SCHRADER JOINS WILLIAMS & JENSEN: Former Rep. Kurt Schrader has joined Williams & Jensen as a principal, making the Oregon Democrat the latest lawmaker who left office at the beginning of the year to land a lobbying gig on K Street.

— The centrist seven-term lawmaker was defeated in a primary last year after provoking the ire of progressives for voting to prevent Democrats’ long-awaited drug pricing proposal from advancing out of committee and for his role in moderate Democrats’ successful showdown with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to decouple the bipartisan infrastructure bill from the party’s climate and tax reconciliation package.

— Schrader was a member of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the House Agriculture Committee, and is a former farm bill conferee. He’s also a former co-chair of the moderate Democratic Blue Dog Coalition and was part of the similarly business-friendly New Democrat Coalition and bipartisan Problem Solvers’ Caucus.

— In an interview, Schrader told PI that he hopes to bring value to his new firm by connecting it with lawmakers willing to make deals in a closely divided Congress, even as he’s barred from lobbying his former colleagues on the Hill for a year.

— While he can’t lobby Congress right away, Schrader said he’ll likely register to lobby the Biden administration, especially on implementation of the infrastructure and reconciliation bills, and that he’ll likely focus on the same issues on which he worked on the Hill while hopefully picking up a Pacific Northwest client load.

FIRST IN PI — WHOLESALER-DISTRIBUTORS’ TOP LOBBYIST RETIRING: Jade West will retire next month from her position as chief government relations officer for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors after more than 20 years with the trade group.

— In an interview, West said that she had initially planned on stepping down in 2020, shortly after the association’s longtime head Dirk Van Dongen had done the same. “My intention to leave just got pushed back because I loved the place and I love the members that we work for,” West told PI. “But honestly it’s time,” she added, noting that her husband had also retired as of last week.

— West joined the Wholesaler-Distributors in 2002, after spending two decades as a Senate Republican staffer, and has led the association’s fights on a range of issues since then, from opposition to the Affordable Care Act to helping push through the 2017 GOP tax overhaul.

— In remarks last summer introducing West at an industry award ceremony, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell described West as “one of the most essential behind-the-scenes players in Washington” who’d been “an indispensable player in practically every major policy debate relating to American free enterprise and prosperity,” noting that his rare agreement to speak at the event should highlight how respected she is around town.

— West will be succeeded by Brian Wild, who is currently a policy director at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and worked as an aide to now-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as well as former Speaker John Boehner, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

— Wild told PI that he hopes to continue West’s legacy of bringing business coalitions together in Washington, especially as the association continues to fight what it sees are burdensome and expensive labor laws pushed by the Biden administration and as the business community pushes for the renewal of prized tax provisions from the 2017 tax bill that are beginning to sunset.

Happy Monday and welcome to PI. Send lobbying tips and gossip: [email protected]. And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

A message from New Venture Fund:

Millions of Americans are being forced to pay extra just to file their taxes online. Why? Because companies like Intuit have spent millions lobbying to block a free tax filing option. Intuit rakes in billions while struggling families get stuck with the bill. American taxpayers could save time, stress, and expense with a free, public tax filing option. It’s time to get it done.

ASTRAZENECA DITCHES PHRMA: The leading lobbying group for drugmakers has lost its third member in six months, POLITICO’s Megan R. Wilson reports. AstraZeneca is leaving the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, effective July 1.

— AstraZeneca joins the ranks of AbbVie and Teva, which also left the association in recent months following a major legislative defeat for the industry with the drug pricing provisions in last year’s reconciliation bill — despite PhRMA and allied groups pouring millions of dollars into efforts to block the measure.

— “We regularly evaluate our memberships with industry trade associations to ensure alignment with our purpose to accelerate the delivery of life-changing medicines that create enduring value for patients and society. Given the significant investment, we want to ensure it is the most productive and effective use of our resources,” an AstraZeneca spokesperson said in a statement. “Based on a recent assessment, we have made the decision not to continue our membership with PhRMA.”

RACING TO RAISE MONEY: “When Kyrsten Sinema ran the Boston Marathon last year, it was a proud moment the Arizona senator—an avid marathoner and triathlete—wanted to publicize,” The Daily Beast’s Sam Brodey reports.

— “Far less publicized, however, was another aspect to Sinema’s long-awaited journey to Boston: She appears to have turned it into a fundraising junket, allowing her campaign to cover the thousands of dollars in expenses she would have incurred herself by traveling to the race. According to Federal Election Commission records, Sinema collected over $16,000 in campaign contributions from a handful of Massachusetts-based donors in April 2022—many of them at the maximum level, suggesting she held some type of fundraiser, if a small one.”

— Such an overlap doesn’t appear to be an anomaly: “On at least six total occasions since 2019, Sinema has participated in a race while engaging in fundraising activity—and covering expenses—in the area of the competition, according to a review of public campaign finance and competition records.”

— “Under FEC rules, candidates cannot use campaign funds to ‘fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective’ of their running for or holding public office. … According to campaign finance experts, Sinema may be following the letter of that rule, but is pushing into a gray area by appearing to tie legitimate campaign activity to unrelated personal pursuits.”

FIRST IN PI: LGBTQ rights group Accountable For Equality is going after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, calling for Thomas to either resign or face impeachment as a result of the stream of recent revelations about financial ties between Thomas, his wife Virginia and prominent business leaders and conservative judicial activists.

— The group, which formed to “educate the public about the concerted efforts of anti-LGBTQ extremists,” has launched a digital ad buy within the Beltway highlighting the recent revelations, which include that the Thomases failed to disclose decades’ worth of lavish trips paid for by GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, who also paid for tuition for a child being raised by the justice, as well as Thomas’ family home.

— Christy Setzer, a spokesperson for the group, said in a statement that the revelations “should worry all Americans. Judges are supposed to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, and yet a member of the highest court in the land is directly involved in scandal after corrupt scandal.” Thomas, she argued, “should resign or be impeached – the integrity of the Supreme Court depends on it.”

— Accountable for Equality declined to specify how much money it is putting behind the ad but spokesperson Matt Goodman said in an email that “significant resources are being put behind this campaign.”

ICYMI — ANNALS OF SCAM ‘PACS’: “A group of conservative operatives using sophisticated robocalls raised millions of dollars from donors using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. But instead of using the money to promote issues and candidates, an analysis by The New York Times shows, nearly all the money went to pay the firms making the calls and the operatives themselves, highlighting a flaw in the regulation of political nonprofits,” the Times’ David Fahrenthold and Tiff Fehr report.

— The network of groups, organized as 527 political nonprofits that can raise unlimited funds, and operating under benign-sounding names like the American Police Officers Alliance, Firefighters and EMS Fund and Veterans Action Network, have raised $89 million since 2014.

— The vast majority of that money was plowed back into fundraising efforts, and hardly any of it was spent supporting candidates for office — which an attorney for the groups said was by design. But almost $3 million over that time was steered to three Republican political consultants from Wisconsin through a maze of shell companies that obscured their involvement with the 527 groups, the Times found.

FLYING IN: The National Association of Truck Stop Operators, which represents travel centers, truck stops and off-highway energy providers, are hitting the Hill tomorrow to meet with offices of House Transportation and Infrastructure and Senate EPW committee members. NATSO will call on lawmakers to support legislation dealing with disparities between energy tax credits for over-the-road and aviation renewable fuels that compete for the same feedstocks, allowing year-round sales of E-15, continuing a ban on commercial activity at rest areas, expanding truck parking capacity and cracking down on credit card swipe fees.

— The National Utility Contractors Association will kick off its fly-in later this week, with members planning to discuss implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, workforce development and supply chain issues. Over two days, members are slated to meet with the offices of Sens. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), McConnell, Sinema and Reps. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), to name a few.

— The heating and cooling industries are in town this week as well as part of a fly-in led by the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, the Heating, Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International and the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors — National Association. More than 500 members will hear from Biden administration officials and meet with Hill offices to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits, the push to transition to low-global warming potential refrigerants and other regulations affecting the industry.

A message from New Venture Fund:

— Matthew Myers is stepping down as president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids after more than 20 years. He’ll be succeeded by Yolonda Richards, who is currently the organization’s executive vice president for global programs.

— Maralyn O’Brien is now senior adviser at the Department of Education. She most recently was director of federal affairs at MoveOn.

— Dana Weekes has started Thrive Architects LLC, a public policy and professional development firm. She previously was a managing director at Arnold & Porter in the firm’s legislative and public policy practice.

— Emmanual Guillory has joined the American Council on Education as a senior director of government relations, Morning Education reports. Guillory previously served at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and at the United Negro College Fund.

— Calvin Moore is joining GOP ad firm Poolhouse as vice president. He previously was comms director for Congressional Leadership Fund and a strategist for its independent expenditure efforts.

— Jonah Bryson is now press secretary for AmeriCorps. He previously was a spokesman for the NAACP.

— Matt Schuck is now a senior vice president at Actum LLC. He most recently was senior major gifts officer at American Cornerstone Institute Inc., and is a Trump HUD and Jason Smith alum.

— Aziz Yakub is joining Arena as director of career development. He previously managed Adam Frisch’s Colorado congressional campaign.

— David Solimini is joining Third Plateau as its senior director for democracy, per Morning Defense. He was most recently Stimson Center’s director of strategic communications.

— Imani Bentham is now director for new membership development at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She most recently was director for engagement and membership strategy at National Journal.

— Gayatri Patel is now an independent consultant for foreign policy and international development. She previously was vice president of advocacy and external relations at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

None.

Good Trouble Texas (Leadership PAC: Francine Ly)
Pro Choice Florida (Hybrid PAC)

Apco Worldwide LLC: Liminex, Inc. Dba Goguardian
Langley Consulting, LLC: Bockorny Group, Inc. On Behalf Of Elanco Animal Health
Langley Consulting, LLC: Bockorny Group, Inc. On Behalf Of Medgene Labs
Mission Strategies LLC: Defend The Vote Action Fund
Off Hill Strategies L.L.C.: Prison Fellowship Ministries
Plurus Strategies, LLC: Apco Worldwide LLC (On Behalf Of Liminex, Inc. Dba Goguardian)
Polaris Government Relations, LLC: Acela, Inc.
Strategic Capitol Group, LLC: San Francisco Research Institute
Strategic Capitol Group, LLC: Thompson Advisory Group On Behalf Of Relx, Inc

Capitol Venture LLC: Veterans Evaluation Services
Trautwein & Associates, LLC: National Retail Federation

A message from New Venture Fund:

Each year, Americans spend an estimated $31 billion just to file their taxes online. Why? Because tax preparation companies like Intuit have spent millions lobbying to block a free tax filing option that would be available to anyone who wants it. Intuit’s profits have skyrocketed, while families waste time and pay extra just to file their taxes online. Tax preparation companies are taking advantage of American taxpayers. In dozens of other countries, filing your taxes takes less than ten minutes and costs nothing. It’s time to save people time and money with a free, public online tax filing option.

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We can officially stop worrying about Gary Sanchez: the two-time all-star catcher has signed a minor league contract with the Giants. Ken Rosenthal broke the news on Friday, reporting that Sanchez will be heading to the team’s spring training facility in Scottsdale before being assigned to a partner (believed to be Triple-A Sacramento). The deal is $4 million, prorated for the time Sanchez spends with the big club, and includes an opt-out if he doesn’t call up by May 1.

Among free agents who earned at least a 1.0 WAR last year, Sanchez is the latest to find a home. He received interest from few teams over the winter and failed to improve his stock when he played for the Dominican Republic at the World Baseball Classic, where he had just six plate appearances and went 0-on-5 with a walk and two strikeouts. It looked like he would remain in limbo, waiting to sign with the team that needed a catcher due to injury. Instead, Sanchez goes to a San Francisco team that could certainly use some help behind the court — one that ranks 27th as a catcher in our Positional Power Rankings — but already has a very clear Plan A in mind: Joey Bart.

That hope was only lightly dashed when Team Bart relied on the IL on Sunday with a minor back strain. He is not expected to miss much time and the team recalled pitcher Sean Hjelle to take his place, leaving Roberto Pérez and Blake Sabol the only catchers on the active roster. Pérez, 34 and known for his glove, signed a minor-league contact with the club after spending 2022 in Pittsburgh. Sabol, whom Cincinnati picked up from Pittsburgh in the Rule 5 draft before selling to San Francisco, started in left field on Opening Day; His defense is worrying enough that the catcher is unlikely to be his main position.

Despite Bart’s presence, the Giants entered spring training with an open contest for the berth. “There’s a mindset where you give the guy the job and you get away with it,” Farhan Zaidi told reporters. “This is maybe the other school where we have other good opportunities and we want someone to take the reins and be the guy. We definitely hope Joey makes it and he’ll certainly get the opportunities.” The former No. 2 pick and one-time heir of Buster Posey seemingly just let the reins dangle (or whatever reins do when nobody’s taking them). ); Pérez served as the starting catcher on opening day.

With Sanchez in the mix, the team’s ground got a little higher at the catcher. His game features light tower power and enough swing-and-miss to air-condition a small island nation. He’s always run hot and cold as a hitter, but even if you throw away his 69 wRC+ in the short 2020 season, the hots are a lot tepid than they used to be:

According to Baseball Savant, Sanchez was worth -8.1 runs against sliders in 2022, a weakness that pitchers exploited mercilessly, throwing them 30.6% of the time; only Javier Báez and Nick Castellanos saw sliders more often. Midway through the 2022 season, Sanchez’s groundball rate skyrocketed, which isn’t ideal for a catcher who runs like a catcher. Fittingly, he faced a defensive shift 70.5% of the time last year (although his wOBA against the shift was 44 points better than against a traditional defense).

Still, Sanchez just pulled off a 49.3% hard hit rate and an average exit speed of 90.5 mph, so it’s not like he’s lost his power, and he can still hit fastballs with ease evade. It’s entirely possible that a few more of those hard-hit balls will find places this year, or that his walk or strikeout rates will get a little closer to his career norms. Additionally, with 89 wRC+ in 2022, Sanchez was right on league average among catchers. Any setback from the worst batting line of his career (except 2020) makes him an above-average batsman by the standards of the position; Steamer and ZiPS project it to a wRC+ of 95 and 112, respectively.

Sanchez makes an interesting case study for Nichols’ Law of Catcher Defense. Emerging as a thug, his defense was much maligned; Depending on where you got your catch stats from, that reputation was probably a bit unfair. But once his hitting eased, the reputation didn’t seem to improve as much as it should have. Over the past three seasons, Sanchez has caught 1,915 innings, the eighth-most in baseball, and he was worth -1.4 framing runs. In terms of defense, we’ve got him level with Will Smith on 16 defensive runs in that period. However, DRS docks him due to his rCERA – that’s Catcher ERA Runs – 10 runs and he’s last in that stat over the period. Looking at Sanchez’s slow free-agent market in February, Jay Jaffe noted that 2022 was the first season Baseball Prospectus had rated him as a net positive at framing, blocking and throwing.

In short, Sanchez is a relatively durable option that should be an average catcher, whether crouched behind the plate or off it. He has some advantages on offense and some disadvantages on defense. No one expects him to be the phenomenon who posted a 143 wRC+ in his first two seasons with the Yankees, but as a right-handed power hitter whose HR/FB just hit a career-low 13.3%, he might be a little of it benefit from the move from Target Field to Oracle Park. He is 30 years old and could certainly help a ball club.

All in all, this is a low-risk move for the Giants. The bigger question, which Grant Brisbee has researched in depth at The Athletic, is why they are in this position in the first place. Bart is only 25 years old and has 133 league games under his belt. It’s a developmentally sensitive issue, and its success is by no means certain. Pérez is largely a career backup, having appeared in just 97 games over the past three years. Sabol isn’t really playable as a regular catcher, but his Rule 5 status means he needs to stay on the list. During the offseason, the team took a beating on Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa, but San Francisco seemed perfectly content to roll into the 2023 season with no real plan at the catcher position other than hoping someone during of spring training shone.

It’s entirely possible that the Giants will end up starting Sanchez. It’s also possible that they prefer his racquet to Pérez’s gauntlet in a backup role, a compromise between offense and defense they’ve made elsewhere on the lozenge. In the meantime, everything points to Bart’s injury being minor, but Sanchez is a pretty nifty insurance plan.

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English

Next November, San Francisco will play host to major heads of state and other international officials at the 30th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit, known as APEC.

APEC is an intergovernmental forum promoting free trade in the Asia-Pacific region, and San Francisco was announced as the 2023 host city at this year’s summit in Bangkok, Thailand.

“San Francisco has long been recognized as a gateway to the Asia-Pacific—and thanks to President Biden and Vice President Harris, we are proud to host the Leaders’ Meeting of the 2023 APEC Summit,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a statement .

In an Aug. 12 letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Mayor London Breed pitched San Francisco as the “perfect candidate” to host the gathering given its large Asian American population and status as a destination for direct investment from Asia.

