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On Wednesday we relished reading Matier and Ross's column about a brouhaha involving the San Francisco Film Commission. Seems that while shooting days in The City are up, all is not well between the commissioners and the executive director, Stefanie Coyote -- whom loyal SFist readers will remember from her previous brouhaha with deposed Treasure Island impresario Tony Hall over the Rent production.
So Stefanie gets in a fight with former deputy director Michael Billington and replaces him with Kristin Treiber. Worried that Billington's supporters might disrupt Monday's meeting, she arrives with her husband, Peter Coyote, and Hollywood tough guy Sean "Spicoli" Penn (who we assume was not allowed to carry one of his pistols through City Hall security). Luckily, hardly anyone showed up, but apparently the discontent doesn't stop there.
H. Brown accuses Coyote of firing Billington because he blew the whistle on $1,200 Coyote charged The City for location scouting photos from her own production company six months ago. Coyote called herself "naive" for not realizing that was an obvious conflict of interest, and returned the money. But H. forwarded us an anonymous note from one "KS" who says that there are more indiscretions and that they have documentation -- which they will produce if someone writes a 'fair' story. H. thought the KS was a reference to Kaiser Soze, from The Usual Suspects. We assume the letter was originally addressed to the SF Sentinel.
So KS, how about we go ahead and publish your salacious letter in its entirety, which should be fair enough from your point of view, no? In exchange, we'd love to see these 'documents.' After the jump: unconfirmed, potentially libellous (albeit entertaining) allegations from a rather vulgar anonymous source. Our motto at SFist is "run it up a flag pole and see who salutes," after all.
San Francisco Sentinel photo by Luke Thomas.
While you were taking pictures of the squarehead commissioners fellating Sean Penn and Peter Coyote in the street, the real story was being told upstairs, though you’d have had to really make some friends to get it.Matier and Ross are breaking the story of the ethics violation on Wednesday, but they probably don't have this:
Monday morning at 11 o’clock, Stephanie Coyote walked into the City Controller’s Office and presented a personal check for $1200; to cover an official city check she wrote in April, 2005 for $1200 to Wild Dog Productions, the company she owns with her husband, Peter Coyote.
A Whistleblower turned in the errant Executive Director for ethics violation (conflict of interest, in direct violation of city charter and her own employment contract), but someone in city hall called her to warn her. She has now paid back the money, six months later and on the very day of her supposed ass-reaming by Don Canady of the S.F. Film Commission, who has been sharpening his dagger for a couple of months since Coyote just sasses him back like a horny sorority girl mouthing off to her den mother over coming home late from a (successful) date.
Point is, she stole the money from the city and now they think that paying it back is going to make it go away, claiming that it was all a “mistake.” But she knew enough to not have done it: Amy Ackerman gave them all a long tutorial in what the do’s and don’t’s of being in office are about, and her contract is quite clear on “conflict of interest.” So they shouldn’t be allowed to make it go away. The law was broken, by a narcissistic little brat who runs people over if they get in her way. Oh, and by the way: she’s a thief. Sure, she paid the money back, but that doesn’t erase the ledger on her, does it?
Will you let this story die? Batshit Executive Director fires the guy who kept her office stitched together for years, through thin times, just because he tried to help her do her job the right way instead of her way. The Mayor doesn’t care; in fact, he’ll let Billington dangle the way he let Coyote dangle.
The mayor is promising all kinds of things to the commissioners to keep them from resigning in protest. Several commissioners are calling their friends to ask whether resigning would do any good, but Gavin Newsom is smoothing their feathers as he does, with probably-empty promises. And doesn’t anyone notice that Commission VP Rory Enke resigned just two weeks ago? Gee, why did that happen? Could it have been the shit that Coyote gives everyone on the commission? Why don’t you ask?
It was sickening: Morales and MC Cullough smiling away at an honest to god “star” even though they only showed to take some of the focus from the real deal – give ‘em bread and circuses and they won’t riot.
