October 2003 Archives
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Matt Smith's column in this week's SFWeekly recounts some of soon-to-be Sen. Carole Migden's comments about Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Interestingly enough, Migden kinda likes The Terminator-elect. And she seems to think that Democrats in Sacramento are going to do just fine in this new era.
Migden is a hell of a political survivor, a pragmatic pol who hides behind the typical San Francisco Lefty façade. Her remarks come just a few short weeks after Attorney General Bill Lockyer, another Democrat who gets to the bottom line pretty quickly, told a crowd of policy wonks and reporters that he'd voted for Arnold.
Lockyer's admission was startling on a number of levels. More telling was his denunciation of Democratic candidate -- now invisible man -- Cruz Bustamante. Yup. Pols do know pols. And the bad ones do stick out.
But combine Lockyer's critique with Migden's comments about soon to be former Gov. Gray Davis and you've got an interesting move going on with the state's Democrats. Up at The Bee, Dan Weintraub is having a fine time chronicling how Democrats are making nice to the Terminator-elect and vice versa. In Sacramento, they recognize Schwarzenegger's election for what it is: Protest politics. That no one really like Davis, well, that's doesn't hurt.
Migden and Lockyer and the rest are doing what smart pols do, getting in front of the wave while they can, and praying that their timing is good. It remains to be seen how high and how far it will take them. But this new spirit of -- can we call it decency? After all they're giving the guy a chance -- feels a little different.
Fri 10:46 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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A few days ago, Assemblyman Leland Yee was quoted as saying that he counts himself lucky to be in Sacramento because San Francisco politics has gotten so nasty. Man. He wasn't kidding.
Today's Ex is just loaded with dish so click on over. Take a spoon. It's juicy.
The stand-out -- and this is saying something -- is Angela Alioto grabbing headlines -- in print and on the web -- with yet another temper tantrum. Alioto's been taking shots at front-runner Gavin Newsom all summer in what looks like an attempt to trigger some kind of class resentment of Newsom's business community and wealthy neighborhood support. She even took a shot at his recently deceased mother. Now, Alioto's mad at The Chron's John Diaz for endorsing Newsom.
It's weird to see a candidate, particularly one with the kind of experience Alioto has, fall apart like this, so publicly. A smart, tough cookie, a woman who should be admired in a number of ways, Alioto is from one of the city's better regarded political families. And she should be as proud as she is of that family's accomplishments and contributions to San Francisco.
But that's not enough to guarantee her the mayor's job. The "people know me" stuff Alioto's trotting out just doesn't work; people don't know her. They don't know her family. They don't remember former Mayor Joe Alioto. Instead, they see a wealthy trial attorney engaged in some kind of bizarre grudge match with a man young enough to be her son. It doesn't help when Alioto gets going on the stump. She sounds just like Marge Simpson. More telling: Alioto doesn't know The Simpsons.
Her charges that Newsom is nothing more than the rich son of privilege are just as out of touch. In her latest flyer, Alioto says she won a $11.2 million judgment against Mary Kaye, the cosmetic firm. Well, trial lawyer aren't known for their altruism. They usually take home 30 percent of the settlements they get, meaning Alioto probably pocketed $3 million from the Mary Kaye case. She earned it. There's no doubt about that. But those seven-figure fees are more than enough to cover the expense of running for Mayor.
That's a glass house, Angela. Move out.
UPDATE:Mayoral candidate Angela Alioto told TheEx that she hasn't lost it. She's just tired. I believe it.
Continue reading "Compare and Contrast, Part Two"Fri 10:42 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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So maybe it's not Progressive's progress.
Adriel Hampton over that The Ex, slides this poll into his column today. It's from the Alioto mayoral campaign.
These numbers give Newsom 35%, Alioto, 17%, Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez, 13, with Supervisor Tom Ammiano tied with Treasurer Susan Leal at 7% each and 14% undecided.
A Newsom supporter wrote in to chastise me for 1)having inaccurate numbers and 2)taking the word of another, less well informed supporter.
He's right. I wasn't clear when I wrote yesterday that the numbers I posted were given to me by the supporter, who had been hit up for money. And he probably wasn't paying that close attention when he heard them.
Gonzalez has 18%, according to the Newsom folks. And that has held; it's not increasing. More importantly -- and this is what makes Alioto's recent poll interesting -- the total between the three Lefites is still 43%, unchanged since September. Meaning Newsom isn't loosing any ground. "All that is happened is the rearranging of the deck," the Newsom supporter writes. "No new votes have broken to the three of them."
And, he warns, Gonzalez should be careful what he wishes for. Again.
"Matt is the easiest one to beat," the Newsom guys says, adding that polls have shown that Gonzalez has high negatives among voters. "He is the most intelligent, best debater, and is presently the least defined negatively. But he is the easiest to beat."
That jives with what Hampton is saying, again citing an Alioto pol, showing Gonzalez and Ammiano losing badly in a runoff against Newsom. Alioto gets 40 percent to his 48 percent, with 12 percent undecided.
Can't wait 'till Wednesday. You?
Thu 10:26 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Well, it looks as though Matt Gonzalez was right.
He is, indeed, the mayoral candidate of the Left. A poll done over the past week or so shows Gonzalez winning the Lefty Primary coming in second to Newsom with 19% of those polled, beating Tom Ammiano (about 14%) by a hefty 5 point margin. Angela Alioto is third with around 11% of those polled followed by Susan Leal (6%) and Tony Ribera (2%). The Chron has different numbers but the same result: Gonzalez has picked up votes in the past few days.
SFGate's left-of-center on-line readership seems to agree. What interesting -- or, if you're a Newsom supporter, worrisome -- is that Gonzalez has leapt ahead of his entrenched competitors in a very short time. Remember, he entered the race at the last minute.
"That's about the worst news for the Newsom campaign,'' said one long-time Newsom supporter who was told of the poll results when he got a call asking for a donation.
What's the attraction? After all, isn't Supervisor Chris Daly's guerrilla PUC appointment a good example of how machine-like the anti-machine Left has gotten? And isn't Gonzalez the leader of that little cabal? He is and it is. But voters aren't seeing it that way, says the Newsom supporter. In part, because no one on the board -- save Supervisor Tony Hall -- is kicking up a fuss about Daly's tactics.
So the lefties are getting a free pass from their more conservative colleagues. On top of that, Gonzalez, the Green Party candidate and president of the Board of Supes, does well in the debates. And he's not tarred with the socialite/insider/downtown business community connection that haunts Newsom. "People are sick of cronyism in City Hall," the Newsom supporter said. That translates into support for Gonzalez who has set himself, at least rhetorically, apart from the city's mainstream politics.
"The press is saying he's uncorruptible,'' the Newsom supporter said of Gonzalez. "They're not saying he's the son of a some millionaire…"
Wed 09:18 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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In the past month, two lovely people, friends to me and many of you reader-types, passed away.
Journalist and all around good guy, Matt Beer died early this month in Cambodia where he had gone to take a newspaper job. Some of his local press buddies -- Matt worked everywhere -- are gathering this evening at Buzz 9 to raise a glass in his memory. Having known Matt Beer, I can safely predict that the bar will be filled with pretty girls and drunk journalists.
