Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
By Julie Pitta
You found it among the stack of glossy catalogues in your mailbox. Disguised in a plain white envelope bearing a message promising important election information, this mailer, despite its somber appearance, was no less than the slick catalogues with the pretty pictures.
The catalogues want you to part with your money. The mailer wants something more precious – your vote. In return it promises a “better” San Francisco.
Better for whom, you might reasonably ask. Why, better for the cabal of big tech and real estate interests who produced the mailer.
The mailer is the handiwork of GrowSF, a political action committee that exploits a loophole in election law that allows them to evade the $500 cap imposed on individual campaign contributors. Among its funders is Garry Tan, a billionaire venture capitalist. For him, and others like him, the expense can be considered an investment, one promising a handsome return.
The mailer is sleazy even by the deplorably low standards of today’s political campaigns. In it, GrowSF touts the results of a recent public opinion poll. The idea is to persuade voters that its agenda is informed by the concerns of city residents. But where are the numbers? GrowSF fails to tell us who – or how many – responded. Without that critical piece of information, the poll’s results are worthless, not worth the paper they were printed on.
That’s not all. GrowSF attempts to make a specious connection to the real problems of homelessness, drug use and crime to District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan. Again, it doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. It accuses Chan of advocating for defunding the San Francisco Police Department. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chan has been a staunch supporter of our local police. As head of the Board of Supervisor’s budget committee, she recommended a handsome 8.5% raise to the police budget. She did so in a year when most city departments were forced to take cuts, the result of a large and debilitating budget deficit.
Even so, as a tenacious fighter for working San Franciscans, Chan has found herself in the cross hairs. Not known for its subtlety, GrowSF launched “Clear Out Connie” campaign last spring and has given full-throated support to Chan’s opponent Marjan Philhour. A two-time loser for the D1 seat, Philhour is a candidate friendly to the interests of the City’s billionaires who will spend big to bankroll her into office.
Stirring up discontent about crime is nothing more than a cynical attempt at grabbing voter attention. GrowSF and groups like them are spending millions to influence city elections and they haven’t been shy about their intentions. The San Francisco Standard, an online news site started by Michael Moritz who, like Tan, is a billionaire venture capitalist, recently published an article laying out their plan: “San Francisco ‘Tech Families’ Plot to Spend Millions Influencing Policy.”
Moritz, not surprisingly, also bankrolls a political action committee, TogetherSF. In the last three years, he has spent a whopping $350 million on city elections, a figure that sounds impressive, but amounts to only $135 per San Franciscan. That’s a small price if you look at the money as an investment that will reap handsome dividends.
What billionaires like Moritz and Tan want is more profit. To that end, they’re looking to up-zone San Francisco neighborhoods, particularly on the City’s west side, a gift to real estate speculators. They want to starve the City’s social service programs, the better to lower their taxes. They’re attacking public schools, again to avoid paying their fair share. Make no mistake, this agenda will harm the most vulnerable among us as well as working San Franciscans.
Their agenda is a breathtaking example of selfishness from a class of people who have become obscenely rich doing business in our City.
In the coming months, the billionaires behind GrowSF and TogetherSF will try to convince you that they care deeply about the problems plaguing our City. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their obsession, as it has always been, is making money and they propose to do it on the backs of working San Franciscans. The City, already inhospitable to so many of us, will become only more so should they succeed in buying your vote.
The election season is upon us. In this era of disinformation, it’s increasingly important that San Francisco voters become discriminating consumers of information. The future of our City depends on it.
Julie Pitta is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and senior editor at Forbes Magazine. She is a neighborhood activist and an officer of the Richmond District Democratic Club. You may reach her at julie.pitta@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter/X: @juliepitta.
Categories: Commentary
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
Julie, Individual contributions are capped at $500, not $500 million, as you know. That must be a typo. And, yes GrowSF has got to go! Get those billionaires out of here! Money corrupts the political process. Just look at London Breed. She’s only here because she was bankrolled by Ron Conway.
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Fixed name and $500.
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You’re mansplaining to Julie what she already explained in the article: GrowSF “exploits a loophole in election law that allows them to evade the $500 cap imposed on individual campaign contributors.”
And yes, Breed and her corrupt administration absolutely have to go.
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Sunset Beacon thank you for correcting some of Julie Pitta’s DISINFORMATION in this political opinion piece.
