Three Bat Friday: Bad media moves, jerky judges, and Shamann Walton's no-bid shipyard contract

SF Chronicle discontinues comments; Shamann Walton's shadowy LLC got no-bid contract on shipyard housing; Alameda County DA stomps on the First Amendment; sitting judges crash private party

“The consensus among younger journalists is that we got it all wrong. Objectivity has got to go.”

— Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, San Francisco Chronicle editor in chief, in the Washington Post, Jan. 30, 2023

Seasons greetings, citizens of Gotham by the Bay. We’re back after a week off for Thanksgiving, where I sprained by writing thumb pulling the 20-pound roast beast out of the oven as John yelled, “Let me do it!”

Today we have some judges being jerks (and possibly violating ethical standards); moronic media moves by the Chronicle, the Standard, and Alameda County’s district attorney; and a friend with community benefits who happens to be the District 10 supervisor. We wind up with our “X Marks the Spot” (formerly “Tweet of the Week”) and another favorite account for you to follow. So without further adieu …

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, San Francisco Chronicle editor in chief, has decided not to allow comments in his newspaper anymore. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised: this is the same guy who told the Washington Post last year that younger writers think we veteran reporters “have it all wrong” and “objectivity has got to go.” As an editor in chief of over two decades with the Marina Times, I find it unfathomable that San Francisco’s daily newspaper — the city’s “paper of record” if you will — no longer allows comments on any of its articles. “We believe a well-moderated comments section can be a good place for the exchange of free and open ideas. But we do not have the staffing needed to moderate the thousands of comments that appear every day…” Garcia-Ruiz opined. I can relate to that — as a small, neighborhood newspaper, my Marina Times publisher and business partner Earl Adkins and I made the decision not to allow comments because we ran on a shoestring budget — but the Chronicle is owned by Hearst Corp. whose CEO, Steven R. Swartz, said the company generated “record results,” last year. Among its media holdings, Hearst oversees 24 daily and 52 weekly publications. The idea that they can’t afford comment moderators is absurd. Then again, they clearly can’t afford copy editors, so maybe it’s true.

As far as Garcia-Ruiz placating his “young writers,” I don’t buy it. For many years I’ve written an opinion column in the Marina Times called Reynolds Rap, but it’s always based in fact. I broke the Mohammed Nuru, Harlan Kelly, and Dwayne Jones corruption stories there. If you’re going to toss out an opinion, you should be able to make it stick. Current Chronicle opinion columnists Justin Phillip and Soleil Ho garnered an unscientific 10 to 1 on the comments negativity scale. Perhaps their tender young egos couldn’t handle it, and they whined to Garcia-Ruiz (he turned off comments in the opinion section prior to the rest of the newspaper). I know Ho is sensitive — in 2019, I penned a column on her food criticism that garnered an unscientific 10 to 1 on the comments positivity scale. I pointed out that in her September 2019 review of Le Colonial, it takes her 1,099 words to get to the food. In fact, only 142 words out of a rambling 1,983 talk about the meal. The rest of the article is devoted to why the restaurant shouldn’t exist (“I don’t want to go back to that time and place, to presume that I would be the person served and not the one doing the serving.”). After that column, Ho blocked me on Twitter, but she recently unblocked me, along with many other accounts. Maybe even Garcia-Ruiz realizes paid subscribers need a place to exercise their First Amendment Rights about articles in their daily paper.

Speaking of Reynolds Rap, in tomorrow’s column I write about District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton being the sole agent of a shadowy LLC subsidiary of Young Community Developers (YCD) which received a no-bid contract on a housing development called Pacific Pointe at the Shipyard, 60 permanently affordable family homes in Bayview-Hunters Point.

On Dec. 17, 2014, the late Mayor Ed Lee and Lennar Urban broke ground on Pacific Pointe. “I am excited to see the wonderful opportunities that have been available in our community finally come to fruition. One hundred percent affordable housing demonstrates that YCD is serious about keeping our community whole,” beamed Walton, then YCD’s executive director.

I’ve been writing about YCD since my 2020 exposé on the San Francisco Public Utility Commission’s Community Benefits pay-to-play scheme, where the nonprofit is one of the most prolific beneficiaries of big developer “donations.”

What does YCD do? They claim to train troubled youth and place them in jobs, often with city departments like the Department of Public Works (DPW). Insiders say, despite the huge cost and number of people who go through programs, it doesn’t work out for most participants. Still, Walton blatantly tells firms wanting to build in his district they must pay to play. At a rally about Amazon’s desire to build a logistics center, Walton screamed into a megaphone that Amazon would have to negotiate a community benefits package similar to deals struck with major waterfront developers. “You can go and ask Pier 70. You can ask the Potrero Power Station. If you are going to come into our neighborhoods, you are going to talk to the people in the neighborhoods. You are going to provide them with community benefits.”

