SFO My God

Airport officials have bungled their international business efforts so badly, the city attorney has to investigate

A A A Comments By Matt Smith Wednesday, May 21 2003

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"Maduro's party has a simple majority in congress, so there won't be a problem," Torres Lazo says. "You can take it as a given the consortium's not going to collapse over this."

So there's nothing to worry about, then -- unless one considers it unseemly that San Francisco officials have been involved in back-room, high-stakes financial negotiations with a government that Transparency International, a Berlin-based organization devoted to combating corruption worldwide, calls one of the world's more corrupt.

Luis Elvir

Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

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That's not to say SFO officials did anything improper during those negotiations. Why would anything questionable happen during secret negotiations over government concessions in a banana republic?

Isn't it about time that San Franciscans learned what is really going on with our Honduran adventure? I'd love to do the learning, and pass on the full truth about SFO Enterprises, but -- at least for the moment -- I can't.

Though SFO Enterprises is apparently useless in protecting San Francisco from liability, it doesprovide Martin with the extremely important function of secrecy. In response to my request last month for SFO Enterprises records, airport spokesman Michael McCarron sent me the following message by fax:

"With respect to those records you have requested which are in the exclusive possession of SFO Enterprises, Inc., such records are not subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act or the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance since SFO Enterprises is an independent corporation and is not a department of the City and County of San Francisco. Furthermore, the records of SFO Enterprises, Inc. are not "public records' within the meaning of the Public Records Act or the Sunshine Ordinance."

Despite the dubiousness of this legal reasoning, I can't for the moment peek inside SFO Enterprises. But I know someone who can. If it's true, as Martin says, that San Francisco now faces possible liability stemming from the actions -- or non-actions -- of SFO Enterprises, shouldn't the agency in charge of protecting the city from lawsuits conduct an investigation, and examine that company's files?

Dennis Herrera, are you out there?

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