Yes on B campaign ad

When city unions trounced Proposition B in the polls in November, there was quite a bit of glowering that the defeat of the measure to increase city employees' pension and benefit contributions meant political death for Jeff Adachi.

Adachi, the city's hard-working public defender, was rumored to be interested in higher office. 

But Adachi refuses to stay dead. He says he is redrafting Prop. B and may reintroduce a pension-reform measure in time for the November election.

Adachi's campaign spent $2,000 of its dwindling funds to pay a fine levied by the state Fair Political Practices Commission. After the unions complained about a television ad that Adachi had aired, the FPPC determined that the spot did not display the names of Prop. B's main sponsors for the requisite five seconds.

The identified sponsors were Adachi, venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife, novelist Harriet Heyman, and investor Warren Hellman. (Hellman, a major funder of The Bay Citizen and chairman of its board, had originally been a supporter of Proposition B but later withdrew his support.)

Citing the five-second rule, the unions tried, without success, to have television outlets refuse to air the ads shortly before the election. 

"The commercial files were sent via e-mail to the broadcaster and in the process were compressed which resulted in a shortened FPPC identification," Darcy Brown, the spokeswoman for the Prop. B campaign, explained in an e-mail Tuesday. "The expanded files were re-sent within a few hours which complied with FPPC requirements."

The fine was announced at the FPPC's meeting last week, but Adachi said in an e-mail Tuesday evening that the fine had been paid in November. The end-of-year financial statement for the Prop. B campaign shows that it took in $6,482 less than it spent, and that it had only $3,778 in cash on hand at the end of 2010.

Adachi said Tuesday that funds for his efforts toward a new pension-reform initiative are necessarily separate from the Prop. B campaign funds. Those coffers have not booked any contributions since November, he said. Adachi declined to elaborate on financing details. His newly revamped website, sfsmartreform.com, solicits donations for his renewed pension-reform effort (not to be confused with sfsmartreform.org, which links to a union Facebook page denouncing Prop. B).

All told, the Prop. B campaign raised $1.1 million in 2010. The unions reported that their umbrella group, Stand Up for Working Families, took in $1.5 million and spent $1.6 million to defeat Prop. B. That campaign had a $30,000 ending cash balance. The city fire fighters' union reported spending $301,000 on the effort.

Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated that the $2,000 fine levied against the Prop. B campaign had not yet been paid. Public Defender Jeff Adachi contacted The Bay Citizen Tuesday evening to clarify that the fine, which was announced last week by the Fair Political Practices Commission, had been paid in November.