Now, unable to allay her concern about her boyfriend Wyatt Hunt’s nonchalance in his attitude toward both his investigation into Como’s death and the presence of Len Turner in the mix, Gina Roake was sitting on a hard wooden chair catercorner to Elliot in his tiny cubbyhole of an office.
It was four-thirty on Tuesday afternoon.
“Actually,” Elliot was telling her, “if I believed in coincidences, I’d say it was quite a coincidence you happening to come by here today with that question.”
“Why is that?”
“Because just today, I…” Rummaging around on the surface of his desk, he extracted a sheet of paper from a small pile of them. “Well, here. Troglodyte that I am, I still ask for and get hard- copy galleys. They hate me for it, but what are they going to do? I’m a star. So, anyway, this is tomorrow’s column. You might find it somewhat interesting.”
CityTalk
BY JEFF ELLIOT
Everyone knows that the murder last Tuesday of community activist Dominic Como has left his flagship Sunset Youth Project (“SYP”) in a precarious state. But CityTalk has learned from sources in the city’s Health Services Department that its troubles may have begun before Mr. Como’s death. The sources, who wished to remain anonymous because the reports they spoke about were not due to become public until later this week, portrayed an organization rife with political intrigue and corruption.
Roake looked up from the page. “Let me guess,” she said. “Como and his pals were lining their pockets with grant money.”
“Damn,” Elliot said. “You stole my scoop. Who woulda thunk it?”
“Okay, so let me go double or nothing. Just a wild guess. Somehow Len Turner’s in this up to his eyes.”
Elliot sighed. “You’re psychic.”
Gina shrugged. “It’s a small talent.” She went back to the column.
According to documents released by the federal government last Friday, the SYP is to be barred access to federal grants and contracts for up to one year due to its unauthorized use of AmeriCorps funds. AmeriCorps has contributed over $4.6 million to SYP over the past four years. According to its contract with AmeriCorps, SYP agreed to use these funds to pay tutors at its Ortega campus, to redevelop certain selected properties to be used as residential treatment facilities, and to assist with marketing and operations in SYP’s other subsidiaries, such as its moving company, art gallery, and theater.
Instead, the documents list a number of violations against Mr. Como, including:
• Misuse of AmeriCorps funds for his personal benefit, including paying several different drivers to take him to personal appointments, wash his car, and run personal errands.
• Unlawfully supplementing the salaries of instructors at the Ortega campus with federal grant funds by enrolling these instructors in the AmeriCorps program and giving them federally funded living allowances and education awards.
• Improperly using AmeriCorps members for political activities, such as pamphlet distribution and telephone solicitation.
• Misusing AmeriCorps members as janitors and clerical personnel at the Ortega campus, not as tutors.
“So how’d they find out?” Gina asked. “Tell me someone in the organization ratted him out. I love it when the vipers turn on each other.”
“Nothing so dramatic. At least not that we know of. Someone with the federal Corporation for National and Community Service caught some irregularities. You gotta see the full report. It’s pretty blunt.”
“Bean counters,” Gina said. “You gotta love ’em.”
Elliot nodded. “Keep reading. Now comes the juicy local stuff and affirmation of your psychic power.”
In a closely related matter, just this past weekend the San Francisco Board of Supervisors released its yearly budget analysis of the Communities of Opportunity (“COO”) program, headed by Len Turner. Mr. Turner, apart from this mayoral-appointed position, also serves as legal counsel to several service-oriented nonprofit organizations, including the Mission Street Coalition, the Sanctuary House for Battered Women, and, notably, the SYP, among several others.
The COO program has supplied nearly $4 million, mostly foundation money from private sources, into community redevelopment for some of the city’s most poverty-stricken neighborhoods. But the just-released budget analysis has revealed that despite this influx of cash-earmarked for after-school tutoring, health care, addiction rehabilitation, and job placement-the program has essentially nothing to show for its efforts over the past two years.
“So,” Gina said, “the Supes found out this was coming?”
“Looks like it.”
“And they were shocked, shocked, that there was gambling going on at Rick’s.”
“Exactly.”
“So where did the money go?”
“Read on.”
Below is a partial listing of questionable expenses so far unearthed: conferences for community development professionals ($602,335), theatrical and musical events ($136,800), consultants and public relations ($477, 210), program office and community staff ($372,000), and community outreach ($256,780). Beyond these “expenses,” nearly $2 million went to “community-based organizations and other services”-i.e., to the very nonprofits who were charged with administering the COO funds. And finally, in the COO program alone, Mr. Turner pulls down a salary of $370,000 per year.
Revelations such as these lend credence to the pejorative term sometimes used to describe these professional fund-raisers and community activists: “poverty pimps.” They like to describe themselves as people who are “doing well by doing good.” They are doing very well indeed. In fact, judging from the financial improprieties apparent in these two recent reports, it seems that in San Francisco, nonprofit is in fact a high- profit, big- money game. And taking into consideration Mr. Como’s murder, it may also be a deadly one.
Gina Roake handed the galley sheet back to Jeff Elliot. “Looks plenty grafty to me,” she said. “Not to mention slightly dangerous, which is exactly the message I’ve been trying to get through to Wyatt.”
“It’s a good one. Isn’t he getting it?”
“Not clearly enough, I don’t believe.” She paused. “So, off the record, what do you think the odds are that these two reports”-here she indicated the article she’d just read-“had nothing whatsoever to do with Como’s death?”
Elliot leaned back and scratched at his beard. “Fifty to one. Maybe a hundred to one. I’d be stunned if they didn’t.”
“I would be too. The timing’s just too perfect. So the question is, why exactly would someone want to kill him over this?”
Elliot broke a smile. “You going for the reward?”
“Not specifically, although if we came up with something really good right here and now, I’d be happy to share with you.”
“Okay. Deal.” Elliot stretched out a hand and they shook. “Now give me a second.” Sitting in his wheelchair, he closed his eyes, head back. “Theory number one takes a bit of a stretch to start out, but ends strong.”
“Let’s hear the stretch part.”
“All right. We assume that Como either didn’t know about or wasn’t hands-on responsible for any of the stuff from tomorrow’s column.” He held up a hand. “I said it was a stretch. But let’s assume…”
Roake made a face. “Okay, but only for the sake of argument.”
“Fair enough. Como is a bona fide saint who doesn’t know that scandal is about to blow up all over at Sunset. Somebody else, let’s call him Turner for lack of a better word, has been screwing with the books and playing loose with the rules for three years or more-”