Gerry Shih/The Bay Citizen

John L. Martin, the director of San Francisco International Airport, held a fundraiser for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee Monday evening, renewing questions about the appearance of political influence in policymaking at the airport.

Martin’s fundraiser comes two months after San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón opened a criminal investigation into GO Lorrie’s, an airport shuttle company that allegedly solicited contributions to Lee’s election campaign from employees and then reimbursed them for the payments. The contributions were made around the same time that the airport overhauled its curbside parking rules in a way that benefited GO Lorrie’s and another shuttle company.

The airport said the rule change was not based upon any political considerations. Lee, for his part, said he had not influenced airport policy. His campaign returned the questionable contributions after two of the donors, both GO Lorrie’s drivers, told The Bay Citizen that they had been promised reimbursement by company management.

State law prohibits contributors from channeling money through other donors to sidestep campaign contribution limits. A spokeswoman for Gascón declined to comment Monday except to say that the investigation was ongoing.

Because the DA's investigation could involve airport staff under Martin's purview, the fundraiser “gives the appearance of a conflict of interest if it is not a de facto conflict of interest,” according to Charles Marsteller, the former director of Common Cause of California, a nonpartisan voter advocacy group.

The proceeds of the fundraiser at Martin's Duboce Triangle home will go toward repaying Lee’s $300,000 campaign debt. The event was first reported by the San Francisco Examiner.

Tony Winnicker, the campaign spokesman for Lee, said the event, which was co-hosted by Supervisor Scott Wiener, was in full accordance with city election laws.

“As long as we’re following all the laws, we don’t have any concerns,” Winnicker said.

Winnicker added that Lee’s campaign will no longer accept contributions from airport shuttle companies, “whether they try to give or not, given what happened during the campaign.”

The controversy at the airport has renewed scrutiny of the airport commission, the body that approved the curbside parking overhaul on Martin's recommendation. 

Commission members, who determine airport policy and award contracts, are appointed by the mayor. So is the airport director, who is frequently “caught in a bind” when he faces political pressure from the city's chief executive, according to Marsteller. “He’s got a hot-button of a political job,” Marsteller said.

Martin was appointed by former Mayor Frank Jordan in 1996.

The commission made headlines during the final months of former Mayor Willie Brown’s administration in 2003, when it recommended awarding a $258 million construction contract to Airis, an Atlanta-based company with ties to Brown, despite Martin’s recommendation in favor of a competing bidder that had scored twice as high during a review. The Board of Supervisors voted down the Airis contract.

Brown, who along with his longtime friend and political ally, Rose Pak, helped engineer Lee's rise to power, highlighted the connection between the airport and city politics in his San Francisco Chronicle column earlier this year.

During the opening party for the airport's newly renovated Terminal 2, Pak openly pressured architect David Gensler, who had won the contracts for the current redesign and a previous renovation, to raise $1 million to support an effort to elect Lee to a full term.

“Poor Gensler, he didn't know what hit him,” Brown wrote.