"Cash is Cash," said Realtor Jan Gray

Is the Harbor District considering selling property to a company with links to organized crime?

When Peter Nguyen and Kara Chau were told to vacate Pier 45 in San Francisco it was because their company Next Seafood owed $143,172.20 in back rent and $77,881.25 in attorney fees to the Port of San Francisco. The seafood wholesalers continued their business under a new company name, Global Quality Foods located in Hayward.

Harbor District realtor Jan Gray confirmed that she recived a cash offer from Global Quality Foods for a 2.5-acre property in El Granada known as the the Obispo lot next to the Post Office.  An article published in the  Half Moon Bay Review on Nov. 20, 2014 said the following:

The company indicated it could pay for the land in cash without the need for loans. The company later sent proof of funds, Jan Gray said.

“Cash is cash, and they’ve proven they have the cash,” Gray said.

Jim Tucker harbor commissioner money laundering scheme.jpg

The Harbor District has owned the land since the 1950s, when it was donated to the District by two women in memory of their fishermen husbands. News of the offer has commercial seafood business owners and commercial fishermen concerned that Harbor Commissioners might enable a money laundering scheme if an offer that included ill-gotten gains was accepted. 

It's been alleged that Dzunt (Peter) Nguyen and Kara Chau have been involved with racketeering and corruption. In 2014 the couple testified that $150,000. was paid for an ice machine in three sacks containing $50,000. each. 

Some in the fishing community are under the impression that Harbor Commissioner Jim Tucker may have a connection to Next Seafood/Global Quality Foods through one of his campaign donors.

Inquiring minds want to know if Commissioners Jim Tucker and Will Holsinger are counting on "sacks of cash" when a  deal on the Obispo lot in El Granada moves forward at their final board meeting on Dec. 3, 2014?

Robert Bernardo & Will Holsinger skip board meeting for campaign fundraisers

Harbor candidates choose campaigning over duties of office

Half Moon Bay Review - Editorial by Clay Lambert

The San Mateo County Harbor Commission scheduled a meeting on Sept. 17, but three members — all currently candidates for re-election — had other priorities. Consequently, there was no quorum. Voters learned more about candidate priorities from their absence than they ever would have from their presence at the meeting that night.

Jim Tucker was attending services for a friend who died and says he told staff he couldn’t make it. That is certainly understandable.

Instead of attending the commission meeting on the evening of Sept. 17, Robert Bernardo was at the Oyster Point Yacht Club for a gathering that was ostensibly meant to “celebrate the anniversary of the McAteer-Petris Act,” credited with stopping the fill of the San Francisco Bay. The announcement of the event praises Bernardo at least as much as any worthwhile legislation and, whatever the intent, Bernardo acknowledges that he used it to raise money for his own campaign.

When questioned later, he said he had hoped to make both the meeting and the fundraiser, and he acknowledged that attending to the fundraiser — instead of the office he hopes to win with that money — was not his finest decision.

“I was trying to do too many things,” he said.

Will Holsinger said that personal commitments “took me out of the county that day.” That’s strange because he appears in a photo taken that night and posted on Daly City Councilman Ray Buenaventura’s Twitter account. In the photo, Holsinger seems to be having a whale of a time, yucking it up at Buenaventura’s campaign kickoff event instead of attending the Harbor Commission meeting.

Will Holsinger standing next to the "Gone With The Wind" poster. 

Just down the street at the Municipal Services Building in South San Francisco, the commission was to have discussed the soon-to-be-vacant general manager’s position behind closed doors. Staff was prepared to present a special rate for visiting boaters at Oyster Point Marina. Ironically, the commission was going to discuss canceling meetings in December and January.

Forget duty, it would seem to be common courtesy for commissioners with other priorities to tell colleagues Pietro Parravano and Sabrina Brennan they needn’t make the trip from the coast to South San Francisco. Fortunately or unfortunately, you needn’t worry about the district’s contracted attorney, Steven Miller. He plans to submit an invoice for his time, compounding the waste of tax dollars that night. (Reached on Thursday, Miller declined to say how much he would bill the district.)

What are voters to make of candidates who value the money used to attain office more than the duties of the office itself? What is the message from sitting elected officials who don’t bother telling their colleagues, let alone the public, when they have other commitments on meeting nights? What are they saying when they rack up campaign dollars even as they waste yours on staff and consultants called to meetings that don’t take place?

You will decide in November.