San Francisco public officials have received $44,000 in trips and travel expenses from private interests in the last two years – with Board of Supervisors President David Chiu the biggest recipient and controversial Chinatown power broker Rose Pak the biggest giver – according to “Flying Through Loopholes,” a report by a new group named San Franciscans for Clean Government.
The report questions whether the gift of free trips, a rare exception to the city’s otherwise strict ban on gifts to public officials, is a way of currying favor with decision-makers. “The appearance of thousands of dollars changing hands doesn’t look good and it could be easily fixed,” says attorney Jon Golinger, Chiu’s former campaign manager and a founder of the group. He raises the question, “Is a person who paid for a trip more likely to get a return phone call?”
The disclosure of Pak’s largesse comes in the wake of reports that she engineered the selection of Ed Lee as the city’s new mayor. The records show that Pak and the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce she heads gave travel gifts totaling nearly $20,000, almost half of the total. Most of that was for sending Sups. Chiu, Eric Mar, and Carmen Chu to southern China in November at a cost of $6,122 each. Pak also sent Chiu to China in September, with the World Economic Forum Young Leaders Program also kicking in another $1,544 for the trip.
Chiu was by far the largest recipient of the travel funds, taking in $16,640 for seven trips, including trips to the Netherlands, Taiwan, Washington DC, and Cambridge, Mass., in addition to his two China trips. Neither Pak nor Chiu have returned Guardian calls for comment yet, but we’ll update this post when and if they do. UPDATE: Chiu returned our call and said, “Our trips provide significant public benefits to San Francisco, from advocating for federal stimulus funds in Washington DC, to strengthening ties with government leaders in San Francisco’s sister cities, to learning about comparative transit first practices. The report shows that our system of full disclosure of travel is working, and I welcome the conversation.”
The group is calling for the city to close the travel gift loohole and require fuller reporting of the details of the trips – such as where they stayed and other indicators of how lavishly the officials were treated – as well as calling on elected officials to voluntarily refuse to accept gifts. Golinger also raised questions about the influence that Pak is exerting on city government, which is largely invisible considering that she doesn’t even register as a lobbyist even though she’s known to be in regular contact with public officials.
“That is the bigger issue that needs to be looked at,” he said, “now that it’s become clear that Rose Pak and her group are so influential.”