Participating countries at next year’s APEC include the United States, Canada, China, the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Thailand.

Northern California firms sell an estimated $60 billion dollars of goods and services to APEC buyers. The city is also home to more than 75 consulates along with many other trade commissions.

Breed said the city is ready to accommodate a summit that will bring major heads of state and other luminaries, noting its 34,000 hotel rooms and experience in hosting events with heightened security needs, such as the 2016 Super Bowl.

The APEC summit will bring in President Joe Biden and other major heads of state to the city. Vice President Kamala Harris is attending this year’s APEC conference, currently underway in Bangkok, Thailand.

So see

Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association, called the APEC summit “a big win” for the city.

“APEC will bring global attention to the city, as well as thousands of international visitors that will help support our economic recovery and the hundreds of small businesses that depend on visitor dollars,” he said.

Next year’s APEC conference will kick off in November 2023.

English

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A seemingly endless amount of drama, name-calling, lawsuits and outrage from parents and city officials made the saga of San Francisco’s school board a riveting pandemic sideshow that is about to play out at the ballot box.

A special election on Tuesday will decide the fate of three school board members, all Democrats, in a vote that has divided the famously liberal city. It also motivated many Chinese residents to vote for the first time, driven by controversial school board decisions and a batch of unearthed anti-Asian tweets.

The parents who launched the recall effort say it was born of frustration at the board’s misplaced priorities, mishandling of a budget crisis and failure to focus on the fundamental task of reopening public schools during the pandemic. Most of San Francisco’s 50,000 public school students did not see the inside of a classroom for over a year, from March 2020 until August 2021.

“It comes down to incompetence,” said Siva Raj, a father of two who helped spearhead the recall effort. “The message we want to send is, if you don’t do the job you are elected do — your primary responsibility is to educate our children — you’re fired.”

Opponents call the recall a waste of taxpayer money and a right-wing attack on liberal San Francisco that is part of a national movement to oust progressives from power. Both sides agree that San Francisco’s school board and the city itself became the focus of an embarrassing national spotlight.

Organizers say they would recall all seven board members if they could, but only three have served long enough to face a challenge: Board President Gabriela Lopez and two commissioners, Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga.

One of the first issues to grab national attention was the board’s decision to rename 44 of the city’s public schools they said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and other injustices. On the list were names like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and trailblazing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The renaming effort drew swift criticism for some of its targets, but also for its timing in January 2021, when public classrooms were closed because of COVID-19 restrictions. Angry parents asked why the board was focused on changing school names rather than getting children back into classrooms. The effort was also riddled with historical inaccuracies and shoddy research that drew criticisms of political correctness gone awry.

“It was so poorly executed that it made a mockery of the broader push for historical reckoning in the United States,” the San Francisco Chronicle said in an editorial endorsing the recall. “It alienated instead of educated, and invited national ridicule.”

Ultimately the plan was scrapped, after the city took the dramatic step of suing the board and school district to reopen more quickly. The lawsuit failed in court.

Then the board announced it was ending merit-based admissions at the city’s elite Lowell High School as part of a broader push for equity and inclusion. It cited “pervasive systemic racism” and a lack of diversity at Lowell, one of the country’s top public high schools, where the majority of students are Asian.

Many Asian Americans viewed the Lowell vote as a direct attack.

“It is so blatantly discriminatory against Asians,” said Ann Hsu, mother of two San Francisco high schoolers. “It is so apparent that the sole purpose is that there’s too many Asians at Lowell.”

The vote blindsided the community, and a court ultimately reversed the decision, finding in favor of a Lowell alumni group that sued the board. The group argued the board failed to place the vote on its agenda, violating California’s open meetings law.

Hsu and other parents formed a group called the Chinese/API Voter Outreach Taskforce in December, which she calls “the Chinese arm of the recall group.” Holding voter drives and spreading word in San Francisco’s Chinese-language newspapers, the group helped register over 560 new voters.

San Francisco’s soaring cost of living has pushed out families for years, leaving the city with the lowest share of children under 18 — just 13% — of America’s 100 most populous cities, according to 2020 US Census data. That made school board elections a low priority for most voters.

“That’s how these people got elected, because nobody was paying attention,” said Hsu. “But now, we’re paying attention.”

Collins has faced more criticism than her two colleagues, after recall organizers dug up 2016 tweets in which she said Asian Americans used “white supremacist” thinking to get ahead and were racist toward Black students, prompting her school board colleagues to strip Collins of her role as vice president.

