Letters to the Editor

Byrne has his head up his ass:I want to clear up an important omission in Peter Byrne's recent article ["Griftin' on the Dock of the Bay," Nov. 20].

There is a strong implication in the article that my activities with respect to Pier 38 were illegal and/or improper and that the lawsuit pier leaseholder Carl Ernst filed against me and the mayor caused the Port [Authority] to grant the lease amendment in question.

As the article indicates, I was asked by the mayor, as his special assistant, to investigate the statements made to him about the requested lease amendment. When I discovered that Ernst had misrepresented to the mayor and to port staff the urgency of the matter, I became suspicious and asked that the matter be deferred until I could investigate Pier 38 further. In the course of the investigation, I found that Mr. Ernst had failed to deliver on virtually every obligation he had under the existing lease. I also found numerous prohibited uses of the pier, many of which were detailed in Byrne's article. Port staff agreed with my findings and told Ernst that they would not consider any lease amendment until he cleared up the numerous deficiencies with respect to his existing leasehold.

As Byrne's article indicates, Ernst filed a lawsuit against the mayor and me for our involvement in the matter. However, Byrne failed to state that it was the professional opinion of all the City lawyers involved that the suit was utterly without merit, as the city charter clearly grants the mayor general and fiscal oversight over all port matters. My investigation of the Pier 38 mess was clearly within the Mayor's charter powers and responsibilities with respect to the port, and all of the lawyers involved felt that Ernst's litigation would be summarily dismissed on an appropriate motion to the court.

Byrne's assertion that the suit had the potential to create "big trouble" for the Brown administration in that a requested injunction would potentially jeopardize "hundreds of millions of dollars in port leases and development projects" is as ludicrous as Ernst's lawsuit. Byrne was directed to the relevant charter sections and was given the names of the attorneys involved, and I am therefore at a loss to understand why this information did not appear in his article.

I frankly cannot tell you why Ernst was given his lease amendment, because I transferred from the port to other matters last February. But I can tell you that my investigation of Pier 38 and the resulting Ernst litigation could not have had any bearing on the matter.

Ken Harrington
San Rafael

Byrne replies:The central allegation in Ernst's lawsuit was that Harrington and the mayor interfered in port commission business in violation of city and state law. In fact, the city charter does not directly address the difference between mayoral "lobbying" and illegal interference, as I found out during a lengthy discussion with port general counsel Noreen Ambrose, who said the issue has never been adjudicated. While Harrington contends that Ernst's suit was meritless, that decision would have been made by a judge. And even before the judge made a final ruling, he or she could have issued an injunction that at least temporarily would have limited the mayor's ability to involve himself in port business

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A publicly financed newspaper? Yuck:Despite whatever rivalry might exist between your two papers, Len Albin's bitter, childish whine pointing out some supposed hypocrisy at the Bay Guardian was distasteful and disappointing ("Municipalizing Bruce," Postscript, Nov. 13). But let's let Albin put his money where his mouth is: it is time that the city of San Francisco had a publicly financed print publication that intelligently championed the causes of the working class, the poor, and the public.

I expect to see Albin out in the streets gathering signatures for the next election. Obviously, the SF Weekly won't be able to do the job, since it's too busy backing up PG&E's multimillion-dollar ad campaign against Proposition D.

Your decidedly corporate bias and immature, hysterical attacking of the Guardian's stance in favor of Prop. D is laughable. I would respect you if I felt there was something there other than a mere spittle-flying rage rooted more in fear of "communists!" and "Marxists!" than in intelligent analysis.

I will make it a point to only ask for the Bay Guardianwhen I visit local businesses in the future. I will make it a point to let businesses know that I do not read the SF Weekly. Because, such crap deserves to die by its own free market sword.

Derek Greenwood
Santa Cruz