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She sure loves to gaslight
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Gaslighting does not mean “expressing an opinion you disagree with.” Gaslighting is someone with some power in your life, e.g. partner, employer, government, deliberately trying to make the victim doubt their sense of reality.
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Says the two-time Trump voter. And corrected errors are NOT “disinformation”–that would be GrowSF’s mailer, which was profoundly misleading.
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I find Julie Pitta’s opinions that revolve around pitting the “poor” against the “rich” tired and divisive. We’re better served by the Sunset Beacon’s other articles that explore solutions without dividing us.
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In other words, you’re against addressing the economic inequality that’s one of the biggest problems facing this city, state, country, and world? Got it.
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It’s not that much different than the City’s top lobbying group, the Bike Coalition, which controls virtually all local politicians, getting half-a-million or more in taxpayer money each year to help facilitate the advancement of its agenda (usually playing fast and loose with facts and in disregard of rules of ethics). Both are bad, but it’s a bit disingenuous to call out one but not the other.
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Julie Pitta supports police after writing 200 articles asking us to defund them. Amazing. She is a menace that must be stopped
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I generally make it a policy not to comment to readers. However, I must set the record straight. I have never — not once — called for defunding the police.
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“Chan has been a staunch supporter of our local police”
It looks like this “opinion” is clashing with the fact that D1 Supervisor Candidate Marjan Philhour has attracted the endorsement of our SFPD POA; the first such endorsement the POA has made of a candidate in recent memory.
Yes, the POA endorses Supervisor Marjan Philhour because of her STAUNCH SUPPORT of our SFPD and NOT incumbent Connie Chan.
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As we all know the SFPOA is a devoutly rightwing organization that has displayed consistently thuggish behavior in local politics. And just b/c this rightwing group supports two-time loser Philhour doesn’t mean Chan doesn’t support police funding!
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I feel sorry for Richmond Review patrons who are put out by Julie Pitta’s comments..Reality must enter the cloistered minds of the west end San Francisco natives. Whose world revolves around, for the most part, cars and cops.
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Perfect, Julie! Been wondering who these GrowSF & TogetherSF folks were. Sheesh!
Cheryl
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“It’s not the existence of beliefs that is the problem, but what happens to us when we hold them rigidly, without examining them, when we presume the absolutely centrality of our views and become disdainful of others.” Sharon Salzberg
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“Richmond Neighbor” you’re right. Julie Pitta has made clear she supports defunding the police, yet continues to deny it here. Connie Chan pal Sandra Fewer famously said “F*ck the police”. Just a few short weeks before the recall election of DA Boudin, Connie Chan stood by passively while BLM “protesters” ruined an “ice cream with a cop” event in her district; organized and attended by children who the belligerent and foul mouthed “protesters” brought to tears. Since defunding, discrediting, dismantling and demoralizing the police is a top priority for Pitta, Chan and Fewer, Richmond District 1 Supervisorial Candidate Marjan Philhour is the first political candidate to be endorsed by the SFPOA in recent memory.
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Julie Pitta is a fine one to talk about sleaze, as she was observed taking down Marjan Philhour’s campaign signs. Did you know that is a misdemeanor? Really, Julie, that’s the pits.
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Is this you Julia?
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Anyone who has lived in San Francisco for more than a few years knows that crime has gotten worse. Everybody has had their car or garage or mailbox broken into. Does not matter where they live in the city. When an intrude comes onto your property and takes something, you no longer feel safe in your own home. You are always on guard. You end up spending large sums of money to prevent future break ins – maybe you have a gate or security cameras installed, or you put bars on your garage windows. These crimes are often downplayed as “victimless” but they take a psychological and financial toll on residents and business owners. How did we get here? So-called progressives in city politics who have tied the police department’s hands by banning vehicle pursuits and making officers fill out a mountain of paperwork when they have to use force to control a suspect. Cops do not want to work in this city, and the cops who do work here are reluctant to get involved because if they put their hands on a criminal there will be public outcry and complaints or even lawsuits from activist groups. I guess I am supposed to just live with that? Live with the family home we have had since the 50’s being burglarized? No, thanks. The City has had enough of this. The tide is going to turn in the March and November elections and the progressives will be voted out. Everyone I have talked to in the city, from all parts of the political spectrum, feels the same way. Nice try, Julia!
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