By Steven T. Jones

As San Francisco city officials grapple with a proposed budget that would eliminate hundreds of city jobs and tens of millions of dollars in city services, the Bank of America Building has become a symbolic monument to the unwillingness of downtown interests to share the budget pain.

On June 18 the building was once again the target of a protest by youth advocates upset that its owners, Bank of America and the Shorenstein Co., are appealing their property tax assessments for the years 2002 and 2003. If that appeal is successful, the city will have to return about $5.65 million to the companies.

"We're here because while youth programs are dying in the city budget, big corporations like Bank of America are trying to steal $5 million," said N'Tanya Lee, youth development director at Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth.

Bank of America's argument that the building was only worth $475 million – rather than the $967 million it was assessed at by the city – seems to be undercut by a June 17 article in the San Francisco Chronicle's business section, which reports the bank announced it had placed the building on the market, with analysts expecting it to go for between $674 million and $1.1 billion.

Bank of America spokesperson Harvey Radin told the Bay Guardian the figures in the Chron article came from outside brokers and not the company: "Nothing has been finalized, so anything out there with numbers would be purely speculative."

Radin referred questions on the assessment appeal to the Shorenstein Co., which manages the building investment. Shorenstein spokesperson Andrew Neilly defended the company's right to appeal for lower taxes, telling us, "It's a process, and we're going through that process."

As we reported in April (see "The Millionaire Beggars," 4/7/04), commercial property tax appeals threatened to cost the city more than $100 million. Assessor Mabel Teng unsuccessfully asked the corporations to drop their appeals and sought more resources to combat them.

Teng was somewhat successful in winning the support of Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose proposed budget increased Teng's resources and included three new positions for arguing cases before the Assessment Appeals Board.

But then the Board of Supervisors' Budget Analyst's Office issued a report on the evening of June 21 that proposes to gut the department of those three positions, five others, and an assessment appeal research fund Teng said she needs to combat wealthy corporations seeking to pay less in property taxes to the city.

"I was shocked when I read the report from him last night," Teng told us. "It takes away everything I have to fight these appeals."

Teng planned to meet with budget analyst Harvey Rose, analysts from the Mayor's Office, and members of the Board of Supervisors' Budget Committee to plead her case before that committee takes up her budget June 23.

Yet Teng said the recently concluded Bank of America-Shorenstein appeal – which involved nine days' worth of hearings because of the extensive array of experts and reports put forward by the corporations – illustrates how outgunned the city is in these appeals.

"They created a tremendous amount for us because we have to rebuff every point they make," Teng said. "But I'm confident in the case we presented. We did our best based on the resources we have."

The Assessment Appeals Board has until September to issue its ruling in the case.

The Board of Supervisors' Budget Committee meets Wed/23, 10 a.m., City Hall, Board Chambers, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl., S.F. (415) 554-6975. Kara Andrade and Rina Palta contributed to this report.

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