Unions Call Jeff Adachi a Tax Dodger

Battle over pension reform continues to escalate
By: Elizabeth Lesly Stevens

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi is finding out just how unpleasant it can be to take on the city’s powerful labor unions.

Adachi is behind a pension-reform measure that was officially certified on Monday by the Department of Elections as qualifying for the November ballot. If Adachi’s plan is passed, city employees, including elected officials, will be required to contribute more toward their pension and benefit costs. Adachi says that the plan will save the cash-strapped city about $170 million a year.

The public-employee unions and many San Francisco elected officials are vehemently opposed to Adachi’s plan.

On Monday, Stand Up for Working Families, a new public-employee union group formed to oppose the Adachi measure, sent a letter to José Cisneros, the city treasurer, charging that Adachi “dodges” what the group argues is his obligation to pay city business taxes. The group had sent an initial complaint to Cisneros about the business-tax issue on July 29. “According to public disclosures, Mr. Adachi has made at least $130,000 in his publishing businesses in the last three years, yet has failed to pay business taxes to the City as required by law,” the union group alleges. “We simply cannot countenance politicians — especially politicians who profess to be concerned about the financial stability of the City — to be tax dodgers.”

Adachi says he has a company that published five legal tomes he has written, and that he outsourced the distribution to Los Angeles beginning in 2006. He says that his venture is not “a [local] business within the meaning of San Francisco law” and therefore not subject to city business taxes.

Bob Muscat, the leader of the union effort, could not be reached Monday evening.

This recent effort is only the latest pressure Adachi has faced. The union group last month asked City Attorney Dennis Herrera, District Attorney Kamala D. Harris and the city ethics commission to investigate the accountant who served on a recent civil grand jury that issued a June report warning of a pension crisis. That juror, Craig Weber, volunteered to act as treasurer of Adachi’s group in the waning weeks of the grand jury session. Weber claims that his role was not an ethical breach, and that he had asked the city attorney and the presiding judge for permission before assuming the dual role.

Last Tuesday, a proposal titled “Directing the Budget and Legislative Analyst to Audit the Office of the Public Defender” was voted down at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors. It was sponsored by Supervisor Chris Daly. John Avalos was the only other supervisor who voted to approve the audit.

Does Adachi feel targeted at this point? He is resolute about not engaging on that topic. “I’ll let other people decide,” he says. “I’m looking forward to continue making our case about pension reform to San Franciscans.”