Wendy Marx, wife to entrepreneur and sometimes local politico E. David Ellington died yesterday at Stanford University Hospital.
Wendy was, simply, a lovely woman who had the bad fortune to spend much of her life coping with a terrible disease that destroyed her liver. If knowing her and knowing that she's gone doesn't inspire you to be an organ donor, it should. And I'm sure she'd use this an occasion to remind me to type these very words.
UPDATE: At Matt's wake, Salon writer Katherine Mieskowski, who he once described as beautiful (so, of course, she shows) says I should post the email I got from him just before he died. Here it is:
Continue reading "Obits for the Young"Wed 09:12 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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It's never safe to judge someone by what you can find out about them on the 'net but Adam Werbach, Chris Daly's recent guerrilla appointment to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, seems to have a lot more political sense than his mentor.
Werbach managed to maneuver through some tricky politics as president of the Sierra Club, getting the group through a touchy vote on immigration policy without burning his fingers. It was nice work for a 20-something. And it wasn't easy.
That's why he should decline to accept the post to which Daly's appointed him. Werbach clearly knows the importance that timing plays in politics.
San Francisco Supervisor Tony Hall accurately sums up his -- and other not so conservative -- reaction to Daly's guerrilla tactics.
"From this point, I will not look at their qualifications. I'm looking at their integrity for accepting under these conditions," Hall said [in an interview with TheEx]. "I'm going to fight it on the grounds of one little supervisor getting his way over everybody else. That's what he's doing. He talks about the downtrodden, poor and homeless, and he steps on everybody else. That's a joke."
Too bad no one's laughing.
Mon 03:54 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The last word on the Quattrone trial goes to Randy Smith and his bulldog Ed over at the Wall Street Journal who gets Juror No. 6, Stuart Siegel to talk and talk and talk. Those engineers -- this guy works for IBM -- once you get 'em going, they're hard to stop.
The WSJ edit board, as expected, says that Quattrone's jury did the right thing. And the NYPost's Chris Byron weighs in with his own dose of ridicule.
Mon 03:48 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There is no way anyone who has sat in the courtroom with him over the past four weeks can’t feel a mixture of both admiration and sympathy for Frank Quattrone.
Sitting and hearing testimony had to have been bad enough. But these past two weeks of waiting around for a verdict have to have been some kind of hell that not even the steady concern and faith of his closest friends Bill Brady and George Boutros sitting in the courtroom almost every day could dispel. Quattrone has artic sangfroid – the French for ‘cold blood’ – and it is a wonder to watch. I have always thought he was smart, cool and graceful under pressure. I had no idea.
So it’s not fun to say – for anyone – that there will be a second trial. Quattrone has not won a clear victory. And he has two more fights on his hands in addition to his second criminal trial: Eliot Spitzer’s on the warpath. And the NASD will have a hearing on its charges against Quattrone by the end of the year.
Quattrone’s jury couldn’t decide whether he was guilty or not. They started out voting six to five to acquit. They ended up at 8 to 3 to convict. Oh, and by the way, while the word ‘innocent’ is used by defense attorneys a great deal, it has no place in the law.
The government didn’t make its case one juror told a gaggle of reporters. Actually it was a polite but large – and growing by the minute -- pack of cameras, tape recorders, notebooks and microphone all squeezed around a heavy-set guy named Mayo who was nice enough to stop and answer the same bazillion questions over and over again. You got the feeling that he was indeed, a nice man. And nice guys, well, there aren’t a lot of them in investment banking.
The Quattrone non-verdict verdict is the perfect ambiguous pause in the story of a man who is seen as both a genius and a criminal, a man without whom there would be no Netscape, no Cisco, no Tivo, no Amazon, no MP3. But who also unleashed Fogdog, Razorfish, Phone.com and Autoweb (yup – that little deal that became a huge pain was a CSFB offering). The jury couldn’t decide if Quattrone was a saint or a sinner. They’re not the only ones.
One thing for sure, with his grudging concession that, on occasion he was involved, consulted and knew about IPO allocations, Quattrone’s reputation and hat of his spin doctors has taken a serious hit. More importantly, this trial has shown the outlines of the money machine he created. Finally people outside the valley are getting a closer look. And they’re beginning to understand just how finely tuned this creation was.
The New York Times’ Floyd Norris finally – and I do mean finally – catches on to some of what Quattrone did, repeating for New Yorker what most of Silicon Valley knows about Quattrone. And that doesn’t bode well for Quattrone’s next trial. Or the looming fights with the New York Attorney General or the NASD. The more they know, the smarter they’ll get. The game may be changing.
Norris’ column is a day late and well, more than a dollar short. If you’ve been reading this ‘blog, or this writer, there’s precious little that’s new there. But what appears in the New York Times set the agenda for the way the country’s most influential people think. And with the Norris piece, more people will be thinking about Silicon Valley as a “money machine.” That gap between the East and West coast just got a little narrower.
That’s why Friday's FT’s story on Google – that it expects to hold a “Dutch” auction IPO with share price set by true demand, not some gigged up estimate by a bunch of guys in French cuff shirts all clamoring to take their seven percent off the table – is an important sign.
The guys behind Google – some of the same crowd that brought you Netscape – can read the political winds. And they’re blowing strong.
Sat 11:52 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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There was a time, a time not long ago when young men, convinced their way of doing things and seeing the world was the only one that mattered, that counted, that meant anything here in San Francisco.
Those people – those dot.com people – were blamed for everything that was wrong with a changing San Francisco. They were blamed for mall-like chain stores. They were blamed for sky-rocketing rents. They were blamed for changing this beautiful once-tolerent city into a money-mad hell hole.
They were blamed for change.
Today, a group of young men – they are still mostly young men – convinced their way of doing things and seeing the world is the only one that matters, that counts, that means anything are back. And they are once again in love with their own power.
But this time, they’re not dot.com people. They’re political people. But boy it’s hard to tell the difference, isn’t it?
These so-called Progressives are trying to roll San Francisco back to being a city that – if the truth be told – never really existed. These political people, born and educated in the East, too young to remember the city's Summer of Love, far too young to remember its proud Liberal union-based past, want to create change but they want to call it somethinge else.
They are as fervent in their belief in their own righteousness as the people they once denounced and cursed. To hold their ground these Progressives have taked advantage of a ceremonial act of good will to make political appointments that favor their cause. And, it seems, they’re going to get away with it.
But the bad will that’s been created – the bad will that comes on top of Green candidate Matt Gonzalez’s cheap and petty jibes at Supervisor Tom Ammiaino, the bad will that comes on top of the Green Party’s constant complaining about School Supervisor Arlene Ackerman – is getting more bitter by the minute. You can cheer their intentions but their tactics –no different from the stock price inflations, the insider dealing, the self-congratulation that made the tech bubble so unbearable -- are not in keeping with a city that wants to run with some semblance of order and integrity.
The dot.com crowd was undone by its own hubris. If anyone should understand this lesson, it’s the Left. But they don’t. Which makes you think they’re not really Liberals, they’re not really Progressive. They’re just out for themselves. And that means they’re not out for anyone else. Not now. Not in the future. Not in the past.