Collins, who is Black, apologized for the tweets which she said were taken out of context, and then south of the school district and five fellow board members for $87 million, saying they violated her free speech rights. That suit was also tossed. Collins, who is aligned with Lopez on many issues, says the recall is part of a Republican-led effort to dismantle a progressive school board, though there is no evidence to back that claim.

Collins says she is proud of trying to bring more diversity to Lowell, which dropped its admissions test for the incoming class of fall 2021 before the decision was overturned in court. The numbers of Hispanic and Black students increased this year when the change was in place, while the numbers of Asian and white students decreased.

“We desegregated a school. Lowell now has the most diverse incoming class that it ever has had,” Collins said in an email. “I want to be on that side of history.”

Collins and Lopez call the recall a waste of time and money, noting another election is just nine months away.

“People want us to say we were wrong, we regret doing what we did, we’re sorry. And that will never be something I will do,” Lopez said recently on a local podcast, Latina Latino Latinx News.

Lopez, 31, said under her leadership the board addressed long-standing issues like school renaming and the admissions process, but they “blew up” because of racism. She called the recall of an opportunity “to bring down someone who is me,” a young Latina woman.

If a majority of voters supports recalling any of the three, the mayor would appoint their replacements to serve until the November election.

“Sadly, our school board’s priorities have often been severely misplaced,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in her endorsement of the recall. “Our kids must come first.”

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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FILE – A pedestrian walks below a sign for Dianne Feinstein Elementary School in San Francisco on Dec. 17, 2020. In a city with the lowest percentage of children of all major American cities, school board elections in San Francisco have often been an afterthought. One of the first issues to garner national attention was the board’s decision to rename 44 of the city’s public schools they said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and injustice. On the list were names like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and trailblazing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

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A pedestrian walks past a San Francisco Unified School District office building in San Francisco, Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022. A seemingly endless amount of drama, name-calling, lawsuits _ and outrage from parents and city officials _ made the saga of San Francisco’s school board a riveting pandemic sideshow that is about to play out at the ballot box. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

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South San Francisco this week sealed the deal on plans to build a new affordable 82-unit housing development for seniors, as well as the restoration and maintenance of the city’s historic fire station.

The new apartments will be next to the Baden Ave. 201 lie and partially wrap around the building built in 1948. On Wednesday, the city approved the sale of both the fire station, which is being converted for commercial purposes by a local architecture firm, and the building surrounding the city’s own property to a non-profit developer for affordable housing. The developer acquires the KFC Taco Bell next door and joins the land for the new building, which will keep the fast food restaurant as a tenant on the ground floor.

While exact plans for the apartments have yet to be determined, the units will, for the most part, be affordable for those earning roughly half the median income for the area, the developer said. That would mean rents in the neighborhood of $ 1,600 for units intended for a single resident, given the median household income of what is currently just north of $ 100,000 across the county.

“It will be very affordable,” said Nell Selander, deputy director of the economic and community development department. “I think it’s very much in line with the older South City population who really need it.”

The city’s 65-year-old and older population has grown faster than total population growth recently, accounting for more than 16% of the population in 2019, compared to 13% in 2010, according to census data.

“This is not just an affordable, off-market complex, but a badly needed senior citizen complex,” said Councilor Eddie Flores, noting the population growth.

The city has been looking for a developer for the site since at least 2017 and is working with four others before ending up with Eden Housing, which will build and maintain the houses. Getting Harman Management Corporation, the owner of the fast food restaurant, to sell the property was one of the biggest challenges, and the deal was made possible in large part by the city’s approval to include a drive through in the future design, Selander said.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2023 and is expected to be completed in 2025. A final design for the building, including its height and square footage, has not been released, and it has been determined that the type of fast food restaurant integrated into the development may change.

The city-owned portion of the property that is to be converted into residential will be sold to the developer for $ 1 in consideration of future use. The city also plans to loan the developer up to $ 4.5 million for the effort, and government funding could help support the affordable housing aspect as well.

The fire station is being sold to Firehouse Work LLC for $ 1.025 million. Group 4 Architecture, Research + Planning, Inc. will use the space as their new headquarters and plans to register the building as a historic structure. The fire station was in use until 2006 when the fire brigade moved to a larger facility as the city grew.