And who is Peter Coyote anyway? Why do people kowtow to him? What was the last picture he brought to S.F.? He damn sure ain’t Peter Kaufman or Chris Columbus. He ain’t Don Johnson and he ain’t Jennette Ethridge. Why, he’s not even Sean Penn, who made The Assassination of Richard Nixon in his own backyard.
And Stephanie Coyote has a habit of these little indiscretions: using city funds for all kinds of things. We have the records, and we’ll give them to you, if you write the stories, square and level.
KS
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I use to work at Books Inc. in Laurel Village and remember Peter Coyote coming in often.
He was one of the most arrogant, obnoxious asswipes I've ever waited on, and that's saying something considering all of the Traina's, Haas's, and other minor bourgies like the Milton Marx clan and Lake Street types, et al, I waited on.
He was a "Digger"? Gold digger, more likely.
And by the way, I came to that job via Amoeba in Berkeley where I waited on and worked with some of the biggest wanks I've ever met, including present day "Cheb i Sabah", aka "Serge" the asshole from Algiers, or Morrocco..I can't remember which.
"I wanna go Red State after meeting you, bitch."
k.
Wow, that is a pretty misogynistic diatribe. I don't know that much about this episode, but seems to me the indiscretion that has been reported is pretty minor compared to other shenanigans engaged in by city employees--embezzlement, stealing parking meter money, holding women prisoner in their SUVs, beating civilians in and out of uniform... sheesh. And she paid the money back. Sounds like someone has a major axe to grind for losing their job or something... who cares.
Yes, exactly, KC. Why should anyone care if someone gets fired for blowing the whistle on a criminal act committed by their boss who only got the job for being married to a shitty c-list actor?
It's very telling that you start your comment with 'I don't know much about this' before telling us why we shouldn't care. Nothing like shouting your ignorance from the hilltops before admonishing us for giving a shit. Please keep me posted if anything rotten happens unfairly to your charmed little life so I can make sure to yawn, call you sexist and accuse you having an axe to grind...
If Mrs. Coyote is such a bad person, then why was today (Friday, Oct 28) decreed "Stefanie Pleet Coyote Day" by Mayor Newsom? It's her B-day, wish her a happy one.
ok, ok, guys, let's step back and look at this. this poor woman had to deal with that vampire tony hall for four solid months -- can any of you say you have the cojones to do that and still show up to work combed and pressed everyday?
give her a break -- she's trying to do a tough job... and my hat is off to her.
A calming down is in order. I intended this to be less about Ms. Coyote and more about the anonymous 'KS.' Coyote has presided over a bevy of new film work in The City, as evidenced by the Rent, Pursuit of Happyness, the Fincher zodiac killer flick and even the Sony BRAVIA ad.
That $1,200 check was pretty shady, and by all accounts Mike Billington was a capable, hard working and dependable person. And I was sorry to hear about any further strife on the Film Commission. But KS alleges further improprieties, and while Coyote is obviously innocent until proven guilty, my ultimate goal is for The City and the film industry to be fair, ethical and equitable (I know, fat chance).
KS's points are 100% unconfirmable without the 'documents' they purport to be able to deliver. Until they provide said documents, we'll have a limited understanding of the story and can only watch and learn.
say, for a guy who wants to be "fair & equitable," you sure have an interesting journalistic approach. jackson, you're starting to come off as a shoot-the-wounded kind of guy. like several guys i served with.
i can just picture KS, whomever he/she is, just dying to trust you now, after you publish his/her letter and then devote your whole column to just 1/16th of his/her letter.
and if you really are "sorry to hear about any further strife on the Film Commission," why would you go public with something so patently inflammatory?
i say let's just drop the he-said/she-said and at least act like adults, without linking to bloggs that defame, vilify and insult this public servant (or would that be *too* fair and equitable?).