Fri 04:58 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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On Monday, bright and reasonably early, the Quattrone jury returned to delibate.
One guy was missing. The wife of juror No. 6 -- no names until this thing is over -- had gone into labor. So court was cancelled for two days.
That doesn't mean there was a break in the action, however. The word "mistrial" practically lept out of Quattrone attorney John Keker's mouth.
Try as he might -- and Keker argued hard -- Judge Richard Owen is not a man who caves easily. No mistrial. He told the jury they'd take a few days off and, if all was well with the juror's wife, they'd return Wednesday. He's kept that stance through two days, on and off, of hard-fought arguments with the lawyers.
Most of the legal wrangling took place behind closed doors. So, to find out what was going on, we had to order transcripts. Which we did. So we all have the same quotes down to the punctuation.
Before all that hard cutting and pasting -- woops, I mean reporting -- we had to have a new pool. The last ones, calling for Friday verdicts and no babies were clearly out of date. The new pool asks for outcome (acquital, conviction or mistrial), a time and, naturally, the sex of Baby Juror No. 6. At least one person suggested the baby be called Boutros.
So far, I'm one and nil, having gotten the sex correctly. Henry Lee joined us sometime in the past 48 hours. The trial resumes tomorow and, never fear, The Post plans a birth announcement.
There's lots of funny stuff in these transcripts. There always is when a bunch of men stand around and talk about pregnancy. The judge -- who is 81 and tough as nails -- was very sweet and funny. When the judge's kids were born, he told the juror, he and his wife had to find a special hospital that would let him be with her during her labor. "I don't have much of a choice," the juror told the judge, sounding just like a first-time dad.
There's media criticism, too. Keker complained to the judge tat my Sunday piece was "truly nasty." I got to read about that in the New York Times and the transcript.
Man, this is living.
Tue 05:19 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Republican candidate and former San Francisco Police Chief TONY RIBERA has made a name for himself on the campaign trail by speaking his mind, with humor and, in most cases, kindness. As a Republican, running in a predominantly Democratic town, he’s not expected to attract that many votes. A popular figures as chief, however, Ribera will get some recognition and in an eight-way race. That gives him more clout that you might expect by just reading the numbers.
A fan of mass transit, a cop who jokes about his days on the beat in the Haight during the “Summer of Love,” Ribera isn’t the most conservative candidate running. But he’s among the toughest, in words and deeds, as he demonstrates in the following interview. He knows the city and he knows City Hall. Ribera was interviewed in his office at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches criminal justice, on September 23, 2003.
What's this mayor's race about?
I think this mayor's race is about eight years of terrible mismanagement in San Francisco. It's mismanagement that has created a budget deficit of $350 million. We've now created a new budget built on smoke and mirror where we've terribly exaggerated salary savings. We've made ridiculous cuts in overtime that will never happen and we've cut virtually no programs or no positions. This budget is an absolute joke and it's a culmination of eight years of ineffectiveness. Do we want to get a grasp on managing our city where we can set goals, expect results, hold people accountable and hopefully curb the size of our city government?
Continue reading "They Might be Mayors:Tony Ribera"Tue 04:45 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The Chron has endorsed Kamala Harris for San Francisco District Attorney, about as nice a birthday present as anyone could ask for.
The paper’s edit board was positively enthusiastic: “Kamala Harris provides a chance to have the best of both visions of a district attorney's office. She is highly competent, dedicated to law enforcement and a force for innovation,” the paper wrote. “San Francisco deserves a district attorney who can bring dignity and integrity to an office long lacking it -- and who can put people behind bars who deserve it. Harris is our choice.”
Harris, whose ex-boyfriend Willie Brown, hasn’t exactly made her public life easier, has been doing very well in the polls – despite the debate over her violating campaign spending caps and subsequent fine by the city’s ethics commission.
A recent business community poll – one that showed 34 percent of those contacted were undecided – gave Harris 17 percent of the vote, double the 8 percent she attracted over the summer.
That same poll shows that current D.A. Terrance Hallinan is in serious trouble, garnering only 23 percent of those polled, a standing that’s only going to be further eroded by the Chron endorsement. Bill Fazio, a former assistant D.A., running on a tough-crime platform came in first in the poll, picking up 26 percent of the vote.
Mon 01:30 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Why has a nice man like San Francisco mayoral candidate Tom Ammiano turned in to Green Party mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez’s favorite punching bag?
First, Gonzalez, who is also president of the city board of supervisors, entered the race, splitting the left by giving people a fourth candidate (that’s counting city Treasurer Susan Leal). Then, Gonzalez either tried (or spread rumors he was trying) to get Ammiano to take the schools superintendent’s job. That tactic, had it succeeded, would have taken Ammiano out of the race and, by the way, would have knocked the city’s highest ranking black female out of a job. Now that’s a nice way to rack up the “progressive” credentials, huh?
But this last hit is a low blow. And it looks like it’s backfiring.
The cause? A four-page mailer asking “Who should be our next mayor? The millionaire candidate? Politicians Who Have Had Their Chance?” The first question is a reference to the race’s front-runner Gavin Newsom. The second to Ammiano.
And in case you don’t get it, there’s a comparison chart – Gonzalez, Ammiano and Newsom – inside.
This political subtlety – anyone got a sledgehammer? – has outraged some of the city’s leading Lefties, among them, Robert Haaland, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. “ I am struck by the smallness of his mailer and the smallness of his actions,” Haaland wrote in a widely circulated email late last week. “If this is what being a progressive means in the near future, let me be the first to tear up my progressive membership card.” (Haaland’s essay defining what it means to be a progressive – in our out San Francisco – is so worth reading that it’s printed below).
Naturally, Ammiano supporters are furious at Gonazalez, according to a political op working in a citywide campaign. “They really feel betrayed, worse than Angela getting the Guardian, worse than when Matt got in the race,” he said. “We haven't seen the last chapter of all this...there may soon be an ‘Anybody but Newsom or Gonzales’ philosophy.”
That's good for Ammiano. It's good for Alioto and it's good for Leal. But it's bad, very bad, for Gonzalez now, and in the future as he tries to run the Board of Supervisors.
And you thought Total Recall was a rock’em’sock’em roller coaster ride.
Sat 08:44 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The Quattrone jury went home for the weekend Friday evening and there was, of course, a lot of speculation about what it all meant. Conditioned for the Law and Order timing, we all want a dramatic ending within a certain reasonable period of time.
But all this means is that a tough case. And that Frank has good lawyers.
There’s a note from the jury describing their dilemma. The AP is saying – it’s Friday evening – that at least two jurors, one on each side, are stubborn in their refusal to change the opinions. That’s from the conversation the judge had with the lawyers in chambers but he’s sealed the exact contents so it’sl secret. The WSJ, which has been buying transcripts since Quattrone took the stand, will have all the gory details on Monday. (In-house press joke: God is a Wall Street Journal subscriber – they have no Saturday paper. Response of Journal reporters: Big grin and a shrug, as if to say, of course).
This, of course, is good news for Quattrone. It means his lawyers have been able to successfully plant the “reasonable doubt” seed without which we’d have a conviction. His family and the dickheads, which now include Ted Smith and Ethan Topper, were happy.