“Through this partnership, not only are we preserving history by preserving the old central fire station, but we’re also creating meaningful, affordable housing development for our seniors,” said Mark Addiego, Mayor of South San Francisco, in a statement. “Certainly a win-win situation for our residents and for honoring the past of our city.”

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“Quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes?” Juvenal wrote this 1,800 years ago: “Who will take care of the guards?”

“The fox not only guards the chicken coop, the fox has also opened a KFC franchise.” My writing partner Benjamin Wachs and I wrote this just 11 years ago specifically with reference to San Francisco. And you know, both of them feel painfully relevant in the moment.

On April 21, Mission Local released a report showing that during the city’s thousands of mandatory seismic retrofits, an unknown number of gas lines were improperly encased in new concrete beams, a component of a foundation – with the potential for “catastrophic” failures conceals. in the words of the city’s full-time plumber inspector in 2017.

This situation was identified by on-site building inspectors and submitted to the building inspection department five years ago – and inconsistent enforcement, nonsensical processes and possible emerging consequences were discussed in detail in the department’s structural subcommittee four years ago.

No action was taken. Worse still, the problem was buried with those pipes.

The then chief construction inspector Patrick O’Riordan wrote a dictum to the construction inspectors in 2017, expressly ordering them not to “cease work” when a gas pipe is encased with a new concrete foundation.

O’Riordan – now interim director of the entire department – also directed construction inspectors who encountered such an issue to inform the plumbing department in 2017. But a source in the plumbing department says that building inspectors who actually followed this rule and did so “were posted. They made noise and that was not the right thing to do. “

In the last few months the building authority – according to our reports and others in the media – has promised that it will “own” this situation. But its representatives have also minimized it, obfuscated it, and made bizarre and misleading statements in public forums.

So we should be skeptical that the department that raised a problem five years ago decided to silence its internal critics and minimize things – and they are still minimizing – is getting to the bottom of it. Especially if it were an indictment against elements of the current leadership of the department.

In short, we instruct the guards to guard the guards. Watch how it works.

A gas pipe with yellow tape around which a new foundation is being built.

During a June 7 supervisory board hearing about gas pipes surrounded by beams, Department of Building Inspection officials said some of the stupidest things.

First, they have no idea how many mandatory retrofits a gas line can have in a new leveling board (and the department’s practical dandy estimate that only a third of the 4,000 projects completed required a new leveling board was based on a “survey” – what means that these are hardly any hard data to extrapolate from).

But what is even more worrying is that they have no idea what the condition of the pipes that are now buried under the concrete are like. The installation code would require them to be “jacketed” – essentially protected in a hard, larger pipe. But officials from the San Francisco Department of Construction claimed at that hearing that merely “wrapping” these pipes – which is exactly what it sounds like – is a “legal practice.”

Well that was a bloody thing to say. First of all, as code expert and former Santa Clara oversight plumbing inspector Douglas Hansen explained at the hearing, this is dubiously sufficient. As he noted, wrapping a pipe is supposed to protect against corrosion – but not against structural problems like those that might occur in an earthquake (or even over the years, earthquake or not).

Consider this example: wearing a knitted hat can keep you warm. However, it would not be advisable to put one on instead of a crash helmet and ride the motorcycle. These are drastically different items designed to perform drastically different tasks.

But wait, there’s more: the Department of Building Inspection’s claims that pipe wrapping is an “approved method” are not the same – such approvals are not derived from a wand or royal declaration. Rather, it is codified in an administrative bulletin.

Such a bulletin does not exist. It was noteworthy that the building authority fell into the bait trap before our municipal supervisory authorities to use the term “recognized method”. Especially when the chairwoman of the June 7th hearing, Myrna Melgar, was on the building inspectorate – and knows damn well the need for an administrative bulletin. And that it’s not about wrapping gas pipes.

But wait, there’s more: without an administrative bulletin that defines exactly what the heck wrapping is and what the heck you can do, almost anything is possible. So the stories of the construction inspectors of pipes that have been wrapped with tape, electrical tape, construction paper, or nothing at all, play a big role. You can wrap your pipes in Bazooka Joe comics and, as long as a construction inspector doesn’t make any noise, fair.

And remember what happens to building inspectors who make noise.

Nine days after a sobering appearance in front of the supervisory board, it was left to the building authorities to explain this situation to their own building supervision commission.

