal inquiry after The Chronicle reported that Rose Pak, a Lee confidante and fundraiser for Progress for All, had solicited help for the "Run, Ed, Run" campaign from Recology, the city's garbage-collection contractor, which at the time had a $112 million contract to ship waste to a landfill in Yuba County pending before the Board of Supervisors.
Pak had pressed a senior executive on multiple occasions to provide workers to help her effort to get Lee to run for a full four-year term. Two temporary Recology employees then gathered signatures urging Lee to run, while a separate petition was placed in one of the company's workrooms, which 86 employees signed, Recology officials said.
Kopp asked both the district attorney and the U.S. attorney to launch a criminal probe. As city administrator, Lee was one of three people evaluating bids in July 2009 when he gave Recology a substantially higher score than the other two panelists. One of the other panelists rated Recology's bid equal to one by Waste Management. The other gave Recology a three-point edge. Lee rated it 11 points higher. Recology's average score beat Waste Management's by five points.
"Mayor Lee reviewed the proposal with the goal of getting the best deal for the city and ratepayers," mayoral spokeswoman Christine Falvey said.
Lee's camp maintains that he had no ties to Progress for All's activities.
A source told the Insider that the U.S. attorney's office asked for documents on Aug. 10, the same day Progress for All changed its campaign finance filing to replace a $5,000 donation it had listed as from Victor Makras, a close friend of former Mayor Willie Brown. The donation is now listed as from Sausalito investor John Talty.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney could not be reached late Monday. Two leaders with Progress for All did not return calls seeking comment.
- John Cot�
The dustup over Mr. Clean: If there was any doubt that the mayor's race has gotten uglier since Mayor Ed Lee joined the crowded field, that's gone now.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who is running for mayor, slammed Lee on Monday for appointing Mohammed Nuru as acting director of the Department of Public Works after its former chief, Ed Reiskin, took the helm at the Municipal Transportation Agency. Nuru, known as MrCleanSF on Twitter, had been the department's deputy director of operations and was hired by then-DPW chief Lee.
Herrera knows plenty about Nuru, dating back to 2004 when the city attorney's office led an investigation into The Chronicle's reports about his conduct.
The investigation found that while at DPW, Nuru directed employees of the nonprofit he had previously led, the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, to campaign for candidates in the 2003 mayor's and district attorney's races.
City-funded nonprofits are prohibited from using those funds to campaign.
Herrera told the Insider that Lee's appointment of Nuru, who has long been a supporter of Lee, including attending the kickoff of the "Run, Ed, Run" campaign, is troubling.
"It indicates a lack of sensitivity and judgment with respect to what type of individual we should be having lead critical city departments," Herrera said, adding the appointment amounts to cronyism.
Christine Falvey, Lee's spokeswoman who formerly worked at DPW, said, "Mohammed has been a proven leader at DPW."
Nuru declined to comment.
Amos Brown, head of the local NAACP, said he's planning a noon rally at City Hall today to call on Herrera to resign for questioning Nuru. He called Herrera's remarks "sleazy, sophomoric politicking."
- Heather Knight
This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San�Francisco�Chronicle
Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/16/BANG1KNNVT.DTL
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