So, right now, it looks like we’re headed to an ambiguous ending to this whole mess.
It’s be almost perfect, really. What did Frank intend to do? And when did he intend to do it?
And when it comes to stuff like the “friend of Frank” accounts, the allocations to favored clients like Michael Dell, the “allocation madness,” that was talked about on all the mail back and forth between Quattrone, his bankers and his clients, there are heated opinions on both sides. Spinning wasn’t illegal when Quattrone or anyone else did it. And that’s not the charge.
Even people who want to lock Quattrone up and throw away the key – no names, please – will tell you that, in many respects, he’s on trial for the wrong thing. It happens, of course. But if the U.S. government is going to do anything about the little games that investment bankers play and they really want to clean up this whole mess, they should do a detailed investigation of the entire allocation process. You can argue they were headed in that direction in December 2000. But – for a lot of reasons, among them the World Trade Center bombings (I walk by the hole to the courthouse) that didn’t happen.
It wouldn’t be an easy case. It’d be long. And expensive. And complicated. And if you think a jury has a hard time with obstruction of justice, think about trying to explain the ins and outs of floats, allocations, “friends and family,” institutional investors, etc.
Not to mention that, by now, everyone in the valley hates them so much they’d never talk.
So, we’re into week four. Earlier in the day, I had been thinking it was a bad idea for John Keker to dis Derek Jeter. Jeter led the Yankee rally last night. But maybe there are some Red Sox fans on the jury.
Fri 09:07 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Frank Quattrone has a good lawyer. And, fortunately, for him, a thoughtful jury. They’ve paid attention.
They’re deciding what to do today. In the very complicate game of telephone that involves U.S. Marshals, judges and handwritten notes being passed back and forth, the jury has given up one hint about where they’re headed.
They have picked up on the difference between obstruction of justice and witness tampering, asking the judge to describe the differences to them. This is important because the tampering charge is not as difficult to prove as obstruction. The government’s demonstration doesn’t have to be as thorough.
It’s hard to say who’s going to win this. I’ve entered the pool – don’t be shocked pack journalism always has a pool, there’s no real prize, just bragging rights – saying Quattrone will be convicted just after lunch today. But I’m clearly not reliable. I know the case far too well.
And I’m not sure the evidence proves – beyond a reasonable doubt – what I suspect happened. I don’t think Frank forgot about the NASD or the SEC investigations. I think he, like many in Silicon Valley, brushed them off. And I don’t think he made a mistake when asked if he knew about the grand jury – and his need to seek legal counsel – when he endorsed Char’s mail. This is a guy with legendary attention to detail.
As he has throughout his career, Frank coolly and deliberately took advantage of what was going on around him, first endorsing Char’s mail in a way that’s not terribly suggestive, as it came across his screen. That message sat on his machine for at least 24 hours. It was deliberately considered.
Later, when he was asked about the exchange, by the NASD, Quattrone took advantage of CSFB’s in-house lawyer, Adrian Dollard. Reminded of the Char mail and his endorsement, Quattrone had had Dollard search CSFB’s email records to see what turned up. None of general counsel David Brodsky’s notes showed up in that search. It’s unlikely that they would since Dollard worked for Quattrone and for Brodsky and the two senior executives at enjoyed a privileged relationship, that of lawyer and client. Lacking anything to show that he knew what was going on with the grand jury, Quattrone, with Dollard’s help, rearranged his memory. That’s why he told Gary Lynch that he didn’t know about the grand jury when he sent the “clean up” memo.
It’s not one mistake. It’s not one false move. It’s a series of feints and drifts – the quick response, the brilliant come-back, the stuff that makes great bankers and Frank Quattrone was -- and maybe once again -- a great banker.
Thu 09:46 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Now that Total Recall is available on video, the San Francisco’s mayor’s race can begin.
So, naturally, this being a nation, not to mention a city of TV sets, there was a televised candidates’ debate on KPIX to get things started.
There wasn’t a clear winner which is about what you’d expected in a field with this many candidates grouped so closely to the left. But it also sounds that the moderator got all eight candidates to actually talk about what they’re doing and what they want to do.
Angela Alioto, however, has won big, very big, with the Bay Guardian’s endorsement. The Guardian isn’t the beacon of progressive, activist journalism it once was, sadly. But it’s still very influential and picking Alioto for her ability to beat front-runner Gavin Newsom is savvy Lefty politics (for once).
The Guardian’s endorsement also focuses the race. More than ever before this is a contest of class and culture, a collision that started as soon as the first New Yorker arrived in San Francisco, went to work at a dot.com and decided to stick around despite the stock market crash.
Alioto v. Newsom will be an election that pits a city of older, more blue collar, less urbane San Franciscans against new arrivals who are wealthier, less familiar with the city’s hard-core union past and more accepting of change. The lines will get clearer as we get closer to polling day but if you’d like a refresher, take a look at the interviews Alioto and Newsom gave late last month. They represent two different cities that just happen to be in the same place.
A bit of self promotion: “They Might be Mayors,” the series of one-on-one interviews with candidates, continues to day with Jim Reid (see below). You can catch up on the series – which ends Tuesday with Tony Ribera -- by searching the candidates’ names or, a little more conveniently, the term “SF Mayor’s Race” in the box on the right.
Thu 09:18 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Housing and Homeless advocate JIM REID is probably the only truly single issue candiate in this year's mayoral contest. With nothing more than a sense of protest politics and an unsual dedication, he's pushed himself into debates and mayoral forums demanding time for himself and, by extension, his issue, at ever opportunity.
Reid's candidacy, like Libertarian Michael Denny's, has no real chance of succeeding. But in a seven-man race -- the city's Lefty Primary -- his dedication is enough to pull votes from others candidates. That strengthens Newsom's chances, of course. But also pretty much guarantees a run-off in December.
Reid, a former contractor and home builder, has built a small structure -- about 100 square feet including laundry facilities and a full bath -- that he says proves how easy it is to house San Francisco's homeless. He was interviewed on the steps of the house, which he calls Shelter One, in Bernal Heights at Montcalm and Franconia streets on Sept. 19, 2003.
What is this election about, what is the election about for you as a mayoral candidate?
It's about solving the housing problem.
Is that all it's about?
Well, homelessness is about housing and I’m the only candidate who understands housing and how easy it is to build it. The mayor of San Francisco could solve the homeless problem. The mayor of San Francisco could develop a model sort of like the AIDS model of the 1980's that the nation would replicate. We need to do that. This is why I'm running for mayor. I can't afford housing in this city. I can't afford $1.2 million. I can afford to live in this [Shelter One] but it’s not legal to build them. This is why I'm running.
Continue reading "They Might Be Mayors: Jim Reid"Thu 09:09 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Frank Quattrone has certainly had better birthdays.
He turned 48 yesterday and spent the morning being questioned by lawyers and the afternoon listening to the U.S. Attorney damn him with high praise. There are more fun ways to spend your time.
The WSJ has the uptight run-down and, even more helpful, transcripts of the actual proceedings. We at The Post ran Frank's "if today's your birthday" horoscope. See, full service journalism.
For the first time, someone in the courthouse described the Frank Quattrone that Silicon Valley knows: A smart, agile banker who knew what he was doing. Who was in charge and in control. Unfortunately for Quattrone, that description came from AUSA Dave Anders – named correctly here and in the paper, for once – and not from his own attorney.
Keker’s doing a fine job. How fine, we’ll know later today, perhaps tomorrow when the jury brings back its verdict.
Wed 08:38 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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In fine ‘blogging tradition, I got ‘blogged by my favorite East Coast foil, the always fabulous Elizabeth Spiers who heroically claims greed – specifically banker greed – as an East Coast invention.
She’s right in the sense that it was bankers, not geeks, who realized the millionaire-making potential inherent in the tech business. And, for the most part, that happened just about the time that all those MBA (more specifically all those Harvard MBAs) started showing up in venture capital firms.
It was Frank Quattrone’s particular genius to introduce geeks to large piles of cash at the same time that he stoked their ‘us against the world’ thinking. The cash helps him retain the loyalty of those he’s helped the most. Just take a look at what Cypress Semi’s T.J. Rodgers had to say at the beginning of the summer.
Rodger is a free market nut. But his thinking isn’t totally flawed. Financial markets, and the people who run them, are regulated because the business of making money makes people greedy. It makes them loose control of their good sense.
Many people in Silicon Valley – particularly the “friends of Frank” who have gotten to see their names in the paper – think they’re getting a raw deal. They have good reason to think so. If the SEC had taken a true interest in what was going on in the valley, they would have flat-out banned spinning bank in 1997 when they first noticed it. That’s Arthur Levitt’s SEC, not some pro-business Republicans.
If the U.S. Attorney’s office was serious about investigating how the markets were working in this new more open, Internet-driven trading era, they should have done what NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer did: Get on a plane and go out there and talk to people. But in 2000 they were too busy thinking about hedge funds, not about private banking and IPO allocations. So they stayed in New York and missed the larger picture.
Quattrone’s trial is the interest-due on all this stuff. And, regardless of what happens in the next day or so here in federal court, his troubles are not over. If he’s acquitted, courthouse wisdom says Spitzer will file his own, criminal charges here in New York. If Quattrone is convicted, he still has the NASD to worry about. And Spitzer. And all the private lawsuits.
Wed 08:31 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The front-runner in almost every poll taken for the mayor's race, San Francisco Supervisor GAVIN NEWSOM, has been helped by his friendships with two powerful and influential men. In politics, he has enjoyed the protection of Mayor Willie Brown. In business -- Newsom owns restaurants and nightclubs -- he has been helped by his family friendship with billionaire Gordon Getty.
Appointed to the boad in 1996 and re-elected three times since, Newsom's campaign is aimed at city residents just like him: Young, business-minded city dweller who want to see changes made in the city's politics as usual.
Newsom first captured their attention last year with the controversial "Care Not Cash" proposal to reduce cash payments to the city's homeless and this year's race has built on that ballot-box success. Newsom's mayoral campaign enjoys support not just from the city's political establishment -- he's been endorsed by Brown -- but also from the business community. Newsom was interviewed on at his campaign headquarters on Van Ness Street, Sept. 18.2003
What's this race about? For you, for what is this race for mayor about?
It's about the future of San Francisco. It's about uniting San Franciscans around real solutions to our real problems. It's about getting this city moving again. It's about creating jobs, creating opportunities for people. It's about cleaning the streets, giving people the hope and expectation this city can turn around its homeless policies, its failed aggressive panhandling policies. It's about creating housing opportunities for the middle class, the forgotten middle class who have been left out of the equation. It's about working families. It's about restoring a sense of pride, spirit and confidence in the of San Francisco.
Continue reading "They Might Be Mayors: Gavin Newsom"Mon 12:02 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The first page of this week's New York Mag's Intelligencer column cares this quote from Tom Wolfe, who used to be a smart guy.
"It's fascinating to see that not a single scandal has erupted in Silicon Valley. It was all right to have a corporate plane there, but you had to fly it yourself. Greed was not in style -- but it sure was here."
Huh?
If having a pilot's license was a requirement for plane ownership, the San Jose Jet Center -- once so crowded they were talking about housing the millionaires' birds in Stockton -- would be empty. The plane is the ultimate status symbol. How else can you commute between your homes in Sun Valley, Kauai and Atherton?
Silicon Valley was and is about money, getting it hiding the fact that you're richer than God behind a bland suburban exterior. New York is about getting money and spending it to prove you're God and are therefore qualified to run the universe. Greed is in style in Silicon Valley. Consumption -- New York style consumption -- is not.
There haven't been any scandals because, well, because no one wants or wanted to look for them. Until Friday. What's been described in U.S. District Courtroom 1106 this week is pretty scandalous. There's a whole country between New York and California and sometimes, well, sometimes it takes more than 5 hours to cross it.
New Yorkers think Quattrone is a Wall Street guy because he worked for a Wall Street firm. They think he showed Silicon Valley how to be greedy because, well New Yorkers think they invented everything.
But that's not true. As I and many other have reported, again and again since 2001, Quattrone almost single-handedly built a money-making machine that enriched a small group of people using money generated by the public's insatiable thrist for tech issues.
Quattrone encouraged that thirst by keeping stock offerings small so their prices would double or triple. Shareholders -- the executives of the companies -- would become millionaires (so they could go buy planes). He also used -- as U.S. Attorney Steve Peikin demonstrated with a ruthless effeciency Friday -- his ability to make IPO stock offerings as a way to build his business -- not his bank's, his -- in Silicon Valley.
There is something very strange about sitting and listening to someone tell you that everything you've ever suspected is in fact true. Because your suspicion grows: is it even worse?
The Wall Street Journal will spend a lot of time on Monday on the email messages that Quattrone exchanged with Micheael Dell. Quattrone wasn't subtle. He roped Dell into appearing at CSFB's tech conference by offering him shares of Corvis, an optics company (remember that bubble within a bubble?) on the day it went public. And he solicited Dell's thought on a personal computer industry analyst.
"NFW" Dell wrote bank. No fucking way.
That's not all. There's another email in which Foundation Capital was asking for Corvis allocations, too. The shares, the message says, will go into the partners' individual accounts, not to the venture firm's general fund. Spinning. And I'm not talking public relations.
Oh yeah, and most of these messages were written by Andy Fisher, the guy who CSFB used to swear had nothing to do with investment banking but just happened to have an office in Palo Alto. The rest of the messages come from Mike Grunwald -- the young banker who lived with Bill Brady and Ted Smith in Brady's huge Telegraph Hill house -- and Grunwald's boss, John Schmidt. Sound familiar? Those are the two guys, the brokers of record on the "friend of Frank" accounts who were fired from CSFB for supposedly rigging the bank's commission scheme.
Yeah. Greed. It's good. But until you spend all your cash on a Park Avenue apartment, an idiot trophy wife and her couture wardrobe, it's not a scandal.
Sat 12:02 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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As I said late yesterday (for those of us on the East Coast) Frank had a very good day.
