Sunday, October 26, 2014

City Attorney Apologizes for 'Tardiness and Neglect'
By Todd Swindell and Michael Petrelis

Never underestimate the amount of bull fecal matter that can flow from an elected official in San Francisco when having to adhere to open governmentsunshine laws, especially City Attorney Dennis Herrera's office.

He's supposed to be the chief enforcer of such laws and yet his office has ignored my public records request filed on May 30, for copies of the emails from Herrera's top assistant Tara Collins.

As our #VotePetrelis team noted on October 17, the City Attorney sought a continuance regarding our impending hearing at the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force regarding the failure to produce the public records, and Herrera cited no reason for the continuance which we emphatically opposed.

A few days ago, Herrera's staff publicist Matt Dorsey, who was copied on my original records request and subsequent emails to the City Attorney's Office, sent this remarkable note:

It came to my attention earlier this week that our office had never responded to your request for emails to and from Tara Collins between March 1 and May 28, 2014, and I write to apologize to you on behalf of the City Attorney's Office for our tardiness and neglect.

I also want to apologize to you personally, because my team is ultimately responsible for processing Sunshine requests, and it is clear that I was less diligent in my oversight than I should have been in making sure your request was being handled appropriately.

A number of people pitched-in over the last few days to go through the material you requested as expeditiously as possible, in order to make the necessary redactions, and I now have six PDFs of responsive records to send to you. [...]

Again, my apologies for this. I look forward to hearing from you.

Yes, it's good to see the City Attorney acknowledge this outrageous tardiness and neglect, which is sadly standard operating procedure for Herrera's staff and we look forward to poring over the responsive records, however, we intend to pursue our SOTF complaint in order to once and for all put an end to the delays and obfuscations of Herrera's office.

We must point out Dorsey is a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and once told the New York Times the SOTF was a "rogue, lawless jury" and its meetings "tedious kangaroo court (http://tinyurl.com/Dorsey-NYTimes), to bolster our case that he is a professional and loyal functionary of the permanent ruling class at City Hall and within the Democratic Party.

Don't like this sort of underhandedness from a public servant, at the City Attorney's Office where the incumbent District 8 Supervisor was a deputy before being elected to the Board of Supervisors? Want to send a message to Herrera, Dorsey, City Hall and Democratic loyalists carving up San Francisco for the rich and powerful?

If you're pissed off, #VotePetrelis!


No comments: