The Art of the Deal

While the Giants aren't generous enough to back off their mean-spirited lawsuit, they were generous enough to toss the supes some opening-day tickets.

"I'd have liked to invite my staff, but really, I can't," given the circumstances, said Supervisor Aaron Peskin. "I'm facing the first political crisis of my term," he added, referring to the resulting long faces around the office.

Sarah Hughes

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More About

• Elisa Stephens
• San Francisco Giants
• Academy of Art College
• Aaron Peskin
• John Martin

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To his even greater credit Peskin used the early supes' meeting to address questions I posed in last week's column, which described a private, city-chartered company that is now helping run the airports of Honduras. To review, San Francisco International Airport seems to be running a private corporation out of its own offices that does consulting work for foreign countries. So far the corporation has won a contract privatizing the airports of Honduras, and it plans to bid on a similar Jamaican airport privatization.

I've since learned that the corporation is called SFO Enterprises Inc. and is governed by a board of directors consisting of S.F. Treasurer Susan Leal, SFO Director John Martin, and former Supervisor Barbara Kaufman. Its CEO is SFO Deputy Director and Chief of Staff John Costas.

At Monday's meeting, Peskin pointed out a possible conflict of interest between Kaufman's SFO Enterprises board position and her role as president of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

"As many know, BCDC is charged with ensuring that local development -- including development at the airport -- does not compromise the environmental quality of the bay. BCDC's role has become extremely sensitive in light of the airport's controversial runway expansion plan. In this respect, it makes me extremely nervous that the president of BCDC also sits as leader of a private -- one could say secret -- entity of the airport," Peskin said.

Peskin called for a letter of inquiry to Martin, asking him to describe SFO Enterprises Inc.'s activities, revenues, and expenses. He also asked the City Attorney's Office to determine whether San Francisco could be held responsible for SFO Enterprises' actions. After all, though SFO Enterprises calls itself a private corporation, it's actually run by city officials, was chartered by the city, is directed by city officials, and earns revenue off the work of city employees, all for the purposes of earning money for city coffers.

"A court may take an approach that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it is a duck," Peskin said.