Indecent Disclosure

Mayor Brown's press secretary, Kandace Bender, said there were no distributions from Live Oak Associates II and III to the Willie L. Brown, Jr. Profit Sharing Plan & Trust from 1992 to 1997. Bender said she did not have information on the Live Oak real estate partnerships before 1992. Bender was not able to say if tax write-offs were passed through to the trust, or if the trust filed income tax forms. She did not know the identity of the trust's trustee, or if Brown is the trust's sole owner.

It is good retirement planning for Willie Brown to devote a large portion of his long-term real estate investment assets to his trust. In addition to the Live Oak Associates partnerships, Brown's trust also has carried various stock investments, which do not seem to appear on his personal tax returns, either.

And when Brown does retire, he will, no doubt, be well fixed.

Tom Ammiano, meanwhile, did make four years' worth of his tax returns available when SF Weekly asked for them. They show that the man who would unseat Brown has had an average adjusted gross income of only $38,000 a year during that time.