The Matt Smith / Alioto-Pier $4 Million MistakeRandy Shawbyline‚ Nov. 02‚ 2007It is no secret that the SF Weekly’s Matt Smith has trouble getting his facts straight, and that Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier rarely does her homework. These two great minds have now combined to claim in the October 10 SF Weekly and at the October 30 Board of Supervisors meeting that the Tenderloin Housing Clinic (publisher of Beyond Chron) spends millions of dollars of city funds on illegal lobbying each year. Smith reached this conclusion, picked up without investigation by Alioto-Pier, by misreading the Clinic’s 990 form filed with the IRS. Instead of citing the total money the Clinic actually spent lobbying ---$728---Smith erroneously cited the maximum amount the Clinic was legally entitled to spend ($4.8 million.) That’s quite a difference. Alioto-Pier then compounded Smith’s error by using his erroneous statistics for political payback against the Clinic, introducing a measure calling for a hearing into the Clinic’s alleged misuse of city funds for lobbying. |