He took the stand and in his clear altar boy tenor did what he does best: he sold. He sold his consideration. He was solicitous of a court reporter. He sold his intelligence. His explanation of investment banking and how it works was the clearest, most concise that I've ever heard and the only one that's made sense in this whole trial. I even learned a thing or too (although given my history with the stock market, that's not saying much). Quattrone sold his humor. He joked about email coming back to haunt you.
He was smart, calm and cool. In short, he was perfect. The Jesuits at St. Joe's would have been very pleased. And yes, Quattrone was very clear to make sure the jury knew it was the Jesuits, the Marine Corps. of the Catholic Church that gave him that high school scholarship. The Jesuits are a breed apart -- I know -- they're tough and they're smart and they despise bullshit when it's aimed at them. But they are also capable of creating entire cow patty pastures in no more than single sentence. That may or may not work as Quattrone gets cross-examined.
The jury loved it for the first hour. After lunch they weren't as enamored -- after all by then they'd heard the guy and seen him -- but they're following along.
Court broke yesterday as Quattrone was explaining his emails for the hour in which he got and responded to Richard Char's "clean up those files" memo. It was the usual flow that anyone who conducts conversations via mail (or IM) is accustom to seeing: Audrey MacLean wrote and warned him of a computer virus, Ken Hausman wanted to know about a property in Monterey. Quattrone asked Bill Brady about the transfer of an employee to the SF office. He "talked" to bankers about building better relationships with AOL's Myer Berlow. And he made a very funny joke about Divine Interventures. Did they, Quattrone asked, give ponytail clips as gifts at their closing dinner? No one explained that last one, a classic Quattrone quip, dissing the offering by suggesting -- correctly-- that it made no money for the company.
Today, the cross. We'll see how well the Jesuits taught Frank patience, calmness and understanding -- not their strong suit. But, hey, maybe Quattrone went to a Franciscan grammar school.
Fri 09:42 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Today, Thursday, was a very good day for Frank Quattrone. He began testifying on his own behalf before a standing room only audience of former employees, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office -- that was the row against the wall -- and the press.
For the first hour, the jury loved him. The dickheads were happy, congratulating Quattrone. Even Boutros was smiling.
But yesterday wasn't such a good day. CSFB banker John Hodge -- a big, blond example of what makes Stanford University the place it is -- got sliced and diced by prosecutor Dave Anders. (Note to Mr. Anders' mom: I am very sorry to have renamed your son in Thursday's Post. You don't know how upset I was to hear that you actually live in New York City).
In addition to having to be ordered -- it went past cordial reminders -- by the judge to answer Anders' questions, Hodge was probably the most uncomfortable witness of the trial, squirming in his seat, hesitating and stammering as he realized that Anders had him on one important point. There is nothing in CSFB's policies that says that bankers have to be told by lawyers what to do if they think there's a lawsuit in the works.
And there is no better picture of the differences between the way they do things in New York and they way the do things in California than the pained expression on Hodge's face as he was cross-examined. It's rough stuff on this side of the country. And, as too few people are learning a bit too late, this is the place where it really counts.
Before Hodge, Richard Char, the guy who wrote the "clean up those files" mail took the stand. He, too, found himself slowly but surely agreeing with Anders. Nope, no one had to tell him what to do when litigation loomed. Char, a soft-spoken guy to begin with, took the cross-examination in stride probably because he's a lawyer (formerly with Wilson Sonsini -- one more reason why Larry Sonsini turned down Dick Grasso's job). But the judge had to ask him to speak up at one point, his responses were so soft.
Char also painted one part of the picture that's been missing from this whole thing: What the office looked like. It was a mess. Any policies on keeping documents or tossing notes and drafts had clearly gone out the window. Files were everywhere. That's not a surprise given the sheer amount of work that CSFB did in 1998 and 1999. But, well, that's just what the prosecutors want the jury to wonder about. From such seeds convictions grow.
This is not to put a damper on what may or may not happen next week when Quattrone's jury deliberates. They may well acquit him. If they like him, they will almost certainly acquit him. But if they don't, he's done.
All in all, Keker has done a good job of painting the CSFB team as a bunch of well meaning, slightly naive guys who were more interested in deals and complying with the law and being stand-up soldiers. How much of that sticks remains to be seen.
Particularly since the government prosecutors aren't amateurs, either. Take a look at what the WSJ had to say about them. The stakes here are high, very high, on both sides. This isn't just a career-making conviction for lead assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Peikin. It's a very rare opportunity to actually cross-examine a smart, wiley, well-prepared defendant. Quattrone's up for it, for sure. But so is Peikin.
Andrew Ross Sorkin, who dresses a lot like a dickhead, what with the little silk cufflinks and the flannel suit -- pinstripes, no less -- told me to 'blog him and since I always do what the NYTimes tells me, I am happy to oblige. Ain't that right, Markoff?
UPDATE: From the be-careful-what-you-wish-for department. The bit on Sorkin got picked up, misunderstood and showed up on Elizabeth Spiers' New York mag-based 'blog Friday.
This prompted Andy's mom to call him up and ask who was calling him a dickhead. Not me! Andy's a little bit of a smarty pants but hey, kettle, I am indeed pitch black.
Thu 07:13 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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A lawyer, a Latina and a lesbian, SUSAN LEAL was born and raised in San Francisco, the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She served on the board of supervisors for four years beginning in 1993 where she headed the board's finance committee and helped draft and enact the city's domestic partnership laws.
Leal is running a moderate-lefty campaign working to appeal to the city's business community by stressing her financial acumen and business experience in concert with her years in political office. Leal's had some success in that arena; her backers include financier Warren Hellman.
She is finishing her second and last term as treasurer and was interviewed one morning on her way to the office after a breakfast campaign appearance.
What is this race about in your mind as a mayoral candidate?
It is a lot about the direction of the city and whether the city is really ready -- and I think the city is ready -- to get serious. And they'd like someone who really wants to operate as an executive. I think they want an ideology that they can at least relate to and feel that they respect, but also they're looking for someone with financial skills, they're looking for someone who can say how do we get these 20,000-plus employee going in the same direction.
Continue reading "They Might Be Mayors: Susan Leal"Thu 05:49 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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They have a saying in Washington, D.C.: Everything has been said but not everyone has said it. That’s kind of how I feel about Total Recall. Particularly since I was wrong — probably wishful thinking — about the recall tally itself. For once in this thing, there were no suprises.
The Bee’s undoubtedly exhausted but very perceptive Dan Weintraub wrote a nice bit after Davis conceded. That can be the last piece of state election news you read for a while. But that doesn't mean politics is over. It's just coming to your neighborhood.
TheEx, always local, uses Total Recall to launch into its coverage of the San Francisco mayoar’s race. Susan Leal’s spokesman gets in some shots at Plan C — calling them Republicans! — but at the same time giving them more credibility.
Matt Smith goes and spends — cough cough — quality time with mayoral hopeful Matt Gonzalez bumming around The Mission and almost getting ticketed for jaywalking, a promenade on the wild side if I ever heard of one.
Smith also taped the interview. Hmmmm. I spot a trend. It’s probably time for me and Smith to have lunch again. I’ll be sure to tape that, too.
