Does "bureaucracy" equal "corruption?"
Players: Michael "Kennedy" Cassidy, Gus Murad and Jean-Paul Samaha (the three men on the right) party together at Murad's wedding in Morocco. Photo by Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal.
By Tim Redmind
The Chron's Seth Rosenfeld continues to cover the controversy over the demolition of the Little House on Russian Hill, and he'd advanced the story a few notches. But the headline -- "cracks in bureaucracy doomed historic house" -- makes it sound as if this whole episode were just a matter of screw-ups and incompetance. As opposed to, for example, systemic corruption in the Department of City Planning and Department of Building Inspection.
Read through Rosenfeld's article, and our piece, by Rebecca Bowe, and the notion that all of this happened by accident -- that somehow, simple bureaucratic messups allowed two very influential players in the local political scene to pull off what should have been an illegal demolition -- strains credibility. To say the least.
So far, nobody has come up with a smoking gun that links anyone at City Planning or DBI, or either of the developers, to any violation of law. And that's probably the way it will stay. Shady stuff happens all the time in the world of San Francisco real-estate development, and some of it's perfectly legal, and even when it isn't, nobody ever seems to go to jail.
No -- it's just business as usual at CIty Planning and DBI. As Charles Marsteller, former head of Common Cause, told us:
"It was just a put-on by some insiders in City Hall working the network that they normally work," Marsteller says. "And it shouldn't have happened."
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Comments (2)
Perhaps if there were effective land use activists in the Mission, they might have leveraged the favorable political fundamentals so that the Eastern Neighborhood plan represented the community rather than developers.
But that was not the case, Peskin had to come in at the end of the process and lop off 20' of added heights along the corridors, and they even got that part wrong.
I can't smell the difference between the bag of turds that is EN, the shitty record of those who cornered the market on community stakeholders and lost, and the turd on top give away to Murad.
There I go again, being all negative by trying to hold people accountable for the jobs they're getting paid to do but are failing to accomplish. The only ones who deserve to be held accountable in this "failed state" are the ones who dare to hold others accountable.
-marc
Posted by marcos | April 7, 2009 10:48 AM
We’d like to address your statement "cracks in bureaucracy doomed historic house" -- “makes it sound as if this whole episode were just a matter of screw-ups and incompetence“. Incompetence, screws-ups or mistakes, if anyone believes this, please contact us we have a gold bridge we would like to sell you cheap.
The zoning administrator Larry Badiner, Edward Sweeney, Joe Duffy, William Strawn an Shelly Predue Caltagirone, the combined years of experience of these city employees most likely is over 100 years and if they are still making basic mistakes and there is no consequences for these "mistakes" then we would say there is something grossly wrong with the system.
Many of the city employees make intentional false statements at many different public hearings in order to get the support of the hearing members and there has been no consequences for city employees' false statements. Providing intentional false statements is corruption and the city has allowed the employees to to it so freely and frequently. it just comes as a matter of habit.
This kind of situation happens on many projects as long as the owners are real estate developers, the project applicants are connected people. Are these employees that stupid,that they make so many mistakes, etc. I think not. If the shoe was on the other foot and this property was owned by these five employees, you can bet your bottom dollar the house would be still standing today.
But this historic building is gone, the citizens are getting ripped off. The codes and procedures are exchanged for undisclosed benefit.
The Mayor has openly made a statement that the Building and Planning departments are corrupted, however has he done anything to resolve the problem. Isn’t this what he is getting paid for to protect the city, citizens and citizens' rights, etc.?
Part ownership of this can of worms is shared by the news media, we know for a fact that many people have tried to have their voice heard in regard to these problems but the news media ignores the peoples problems and the corruption however the news media wants the public to buy their papers. Except these two brave souls Rebecca Bowe and Seth Rosenfield.
Thank You,
A Concerned Citizen
Posted by Guy Washington | April 7, 2009 06:13 PM