Back in February, the Board of Supervisors finally approved a bid from New Mexico-based Ortega Family Enterprises to take over the vending duties at the Stow Lake boat house. As San Franciscans tend to do, some people got excited about the prospect of a modernized lakeside eatery with free WiFi. Others decried the displacement of the McClellan family operation that had been running things since the 1940s. Two months later, the Chronicle has decided the whole thing was an inside job perpetrated by connected San Francisco lobbyists. Or maybe that's just how business is done in San Francisco now.
According to the Chronicle, Ortega Family Enterprises hired Alex Tourk (we remember him, right? How could we forget.) and his consulting firm to shepherd the out of towners through the prickly process of getting their bid approved by the Board of Supervisors. That's all public knowledge - but Bruce McClellan's lawsuit against the city and the Ortega Family alleges that the process was corrupted by the influence of Tourk's firm. Emails released as part of the proceedings show Tourk's firm offered to lobby supervisors for support and organize "a diverse coalition of individuals" to make public comments at the various hearings.
Of course, anyone who has spent an afternoon at City Hall could figure out that grassroots efforts often aren't, and the fact that Tourk's firm received at least $15,000 to sell the Ortega Family's bid for the boat house to a group of Supervisors shouldn't really come as a surprise either. In the end, the group who offered to pay the higher rent and improve the aging boat house won out. The problem isn't really whether the Ortega family paid Tourk's firm to ensure that (because that seems pretty obvious). The real question is: How OK are we with them buying in to San Francisco politics?
