By Matthew Hirsch

The past nine years have been hard on the San Francisco Law Library. The library, which has been around as long as the city itself, was booted from City Hall in 1995 when the building was retrofitted for earthquake safety, and it's been looking for a permanent home ever since.

Two years ago then-mayor Willie Brown created a task force to oversee the construction of a new law library, but the group has had difficulty raising funds. The task force identified a site on Golden Gate Avenue near Civic Center as a potential location for a proposed Law Library and Justice Center, to be run in partnership with the Superior Court.

But rather than go through the traditional channels for awarding contracts, the task force handed the initial design work to one of its members, architect Jeffrey Heller.

According to financial documents obtained by the Bay Guardian, the law library has paid more than $160,000 to architecture firm HellerManus, including funds from the library's business account and a special "Access to Justice" account created for the Law Library and Justice Center.

Though apparently not a technical violation of law, the law library contract reveals yet another example of backroom dealing in City Hall – and yet another sunshine problem.

With an overall budget of $1.5 million, the library receives about $500,000 annually from the city's General Fund. (The rest of its revenues come from Superior Court filing fees.) Three of its employees are on the city payroll, and yet the department is autonomous and not responsive to many city regulations.

Task force meetings aren't subject to the Sunshine Ordinance, for example, and its members don't file economic interest statements with the Ethics Department.

Marcia Bell, director of the law library and a member of the Brown-appointed task force, told us she doesn't consider the group a formal meeting body.

"We don't think of members as a task force. We just think of ourselves as several individuals trying to move this project forward, and a lot of it falls on my shoulders," Bell said.

Heller, the only member of the task force who's not a lawyer or a law librarian, told us he joined the task force at Brown's request and only to get the project underway. He said HellerManus never intended to bid on the architectural work for the law library because of possible questions about impropriety.

"I can state to you flat out right now that I really hope this project goes ahead, but we would not participate any further," Heller said.

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