Oh and you have to read Smith -- actually you can read almost any part of the SFWeekly save Dan Savage -- to get the full-on MG experience live and in person. He didn’t have time to talk to me before deadline so there will be no Gonzalez interview in the series that's posted here on Tuesday and Thursdays (tomorrow, Susan Leal).
Bummer, huh, dude?
Wed 09:44 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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He’s not the Terminator but San Francisco lawyer John Keker scored a few points Tuesday in his defense of Frank Quattrone.
Keker didn’t convince anyone that Quattrone was a complete patsy. The judge was unmoved, to be sure. But Keker did a good job of showing Brodsky to be, as a minimum, not terribly involved in what was going on at the bank.
Brodsky said he couldn’t remember a lot of stuff that, well, he probably should remember. He didn’t do a lot of stuff that he probably should have done.
Listening to Brodsky’s testimony, it was hard not to have the same reaction that I did when I first read of the CSFB investigation and the bank’s response. They were scrambling. Fast and hard. They were scared. So they were doing damage control where it counted, trying to slow down whatever investigations were coming at them as quickly as they could.
They weren’t in a hurry to tell employees what was going on because they knew — or guessed — that some would be found guilty. And the less the employees knew, the easier it would be for the bank.
So Brodsky holed up in meetings with his bosses looking for ways to protect the bank. He didn’t read his email. He didn’t call people as quickly as he should have because he could have given a damn about them. The bank was spinnning, spinning, spinning to the press.
It’s exactly what Quattrone’s public relations team has been doing since he left CSFB.
Every day, during breaks in testimony, after court has adjourned, Quattrone spokesman Bob Chlopak, a veteran of more than one presidential campaign with a smooth baritone and a fine poker face tells the press stuff it already knows. He diligently tries to inch on to the record Quattrone’s version of the story. He did that with this week’s Business Week account of the CSFB team’s departure from Deutsche Bank. Chlopak does a much better job of telling Quattrone’s story than Frank would do. He doesn’t loose his temper for starters. And like a good spin guru, it’s not personal. He’s one cool cat.
But he’s doing what CSFB used to do for Quattrone. So it’s a bit odd to stand in the hallway and listen to Chlopak then go back inside and listen — between the lines — as Brodsky talks about doing something similar for CSFB.
UPDATE: Wednesday after court, Keker gave Chlopak a nasty look and made the "no mas" sign as he walked by the press huddle. He walked down the marble hall toward the door and then turned the corner. But then he came back, breaking up the spin session.
Oh, and Bill Brady is in the house. He don't look happy about it either. The Gang of Dickheads has grown to about a dozen, all clean-cut nice men (and a few women) sitting in the court's church-pew benches (about as comfortable, too). They look worried.
Wed 09:36 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Right now.
It's gonna matter.
GO VOTE. I did. I'm not even there.
Tue 09:03 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Libertarian Candidate MICHAEL DENNY runs American Wine Distributors, a company he started in 1987. And he may be the only candidate who is happy -- no proud -- to be boo'd at the forums and debates where he's managed to get a seat on stage.
In a city of people who believe government has a right to engage in most aspects of its citizens' lives, Denny is clearly a fish out of water. As Libertarian he believes in as little government involvement as possible and counts the city's schools, its zoning and planning efforts and the county-run hospital system as examples of things that government shouldn't do.
That means he's probably not going to win this election. But the 'free markets, free minds' philosophy that Denny embraces is one that's increasingly popular among the area's tech rich. And that makes him someone worth hearing. He was interviewed in his office on Pier 23.
What's this race about for you as a mayoral candidate?
This race, for me, is about restoring the influence of the citizens and tax payers in City Hall. I don't believe that currently we have a representative City Hall. We have a City Hall that is beholden heavily to special interests who control the political direction. All the other major candidates are beholden to some aspect of the power infrastructure.
Tue 09:01 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Don't go thinking Total Recall is the source of all good political humor.
No, smarty pants Alex Clemens over at The Usual Suspects, has made a more local contribution. No doubt mourning the death of SFPolifix.com -- the email chat room that thought I was a man -- Clemens has a build-your-own political parody up at his site.
Pile on. Don't hold back. If the increasingly nasty nature of my email is any indication, we're going to need all the humor we can squeeze out of this election.
For those of you more seriously inclined, there's a new chat site, The Wall. The Malik Looper Tribute Thread, along with the email exhange between Jake McGoldrick and Plan C's Mike Sullivan are up for the uh, edification of all.
Mon 11:58 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Leave it to the SFWeekly's Matt Smith to come up with the best, and the most exhaustive, analysis of the San Francisco Mayoral race. He's too hard on everyone involved but he's right on the important stuff.
It is, in essence, he voices the complaint you hear in most part of town: Why doesn't this city have better politicians? What's the matter with San Francisco that the people who seems to care the most -- or give the most time -- to its civic life are a bunch of goof-balls? Or, if they're not goofballs, they come off looking silly or insincere because they forget the nicities: showing up on time, being considerate or even polite.
There's no easy answer. Term limits play a role, certainly. So do the cynical machinations of the Brown-Burton machine. It's dying but nothing's sprung up to take its place. That's part of the reason for all the confusion we see. District elections, which keep the Board of Supervisors tied to specific neighborhood agendas (in a city of 700,000 and shrinking, that's insane) are also a factor.
So we've got a race that, so far, features little more than petty back-biting and silly prank-oriented gamesmanship. Some mayoral debates are more like dis-fests than actual debates which makes anyone who listens to the rhetoric of the city's inclusive, progressive politics -- a rhetoric everyone seems to embrace -- ring more and more hollow.
Sat 05:31 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Could Total Recall be a total bust?
The good people of Hillsborough are an indication that it just might.
Arnold's apology dominated the New York tabs last week. I'm telling you, there's no place like home.
Sat 05:06 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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If looks could kill, New York lawyer David Brodsky would have been carried out of Frank Quattrone's courtroom on slab Friday. And George Boutros would be guilty of murder.
Boutros, perhaps Quttrone's closest friend, glared at Brodsky through his morning of testimony. It's a hard, angry stare and it's stopped hundreds of bankers, lawyers and other tough guys in their tracks. Boutros looks like he could bite the head off a Komodo dragon, he's that pissed.
Boutros, no doubt, thinks what Quattrone's cooler-headed mouthpiece Bob Chlopak said outside the courtroom: That Brodsky, former general counsel at CSFB and the bank were so worried about PR and so concerned about leaks to the Wall Street Journal that they never bothered to tell their employees what to do to protect themselves and to protect the bank.
And I'm not so sure I don't buy that argument and the assumption that underlies it. What Chlopak is implying that Quattrone wasn't sophisticated enough to put together the existence of a federal grand jury sitting in New York and the need to start minding the niceties of the bank's document policy.
While we're on the subject, let's just get down to the real meaning of this so-called 'document retention policies.' They're not meant to encourage people to keep anything. What they are, instead, are lists of what should -- at a minimum -- be around in case anyone comes looking. Or, as a banker I know put it, if it's got handwriting on it, it goes. In other words, only the official record is preserved, not what may have actually happened.
