VETERAN CITY HALL gadflies have noticed it's gotten a whole lot harder to get a straight answer there since Mayor Willie Brown took office. When news broke that former Department of Elections director Tammy Haygood had spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' cash on damage control following the fiasco of last November's elections, one insider finally decided to do something about it. Sup. Jake McGoldrick called on all city departments to report their public relations spending for last year and requested that the city budget analyst review the numbers. The preliminary results are astounding. According to budget analyst Harvey Rose, at least $4.7 million was spent by the city on public relations during fiscal year 2001-02 – not including the $227,000 spent on the elections. All together, San Francisco spent $5 million on public relations from July 1, 2001, through June 30, 2002.

The largest figures came from San Francisco International Airport, which dished out more than $1 million on P.R., including $583,532 for five full-time personnel and up to $429,000 on consultant contracts. Next up was the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, with $887,221 spent on 11 public relations staff salaries and benefits. The Department of Public Works and the Municipal Transportation Agency were among the other biggest spenders, disbursing $631,495 and $404,779, respectively, on in-house P.R. personnel.

But the most illustrative reply to McGoldrick's request came from the Mayor's Office itself, which said, in classic P.R. fashion, that it had "no response."

San Francisco is spending all this money on public relations, and the overall result has been that it's now more difficult to access public information or talk to someone in the know at a city department.

"The city doesn't need to be in the P.R. business," McGoldrick contends. "The department heads should be able to communicate what they're doing."