Sunday, March 18, 2012

Castro Group, Wiener Hide Name
of Person Making Threats: Why?



Earlier this month I blogged about the troubling obfuscation by the publicly-funded Castro Benefit District to divulge all of the details regarding an individual who I thought had made threats against the CBD board members at only one meeting. It was outrageous to watch the CBD adamantly refuse to name the person and give the full context of his threats.

Now, thanks to a public records request I filed with Mayor Ed Lee's staffer responsible for all benefit districts in San Francisco, I know that even with seeking help from the city, the CBD refuses to name the person posing so many threats.

Andrea Aiello, the executive director of the CBD, emailed the Mayor's office detailing numerous threats the individual has made, the many times and locations where he made threats, as shown in the printout of her email.

What continues to strike me as so odd about this matter is how Aiello conveys the deep fears of herself and her board members in her note, that the police department has taken reports about the unnamed individual, while officers have attended at least one meeting to protect the CBD members if the individual should how up again. On top of all that, Supervisor Scott Wiener has been made aware of the situation.

And yet none of these parties have contacted the media and have kept the Castro community in the dark about the threats and this apparently dangerous person, against whom Aiello wants under a restraining order.

I would think Aiello, her board, Wiener, and the Mayor's office, would collectively provide all the facts in this case to the larger Castro neighborhood beyond the CBD, and additionally contact the news media and solicit coverage. The safety and security of the Castro is not served by this obfuscation. What possible reasons could they all have for keeping this case under wraps and from public discussion?

Here's the text of Aiello's emails and Wiener's reply, and all mistakes are in the original. Unfortunately, the batch of emails released to me didn't include any messages about what happened after police reports were filed.

A certain individual showed up at our Services Committee meeting [on February 29] and was very threatening to all of us. He threatened several of the committee members and their family members and he told us all he would see us in court and we needed to get lawyers. This is a very serious matter. My board members are volunteers and they also live and work in the neighborhood. This individual has threatened them before as they were walking down the street in the middle of the day, he has threatened them as they were gardening, he has threatened their business, on and on. The only reason he has access to us is because of the California Brown Act. I don't know who or how to do this, but I want to register a formal complaint and limit him from attending all our functions and meetings. I also want to have a new neighborhood restraining order.

My board members are volunteers. They do not have to put up with someone personally threatening themselves, their livelihood and their families. It is absolutely unacceptable that the City sits back and does nothing.

Please let me know the steps I need to take to register a formal complaint with your office and the steps I need to take to ensure the safety and security of my board members. It is important to understand this harassment is not only at CBD Board meetings...it occurs in our daily lives. He can easily find where we live, in plain words, it is scary.

Supervisor Wiener received a copy of the complaint and sent this reply:

Andrea, did you make a police report?

Ailello responded:

Dennis Z. [a CBD board member] and I are going to the Mission Station tomorrow a.m. to file police reports. I am telling my other board members to do the same.

No comments: