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Voice of San Francisco
John Rothmann interviews Richard Woon, candidate for SF City Attorney
This is John Rothman and you are listening to the voice of San Francisco. Now, some of you know that we have an election coming on November 5th and I know we're all based our concerns on who's running for mayor, who's running for president, but did you know that there are other offices that are in contested situations here in San Francisco? One of them is City Attorney and Richard Woon is with me today and I'm delighted. I've never met Richard before so this is our chance to get acquainted with him. Now, Richard, you have decided to run for City Attorney of San Francisco. Why? And by the way, what does a City Attorney do? Well, John, thank you for having me. The City Attorney advises the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor and all the City Departments as to the law of San Francisco, the civil side. Are you a lawyer? I am a lawyer. Trained in the law. Trained in the law, I went to Golden Gate Law School and practiced law for about 10, 11 years and I became a real estate developer after that. Okay, now let me ask you, why are you running for City Attorney? What's the reason? I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated with this state of San Francisco. I'm frustrated with the corruption and I think that San Francisco needs someone who would be a trustee for the people. Now, there are only two of you running. You're running against the incumbent. Do you have a problem with the way he's conducted his office? I have a problem with the way the City has been running. I think it is well known. It's an open secret that there is lots of corruption. Corruption in San Francisco? You're kidding. I think we've seen a few examples of that with public works and with this Dream Keeper initiative. I think somebody needs to step up, keep an eye on the finances for the people and maybe not either look the other way or not cover up for things. Is that what the City Attorney does? If I come to you, a City Attorney of San Francisco, what am I seeking from you? What is it that you do? How can you deal with a question of corruption? Well, you as a private citizen? Just John Rothman. Oh. Well, I don't know that you as John Rothman has any standing to come to the City Attorney, but the City Attorney is supposed to make sure that all the contracting processes are proper. So for instance, we have all these drug paraphernalia distribution contracts, which I'm not so sure how these things are legal. Discreting drug paraphernalia is sort of an illegal purpose and maybe there's some loophole that they've found to get away with this, but it's the left hand frustrating the right hand. I mean, we're not supposed to be having people do drugs on the street and you can come up with whatever reason you want to justify it, but the fact of the matter is it's an illegal purpose. So would you end that program? I would take a very critical eye to that program and I think in my gut that doesn't make sense and I would probably end it, yes. All right. Now, being City Attorney, do you work with the district attorney? Do you work with the public defender? How do you work with a mayor? What is the coordination? Because you are, if you win, you will be an elected citywide official. So how do you relate to the other people in the city? Well, the City Attorney signs off on a legislation. The City Attorney works very closely with the mayor, the board of supervisors. I'm not so sure how closely they work with the DA, to be honest with you. Do you think that as City Attorney, you can make a difference in what is it that you want to do that separates you from the incumbent, David Chu, who by the way is your only opponent or your his only opponent? Well, first off, by the way, I'm not raising any money. I have loaned my campaign, $1999, which is under the threshold. I'm not taking donations from anyone. My last check was David Chu has raised $3.7 million over the life of his being a politician. That's a lot of favors and I'm going to represent the people. How do you run for office with no money? Well, it's hard, but I'm going to try it. Now when you say you have no money, are you appearing at various candidates' forums? Are you presenting yourself for endorsements by various people in San Francisco politics? How are you waging a campaign? Well, I'm trying to. I'm trying to meet and get endorsements from people. There aren't any candidate forums for a City Attorney, or at least I haven't been invited to any and I'm the other guy, but I'm trying to get my name out there and doing the best I can. So you're elected. Congratulations. You've come into the office. What's the first thing you do? Boy, well, I guess I need to look at all the, first thing, we have to conduct an extensive review and audit of all of the third party contracts that San Francisco has. Describe me. What's a third party contract? Well, like the contracts for these homeless services, for what I would call the homeless industrial complex, and the drug paraphernalia, supplying alcohol to people. I think these, these kind of- Wait a minute, wait a minute, excuse me. We as a city supply alcohol to people? I believe we do, I believe we supply alcohol to people on the street. Yes. This is fascinating. Now what else would you do first day in office? You're examining these contracts, you're examining what's happening. What's your priority? When your City Attorney? The priority for me would be to root out corruption. Now, I want to stay alive, so I would be a reasonable man, and I would try and make sure that we continue to be a business-friendly city, but we can't have just straight-up contracts that are going to nowhere for concerts and parties, for private special interest groups, which are given under the guise of some sort of public service. It's fascinating to me, you're running a completely outsider campaign. You have no money, you have no real campaign operation, you haven't received any major endorsements, and yet you're, like Don Quixote, you're going out there to try to win. When you stop and you think about running for City Attorney here in San Francisco, you have a role model, you have someone who has either had the job or somebody you would want to model yourself after in terms of city politics. I don't know, I guess if I had to role model myself after somebody, I think about like Elliot Ness. That's interesting, a lot of our listeners have no idea who Elliot Ness was, or is, or it could be. Describe what you mean by that. We got to watch the movie "The Untouchables," and Elliot Ness was the guy that rooted out corruption in Chicago. So you view then the City Attorney's office as a vehicle for rooting out corruption. I think that the City Attorney's office is supposed to make sure that everything is illegal. Everything is done legal. If we have contracts that are supposed to be for city services, but those contracts are really, they're padded and there's a grift that's going along with them, that's under the purview of the City Attorney's office, to make sure that corruption, you're making corruption a central theme of your campaign. If you win, who do you have around you? Who can help you? Do you have relationships with, as I say, other city officials? Do you have an idea for the kind of staff you want to build? I mean, I'm asking you these tough questions, because when you take office, you're going to have to jump right to it. Well, of course, I have relationships with attorneys that I've known over the years, but in terms of City Hall, I don't know anybody at City Hall. I have no connections whatsoever. You have no connections. You have no- Which means that- I'm clean. Okay. But here's what I'm trying to get a handle on, and it's fascinating, because you seem to be motivated to do the right thing, you're not taking campaign funds, you're not aligning yourself with anyone, you're going after corruption, you view the City Attorney's office as a place where you can begin that process, and that, to me, is remarkable. So when you speak to people, when you're out there talking to voters, what do the voters say to you about your candidacy? Oh, mostly they say they're going to support me. Surprisingly, people are really, really mad right now. People are upset with the state of San Francisco. Everybody knows that there's massive corruption. It's not a secret. And in terms of the City Attorney's office, most people don't know what the City Attorney does. That's why I asked you the question at the top. Yeah, most people don't know what the City Attorney does. In terms of David Jew for all the many millions that he's raised, he actually knows, most people don't know who he is, and the few that do, a lot of them don't like him. So okay, here you're a candidate. We have another six weeks before the election, six and a half weeks. What are you going to do in the next six and a half weeks to make an impression on the people of San Francisco so they know who you are? Well, I'd never heard of you. Well, I didn't know David had an opponent. All right. So how are you going to get your word out? What are you doing? Aside from appearing on the voice of San Francisco? Well, that's pretty big for me, by the way, because I've never appeared on a podcast ever in my life. I think, well, I've got a bunch of signs. I'm going to get them out there, and I'm going to do a lot of praying. Are you going to candidate's nights? Well, I don't actually, I don't even know what a candidate night is, to be very honest with you. When you're asked to appear before a neighborhood group, or a... I've done that once, or twice now, twice now. Look, I like you. You're a good guy. Yeah. I can see that. But I'm asking you because when people vote for someone, they need to know who they are. They need to understand what their platform is. They need to understand what they're doing. Now, you're running on an anti-corruption platform. You're going to go in, and I take it, really try to establish a city attorney's office that really works. And my question is, how do you let people know what you're doing in this campaign? The remaining days of the campaign, how are you going to get your message out? Well, they can go and visit my website. Oh, you have a website? I have a website. Tell us the website. That is www.takeSFback and check out my platform there. And I'm just going to keep trying to meet people and... Okay, do me a favor. You just mentioned your platform. Can you give me the top three elements of what's in your platform? Oh boy, put me on a spot. Well, corruption's a big one. I think that's really the... That's the one. That's the big problem in San Francisco, isn't it? Isn't that what we've been having problems with in terms of public works and DreamKeeper and the homeless industrial complex? I mean, I think that's where everything starts is we need a clean house. Like I said, we need somebody who is not beholden to the same people that appointed them and someone who has an eye on the people. Well, it's fascinating. I mean, you're a unique candidate. Very few people walk into an interview with me and say, "I have no money. I'm running a limited campaign. I don't appear before forums because, well, who knows why?" And yet you are having the courage to go forward in this campaign. If people want to reach you, how do they do that? Well, they can email me at info@takesfback. Wait. Slowly. Oh, info. I-N-F-O at takesfback.com. And you aren't soliciting campaign contributions. I'm not taking campaign contributions at all. I'll reserve the right to do so in the future, but at least right now, no, I don't plan to. I've got to ask you one more question. Sure. Do you really expect to win? I think I can win, absolutely. Tell me why. Well, look at the math, first off. I got a 50/50 shot just based on the math on it alone. So why not? Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to listen again. Give your website, spell it out so people know. www.takesfback.com. Richard, I've done a lot of interviews in my life. This was one of the most interesting I've got to tell you. This is John Rothman, and you might ask, "What are we doing here?" And the answer is giving citizens the opportunity to have a voice here in San Francisco. City Attorney's Office is a big job. And you've just heard from a candidate who is truly remarkable in more ways than one. I am John Rothman, and you are listening to the voice of San Francisco.