The Chronicle’s June 23 Matier & Ross column questioned whether Supervisor Chris Daly improperly intervened with the Department of Building Inspection to get a housing inspector’s job for longtime San Francisco activist Richard Marquez.
While the article described Marquez’s strong qualifications for the job, and quoted DBI Director Amy Lee’s denying allegations of Daly wrongdoing, an essential fact was missing from the piece: Daly has no ability to influence the DBI. Has the Chronicle’s anti-Daly bias reached the point where even clearly fictitious charges against the Supervisor are deemed newsworthy?
Richard Marquez was hired as a housing inspector last summer after a lengthy career investigating SRO hotel conditions for both the Health Department (where he was an outreach worker) and for a nonprofit group pursuant to a city contract. In addition to these qualifications, Marquez speaks Spanish, a critical attribute in a city with a high-percentage of monolingual Spanish-speaking Latino tenants living in substandard dwellings.
Despite his obvious qualifications, Marquez’s hiring was subsequently challenged by one of the over 50 applicants who did not get the job. Such challenges are not uncommon in San Francisco, but the difference in this case was the claim that Supervisor Chris Daly improperly interfered with the hiring decision.
Did the challenger provide any evidence that Daly interfered? No. But the lack of any factual basis to the charge did not stop Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross from publicizing the unfounded complaint in their June 23 column.
A frivolous complaint filed by a frustrated job seeker charging Mayor Newsom with impropriety would not become a Chronicle story. Such claims are likely routinely filed against mayors, who, unlike Daly, have power over the department heads who must approve hiring decisions.
The Chronicle never reported that Chris Daly has no ability to influence the Department of Building Inspection hiring process. Nor did the columnists remind readers that appointments to the Building Inspection Commission are made by the Mayor and President of the Board of Supervisors, and these appointments are not subject to Board of Supervisors review.
The Chronicle has often reported on Mayor Newsom’s strong support for Amy Lee, and the excellent job she is doing as Acting Superintendent of DBI. This further undermines a story that suggests Lee granted favoritism at the request of Daly, the Mayor’s most outspoken critic.
As a public figure, Daly is accustomed to media criticism. But the Chronicle should not have allowed its anti-Daly bias to create even the hint of suspicion around Marquez’s clearly legitimate hiring.
Send feedback to rshaw@beyondchron.org
