Of an initial list of some 500 delinquent ethics filers, the city tally is now down to a shade less than 160. But a Mission Local analysis shows that only around 30 of these so-called delinquents are actually still on the payroll. Graphic by Kelly WaldronThis is the strange and terrible conclusion one is left with after watching the Ethics Commission’s April 4 list of 479 city employees who were delinquent filers of the mandatory Statement of Economic Interests dwindle to just 158 by last week.
Sarah Bernstein Jones was one of the scores of erstwhile MTA employees who was surprised to see herself on the delinquent list.
What surprised Collins was to subsequently receive a stipulation from Ethics demanding an $1,800 fine — with the caveat that failure to submit to this demand would result in an investigation and potentially far higher fines. Collins did reject the stipulation, which he likened to a mafia shakedown. Colleagues have since informed him that Ethics has been making calls to San Francisco International Airport, where his firm has contracts, and asking questions.
Collins’ plight is yet another example of a longstanding knock on the Ethics Commission: That it focuses with a monomaniacal fervor on technical violations by small-time operators while San Francisco is Mission Local dialed up more than half a dozen former Ethics Commissioners. None of them thought it made ethical or economic sense to conduct a long-running investigation into a volunteer who serves on a commission that does not meet.