Good afternoon! We’ve got a couple upcoming events you should know about featuring Mission Local folks, and some news:
• Mimi Chakarova, Mission Local’s multimedia advisor and board member, has a powerful new film––The Apology––about Russell City, a thriving unincorporated area wedged between Hayward and Oakland. Blacks and Latinos could own property there, until the county dismantled the entire city in 1963 and forcibly removed residents to build an industrial park. On Saturday, April 22 at 11 a.m., Mimi will talk about the making of the film with producer Aisha Knowles, who grew up in Russell City. Register for the Zoom webinar here.
• Joe Eskenazi, our intrepid reporter and managing editor, will be holding conversations called “Mission Local Presents” at Manny’s on the last Tuesday of each month. The series kicks off Tuesday April 25, with Demian Bulwa, director of news at the Chron, and Julie Makinen, editor-in-chief at the SF Standard, discussing media coverage of Bob Lee’s murder with Joe. Expect sparks. 6PM at Manny’s, 16th Street at Valencia; get your tickets here.
• Joe Rivano Barros has a new corruption-and-chutzpah story: Gwyneth Borden, currently vice chair of the SFMTA Board of Directors, has served on city commissions (Planning and SFMTA) since 2008. She was censured last month by the Ethics Commission, with a proposed stipulation showing she spent six months illegally lobbying city staff, planning commissioners, and a city supervisor on behalf of a restaurant that paid her $12,500. Borden admits the facts of the case, and admits she broke the city’s rules. “I made a mistake, I should have known, I misunderstood that I shouldn’t have contacted another city department at the time,” Borden said, claiming ignorance of ethics rules that she had been trained in for fifteen years.
The proposed fine would be $9,000 — $3,500 less than Borden made from the lobbying––but last week the Ethics Commission voted to return the stipulation to staff to assess a higher penalty. Borden, for her part, said she has been duly chastised and that her infraction was not high-level corruption, but an honest mistake. “I wasn’t getting paid like $10,000 a month,” she said.
More soon,
Sara
The Latest News
SFMTA commissioner admits she illegally lobbied city staff
Gwyneth Borden, vice chair of the SFMTA Board of Directors, said she didn’t undertand the rules.
SNAP