But back to Quattrone and the grand jury. I can't count the number of conversations I had in Silicon Valley throughout 2000 and early 2001 with people who assumed that the investigation wouldn't amount to very much since it was in New York. Some didn't understand that the feds have jurisdiction through our great nation. Others thought it was nothing more than a silly spat with a bunch of hedge fund guys who weren't making as much money as they wanted. So it's conceivable -- although he has to come down a peg on the sophistication meter -- that Quattrone didn't realize what he was up against.
John Keker, who is having one whale of a fight with the judge in this case -- Friday he stopped by our notebooks to use the words "ploy and cheap shot" -- will get to cross-examine Brodsky on Monday. I'll be he asks Brodsky -- exactly -- what it meant to have the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District breathing down your neck. And I'll be the answer is "I don't recall."
There are way too many lawyers in the case.
Sat 04:50 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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That CSFB posse that's surrounding George Boutros as he watches the Quattrone trial has a name.
They're now officially unoffficially known as the dickheads. After all, that's what George calls people he likes and I figure, what the hell, why not make everyone feel comfortable?
Okay, so it's too much to say they liked it. But they laughed.
Here's the story.
Dan Gillmor, who isn't a dickhead, stopped by the trial earilier in the week (Gillmor's frequent flyer accounts rival those of most investment bankers) and mused a little on his blog about what he heard on the first day of proceedings.
He should have stuck around. Today, Friday, was a barn-burner.
Fri 02:47 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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In his last campaign for mayor as a write-in candidate, San Francisco Supervisor TOM AMMIANO forced a run-off against Mayor Willie Brown.
It was an upset that surprised a number of long-time San Francisco pols and rattled the city's business community. Ammiano's current race -- in which he has support from labor, the city's gay community and many of those in the liberal coalition that almost captured the mayor's office in 1999 -- is an attempt to turn that near victory in to a solid win. Ammiano was interviewed at his campaign headquarters on Mission Street.
What's this race about for you as a mayoral candidate?
I think it's about a recognition of populist issues. I think there's been a tradition in the mayor's race in San Francisco that the mayor is someone, man or woman, who has more of a -- for lack or better word -- a downtown orientation not so much a neighborhood orientation. So I suppose you could say there's are some class issues involved.
I think there is an issue about gay/straight here. I don't think it's necessarily a pervasive or negative thing. After so many years of being in San Francisco, the gay community actually has one or two candidates for the mayor's office that are credentialed and certainly experienced enough. Some people are going to be challenged by that.
So class issues, orientation issues. But also, the momentum toward more accountability with the district elections. Is that going to be sustained? Is that going to be recognized? Should the mayor have total power of appointments, things like that, or should it be shared?
Thu 09:15 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The email overload continues as Frank Quattrone’s jury is told that he had more than 4,000 emails in his in box. They’re probably in shock.
Chances are they don’t know what we know which is that anyone with a Blackberry – a friend of mine calls it his crackberry because he can’t stop sending messages on it – doesn’t take messages off the Microsoft system. So yeah, Frank has 4,000 messages, 2,000 of which his desktop says are unread. Hmmm. Maybe he just didn’t clean the thing out.
It feels kind of cheesy to be focusing on the tech but it is the biggest difference between these two worlds. Yesterday a juror was asked about his MP3 player by the U.S. Marshals at the courthouse door. He struggled a bit. “It plays music,” he finally said. A fine, direct explanation. But his pause was telling.
In the meantime, Judge Richard Owen is giving Quattrone’s attorney John Keker a very hard time. The Journal did the uptight version of this. We at The Post prefer the direct approach. You Silicon Valley types can read both stories while imagining the judge’s ruling as it really was: Accompanied by long-time Quattrone colleague George Boutros shaking his head and making disgusted faces. Clearly he's been briefed on the ins and outs of the case. Frank has game face and except for a little twitch under his right eye, he’s keeping it up. Boutros doesn’t have to bother with those niceties – as if – since he’s managed to get out of this whole mess with his beautifully tanned skin intact.
Boutros showed up yesterday afternoon, slipping into the courtroom after lunch and, during the break, giving Quattrone a big, heartfelt back-thumping hug. Eventually, he sat with a bunch of young men who, well, they looked like bankers with their ties, Egyptian cotton shirts and their little dopey looking gym bags. It’s a contingent from CSFB and boy are they giving me dirty looks. We’ll see a sweater before this is all over. A sweater and that other long-time Quattrone pal, Bill Brady.
There was another funny moment in the trail but it was a very inside joke, even by my standards. Rob Khazami, the guy who used to run the financial fraud division in the U.S. Attorney’s office, testified about the grand jury that Quattrone is accused of blocking. He’s not a US Attorney anymore, he’s got a cush corporate gig and he dresses almost as well as Boutros does. Where’s he working? At Deutsch Bank. That’s the bank Quattrone, Brady and Boutros stormed out of in July, 1998, after denying for months that they were leaving. Trust us – remember that? – they were there to stay.
Wednesday was given over to the gears and pulleys of the case: email back-ups and what the SEC knew. Today, Thursday, we should get out from under all this email and get some witnesses to tell us what they remember.
Thu 09:12 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Frank's going to take the stand.
Tell me you're surprised. John Keker may be the lawyer but this is Frank's show.
Really, tell me you're surprised.
It'll be very interesting to see how the jury react to his testimony. Keker's doing a fine job laying the groundwork. During opening arguments yesterday, he showed a graph of Frank's email traffic for the day he got the "clean out those files email." It showed -- as it does for anyone with a blackberrry and a head office in New York -- more than 200 messages, coming in almost hourly, from just after 7 a.m. to right around 11 that night. The 'smoking' email, of course, was just one little message in this flow, late in the day. "When does he sleep?" one East Coast reporter asked. This, of course, was email traffic in December, 2000 -- as things were slowing down.
By contrast, the jurors seem like the crowd that treats email as a special kind of communication, not the casual, constant give-and-take that's so common in Silicon Valley. And, almost to a woman, they said they didn't use the Internet to get news. Think they know the differences between the Internet and AOL? Probably not.
Money's the other big difference here. Keker's trying to immunize Quattrone on this -- telling the jury that they're judging a man not a symbol -- but that's got to be his toughest job. This jury includes secretaries, a nurse, a speech pathologist, a hotel worker and a graphic designer, none of whom are raking in the millions. It's probably no exaggeration to say that combined, all 12 of the people in the jury box (and the four alternates chosen for back-up) in their lifetimes won't come near the $200 million that Frank is said to have made in 1999 and 2000.
Wed 10:04 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Former San Francisco Supervisor ANGELA ALIOTO's very name is enough to call up memories of a city led and run by one of its best-known mayors, Joe Alioto.
His only daughter, Angela Alioto, is clearly trying in her run for the office once held by her father to capture the coalition he once described as "a kind of New Deal coalition of labor and minorities, plus flag-waving Italians." She has backing from many of the city's politically powerful labor unions. Angela Alioto served on the San Francisco board of supervisors from 1988 to 1997 and was interviewed in her campaign headquarters on Howard Street.
What's this mayor's race about for you as a candidate?
The future of the city as far as the present crisis that it's in, from homelessness to affordable housing to education, which is a departmental nightmare and so is homelessness and health and housing. It is in my opinion going to get so much worse if someone doesn't really care.
Wed 09:48 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article