This, too, was a strange exhibition.

O’Riordan, for example, said that gas pipe wrapping was an “accepted practice” in his 24 years in the department and probably well before that.

The building inspectors in San Francisco – and maybe the building inspectors everywhere – have a constant joke about what happens when a contractor is informed they’re doing something wrong: They say, “I’ve been doing this for years.” So it was strange that the supervisor was essentially using this line.

O’Riordan also called the wrapping of gas pipes the “industry standard”. Very interesting – but it’s not in the regulations the Department of Building Inspection is supposed to be enforcing.

And the codes for wrapping these pipes are clear. If the building inspectorate wanted to change it and see the packaging as an “approved method”, they could have created an administrative bulletin. It didn’t. Instead, anyone wishing to wrap a gas pipeline and / or run it through a foundation could have tried Administrative Bulletin 005 and sought approval for an alternate process that would have been inconsistent with the regulations on a case-by-case basis.

That didn’t happen.

Separate and apart from so-called “industry standards” – those are the rules. These are the codes. And there’s a reason we have building codes in this and every town, and not just troops of men walking around saying, “That’s how I used to do it”.

When construction inspectors in San Francisco saw gas lines running through foundations, they passed their concerns on to management. They were told not to “stop working” – and according to several sources, they were punished for pushing the issue forward.

That’s how it went here. But not everywhere: When Los Angeles construction inspectors discovered the same problem with mandatory seismic retrofitting in that city in 2016, the issue was taken seriously.

This document is the entry point for 12,147 retrofits in Los Angeles and 8,801 approvals to date. And you will find that Section 5i states, “Gas pipelines are not permitted in slope beams unless approved by the Gas Company.” If such approval is granted, applicant must complete 5j, “Possible Pipe Intrusion Information”.

In San Francisco right now we have no idea what’s buried in these new beam foundations. There isn’t a line on a checklist that explicitly asks if a gas pipe went through it. All we know is that the inspector who may have done 12-15 inspections in a day and knew or did not know or cared about the differences between wrappers and wrappers – and may or may not have been on the rise – marks, that everything is fine.

“The determination to add this to the proof sheet was based on feedback from our field workers,” said Jeff Napier, spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Building and Security. “Existing gas lines from the utility were at times in areas where new beams were installed.” These lines must be laid without the gas company ‘s approval.

“This often resulted in construction delays as the utilities did not allow their gas lines to penetrate the concrete beams. In order to avoid these construction delays, attention was drawn to this problem in the planning phase. ”

This is not a perfect document and the Los Angeles construction division is not a perfect entity. But a document like this would have solved so many problems in San Francisco.

This would nip the problem of gas pipes in foundations in the bud. It would have given everyone a clear and unambiguous record of what was among the thousands of mandatory upgrades. And it would have eliminated the month-long delays that arise when PG&E is unexpected and involved in the final stages of a project rather than at the beginning as planned.

A gas pipe in a new concrete foundation

In short, we would have avoided the fine mess we are in.

And more generally than the problem of gas pipes in concrete, civil engineers have been complaining since 2016 about the overall shabby construction of the city’s thousands of mandatory soft-story projects – by engineers who may not even have visited the site. They have also raised concerns about poor construction and lax or non-existent inspections by the city. But the warnings of the engineers were rejected by the building authorities for years.

Now that this is a newspaper story, however, the building authorities are more receptive. And that’s great. But five years have passed since engineers first hoisted that red flag, and thousands of projects have been completed at the Interregnum.

We can still regret this long period of hindrance and denial. As Miami area construction officials can easily tell you, better avoiding a calamity than retrospectively piecing together how it happened – and what was missed.

“I don’t tend to shine and brighten the Los Angeles sign, but this is a formidable document,” says Lonnie Haughton, a contractor and building codes expert who has several long stories about the San Francisco Building Department and its building codes .

“The fact that all of this work has been done here with no such document, no administrative bulletins, no guidance, and no clear focus is a black mark on the city and county of San Francisco.”

It didn’t have to be like that. But it was. And it can stay that way – as long as we continue to give the guards the supervision of the guards.

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Joe was born in San Francisco, grew up in the Bay Area and attended UC Berkeley. He never left. Your Humble Narrator was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly and Senior … More by Joe Eskenazi from 2007-2015

The post San Francisco constructing officers buried their heads within the concrete — together with gasoline strains appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.