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PAC’s Last Postcard: SuperGeorge Licks Phantom Crime Wave

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday November 07, 2006

The Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee outdid itself with a last-minute mailer that hit District 7 mailboxes Monday.  

On one side of the glossy oversized postcard, a George Beier head sits atop a flowing caped and tights-clad Superman body; on the other, claims of huge crime increases — 322 percent — are apparently intended to make the average District 7 resident rush to the safety of virile hero Beier. 

The postcard, funded by the elusive Chamber of Commerce PAC, fails to say where crime is up 322 percent—Iraq? Afghanistan?—or what time frame is referenced—is it 1700 to 1903?  

It’s questionable exactly who is paying for the onslaught of Chamber PAC pieces attacking Worthington. The Daily Planet has published the names of a number of big donors to the PAC, including San Rafael-based Wareham Development, which gave the PAC $10,000, Read Investments, which also contributed $10,000, Patrick Kennedy’s Panoramic Interests, which gave $5,000, Douglas Herst, former Peerless Lighting owner, who also gave $5,000 and a gaggle of others who contributed $250 to $1,000 to the effort. 

While the public knows how much money each contributor gave to the Chamber PAC, Business for Better Government, it still hasn’t learned specifically who is paying to defeat Worthington and Spring. 

For example, Miriam Ng, who chairs the Chamber PAC, and Jonathan DeYoe, who previously told the Daily Planet that he is not a member of the PAC, both signed a Nov. 2 letter written to the Daily Planet on Business for Better Government letterhead that says “100 percent of the Wareham Development donation to Business for Better Government was intended for and was subsequently used in our efforts to defeat Measure J. None of it was used, as was indicated [in a recent Daily Planet article], in the council or mayoral races.”  

No such segregation of funds is indicated on the Chamber PAC’s mandatory reports, however. The letter says nothing about how funds from other donors were used. It is therefore impossible to know to whom to attribute this mailer or other efforts to defeat Worthington and Councilmember Dona Spring. 

Repeated calls requesting clarification, to Chamber Chair Roland Peterson, PAC Chair Miriam Ng and Jonathan DeYoe, were not returned.