On Aug. 19, 2014, Walton filed Articles of Organization of a Limited Liability Company (LLC) with the California secretary of state for YCD MGP I, listing himself as the sole agent. The address, 1715 Yosemite Avenue, is YCD’s San Francisco office. Walton signed the document as “President of Young Community Developers, which is the sole member and manager of YCD MGP I, LLC.” On Oct. 1, 2014 — just over a month after Walton created YCD MGP I, LLC — over $20 million in multifamily housing revenue bonds for Pacific Pointe were issued. Walton’s buddies at Lennar ponying up a $10 million “construction subsidy” and the site infrastructure.

While Walton frequently says he has never “personally benefited from Lennar or any other developer,” he certainly managed to horn in on the Pacific Pointe project with an apparent no-bid contract as the managing general partner (hence the MGP in the LLC’s name). What experience does Walton or YCD have to get such a plumb gig? None that I can see. The other thing I can’t see is where YCD MGP’s cut of the multimillion-dollar venture went.

Walton has more conflicts than your family talking politics at the holiday table, so which side of the table is he on? At a hearing on the project in October of 2013, Walton mistakenly refers to Hunters Point as “Hunters View” — perhaps a slithery slip of the tongue as to where his loyalties really lie. Read more in the December issue of the Marina Times, which hits the streets tomorrow.

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is under fire after her staff blocked veteran journalist Emilie Raguso, who runs crime and safety news outlet the Berkeley Scanner, from a press conference. According to Raguso’s post on X, “every other member of the media who came was let in without any checking of credentials.” I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’ve had a similar experience with politicians who didn’t like my critical coverage. While First Amendment groups, including SPJ NorCal, the Bay Area chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, rallied behind Raguso, I can’t say the same. In fact, then vice president (now president) of SPJ NorCal, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, told me to “back off” several progressive officials because it was “making it hard for him to help me” — and one of those officials was the aforementioned Shamann Walton.

Exactly three years ago today, during what should have been a routine agenda item to approve a list of community newspapers participating in the city's neighborhood outreach advertising program, District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston went on a diatribe about my work in the Marina Times, calling it "fact-free, hate-filled propaganda” and insisting that we be pulled from the list. It’s worth noting that just one month prior, I had written a column about Preston handing out tents to the homeless in my neighborhood of three decades, the Haight-Ashbury.

District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, whom I’ve also criticized, piped in: "There's a distinction between how we spend public money and what we call journalism … Our responsibility as supervisors is to decide whether to support an outfit that presents lies as facts."

Walton agreed with Ronen. "I don't think this is about the First Amendment … I don't think taxpayer money should go to gossip." It should be noted that, six months prior to Walton’s assertion, I wrote about him and his mentor, Dwayne Jones, being “Friends with Community Benefits” via YCD’s close ties to Harlan Kelly Jr., general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), and his chief strategy officer and assistant general manager of external affairs and actual extramarital affair, Juliet Ellis.

After journalists like the great Phil Matier and respected publications like the Bay Area Reporter wrote about the incident, Preston and Ronen backed down, but like my pit bull with a pork chop, they didn’t let go. On December 7, 2020, Preston and Ronen issued “a joint statement” about their intention to have “objective standards” to ensure city funds didn’t support “misinformation” — and they were seeking guidance from SPJNorCal to “develop a workable solution.”

This evidently caught Rodriguez, former author of the San Francisco Examiner’s On Guard column, off guard. He quickly issued a “clarification” on Twitter “for those troubled by the statement.” But it turns out, Rodriguez’s involvement went much deeper than that, and could not be excused by his pandering post to Preston (“We are grateful he heard our concerns”).

The same week the dueling statements came out, John Rothmann had me as a guest on his popular KGO Radio talk show to discuss the incident. “Why do you think these particular three supervisors want to silence you?” he asked. “Because I have criticized them in their roles as city leaders,” I said, detailing the columns I’d written about Preston and Ronen. “And what about Shamann Walton?” Rothmann asked. I said it likely had to do with my July column about his involvement with the SFPUC community benefits pay-to-play scheme. After the segment my phone rang immediately. It was Rodriguez. “Suuuuusannnn,” he lilted, “what are you doing?” Confused, I asked what he was talking about. “You need to back off Walton and Preston,” he countered without missing a beat. “Why would I do that? I’m a journalist, Joe, that’s my job.” There was a pause, then a deep sigh. “You’re making it hard for me to help you.” As my heart started racing, I composed myself and asked, “Are you speaking in your official capacity as Vice President of the Society of Professional Journalists?” Rodriguez began mumbling something about meeting with the supervisors and their displeasure with my “constant attacks.” I interrupted, “This is a First Amendment issue, Joe, and you and the Society of Professional Journalists should have my back on this no matter what.” That was the end of our conversation.

SJPNorCal never did “help me” and I no longer own the Marina Times — little did they know that during this entire debacle my partner Earl and I were in the process of finalizing the sale of the paper to Street Media, the parent company of L.A. Weekly. Much to the chagrin of political left leaners like Preston, Ronen, Walton, and Rodriguez, they bought us and the grandfather of alternative weeklies, New York City’s The Village Voice, on the very same day. As to the “gossip” Walton accused me of writing, since my exposé his friend Ellis stepped down from the SFPUC, Kelly was convicted on six of eight fraud charges, and his mentor Jones has been charged with 59 counts of fraud. On guard, indeed.

On November 27, two San Francisco Superior Court judges tried to crash a private party, claiming they believed it to be “a public forum for judicial candidates.” I’m not sure which is more disturbing — presiding judges trying to muscle their way in, or the fact San Francisco Standard reporter Jonah Owen Lamb named the private citizen host and displayed a photo of her home with his article (“Philanthropist Martha Conte, a Republican, billed the event at her stately Presidio Heights home as a judicial candidates forum”).

Judge Michael Begert, who is up for reelection, is facing a challenge from Albert “Chip” Zecher, a corporate lawyer and board member of UC Law San Francisco. 

Appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022, Judge Patrick Thompson (who didn’t crash the party) is facing a challenge from Deputy District Attorney Jean Myungjin Roland. 

Judge Linda Colfax, who doesn’t face reelection until next year, came along as backup.

All three judges have faced a backlash from community groups, including the court watch organization Stop Crime SF (more on them in an upcoming Gotham column), for what many perceive as lenient rulings. I’ve written about Colfax here before — she was the presiding judge in the Stephanie Ching case where Ching received no jail time after helping to murder and dismember her own father, as well as in the case of Sean Carsetti, where she sentenced the two-time attempted murderer to three years time served. A month later Carsetti was charged with two counts of murder related to stabbings in Hayward and a charge of attempted murder in a third stabbing.

Apparently these judges, who usually fly under the radar and run unopposed, don’t like democracy, because they’re quivering and defensive over the very thought of being challenged for their cushy seats. But in this case, they may be treading on thin ice. In 2018, two San Francisco Superior Court judges faced a complaint filed with the Commission on Judicial Performance alleging they illegally endorsed electoral candidates after four members of the Public Defender’s Office decided to run against incumbent judges Cynthia Lee, Curtis Karnow, Jeffrey Ross, and Andrew Cheng (all appointed by Republican California governors). The complaint alleged Presiding Judge Teri Jackson and Assistant Presiding Judge Garrett Wong violated California Code of Judicial Ethics by posting a joint statement to the San Francisco Superior Court website supporting their colleagues. It turns out judges are not legally allowed to “engage in political or campaign activity.” The complaint was filed by local Berniecrat member Winnie Porter and Larry Bush, an ethics watchdog who helped found the Friends of Ethics and later became a member of the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

The public defenders running against the incumbent judges — Niki Solis, Kwixuan Maloof, Phoenix Streets, and Maria Evangelista — said they were running because the criminal justice system was broken. “We need a change in our judiciary. We need San Francisco judges who protect San Francisco values,” Solis said at the time. Sounds a lot like the reason Begert and Thompson are facing competition right now. Oh, by the way, in that June 2018 election, the four incumbents were overwhelmingly re-elected. Ah, that’s democracy for ya.

Our X Marks the Spot (formerly “Tweet of the Week”) goes to John60178681 for his frightening post about a homeless encampment on top of a building.

Our Account to Follow is Boom (LoveCodeTrade) who breaks it down on politicians and policy in an easy-to-follow format. “As a SFUSD parent paying over 20k/year in taxes to SF, I have questions,” Boom recently posted. "What percent of those in supportive housing are able-bodied? What percent is acceptable? What percent lived in SF for at least a decade before applying for free housing? What is the target percent of the population that should get free housing, to provide for those incapable of earning, without draining excessive resources from education and public safety? For disabled members of our community who lack family to live with, I support spending tax dollars to provide. But for those who are mobile and have families to stay with, we shouldn’t be sacrificing teacher salaries to fund unsustainable lifestyles in one of the world's most competitive real estate markets.”

Most impressively, Boom welcomes feedback. “The reason I post on X: to get perspectives outside my bubble. That’s why I click on replies that disagree. Policies are packed with tradeoffs, so I'm never 100 percent confident in my views, which constantly evolve.” Sage advice for anyone on social media.