Jackson:
I couldn’t agree more with Bill the Cat. As a journalist, I find your pretension to fairness and journalistic integrity to be ridiculous and annoying. Your job is not to create the news, nor to provide links to scurrilous rants by passive-aggressive cowardly bait-and-switch artists who haven't the guts to say such things to their victims' faces. (Peter Coyote may indeed be an ‘asshole.’ I wouldn’t know, but I’d be the first to block the door while he punched Drew’s lights out.) Out of laziness or stupidity or simple meanness, you’ve dismissed a viable story while turning it into a footnote for a sordid anecdote that feeds your own pretensions.
KS' missive doesn't sound like a 'letter to the editor' to be read by the world. It sounds like a tip from a source in the SF ‘inner circle’ who probably knows the editor he sent it to.
So, Mr Yellow Journalist, you’ve only mimicked Hearst: "Give me the pictures and I'll give you a war." Only this little teapot tempest isn't worth the effort. There are stories here, stories that a real journalist would be out covering: people ready to resign in despair, people packing their bags to look for work in another city because they see the end of an industry here, people disgusted with themselves for trusting ‘a new set of rascals.’ [And it’s true enough that Newsom did let Coyote ‘dangle’ (to use KS’ highly-descriptive term) last year in the ‘brouhaha’ (your much less descriptive and overused term); Newsom should have had the guts to end the nonsense months earlier.]
Who cares who Kaiser Soze is, anyway? The real story is in SF’s City Hall. It’s in the offices of film-makers afraid they’ll have to shutter their businesses. And it’s in the homes of workers worried that there’ll still be a lot of month at the end of the money. But you lack the journalistic guts or mentality to go get it, so you do the easy thing, the lazy thing, the thing that might be expected from a slacker, from a yellow slacker journalist: you sit at your desk and try to create a story. Bravo, Jackson. That’s why you can’t get work at the Chron, or the Examiner, or even the Independent. It’s true: water finds its own level.
To echo KS, you're no Mencken, you're no Woodward or Bernstein, Turkel or Trillin. You're not in sight of Goodman or even Matt Smith. You’re a marginal little trouble-maker. If you had any of the integrity that you pretend to, you'd remove the link to Drew's atrocious and vile attack. Then you'd get out of your comfy chair and go find the story (or any of the many stories within the story). But that's a dare you probably won't take.
Where exactly is the link to my blog that Jackson should be racing to remove, Shahad? Sure, my signature in a comment is also a link, but that's hardly Jackson's fault/responsibility. I'm not sure if I understand where all your fire comes from, but if you think sucking up to the star of Return of the Living Dead is what will suit the city's interests, then be my guest. Whatever. And if water finds its own level, enjoy sailing the seas of the comments section of this blog, Captain...
Did you pay Luke his $50 for the use of the photo?
I'm telling.
OK, Drew, I’m sorry that I said it was a link to a “scurrilous rant by passive-aggressive a cowardly bait-and-switch artist who hasn't the guts to say such things to his victims' faces.” Indeed, I was misspeaking.
What I actually did mean to say was you are a “vile, gutless, moronic and cowardly eunuch who hides his abject fear of women behind internet attacks.” Coward. You are a despicable coward, Drew, less than smegma or pond scum. I’m sucking up not to anyone, and I give a rat’s ass about Peter Coyote, but you are really beneath contempt.
In my world, journalists have a purpose, and both of you are shallow pretenders, “trickortreat” reporters. I did only read this crap because I have friends whose careers are dying out there, but you seem to make a “life” of it.
Oh Shahad... What a pity that you're seemingly too young or uneducated to realize how utterly hypocritical you seem engaging in a string of cut and pasted Ad Hominem attacks from whatever high school message board you frequent in a feeble attempt to classify me as a jerk.
Since it's fairly obvious that you're new to the world of the 'internets', perhaps you can get one of your many friends in the entertainment business to explain the difference between the New York Times and a personal bullshit blog like the one that seems to have lit such a fire under your ass. I agree with you that journalists have a purpose, but if you're going to treat every single word you ever read in your whole life as 'journalism', I'm afraid you're going to find yourself mired in all kinds of hissy fits like this in the future.
Oh, and BTW, 'less than pond scum' was a funny insult about 30 years ago. Ask your parents...