1. Jo Anne SawyerKnoll’s salary and that of her staff.
SawyerKnoll, whose title is deputy chief of the Mayor’s Office of Ethics and Integrity is simply a cheerleader for the Sanders’ administration desperately looking for gainful work. A story by Matt Potter in the Reader last week highlighted what many of us had known for months: that SawyerKnoll’s real job was to promote the mayor and herself and not to enhance the ethical standards of his staff.
In fact, the City Ethics Commission under the leadership of Chair Dorothy Leonard and Executive Director Stacy Fulhorst together with an able and non-partisan group of directors, has become a very effective ethics watchdog for the city. By comparison, you can read about what SawyerKnoll’s Ethics and Integrity Department says it does here. The cost to the city taxpayer for fiscal year 2007 is budgeted at $1,194,683 for a staff of seven. See the budget and staffing here. 
2. The International Sports Council.
This group of well-heeled sports boosters receive approximately $150,000 a year (actually $145,800 in fiscal year 2006) from the general fund to make merry while the Blue-Level swimming team program that offers competitive swimming experience to ordinary and underprivileged kids gets its funding in a similar amount cut off by the mayor.
Such sports programs from my personal experience teach perseverance, self esteem and discipline. Many of the sports boosters have businesses in the hospitality and sports franchise fields and not only benefit from wining and dining but from the business contacts they make. To visit the International Sports Council click here.
3. Julie Meier Wright’s salary and the rest of the money the city gives to the Regional Economic Development Corp. (EDC).
Meier Wright is the CEO of EDC and her current salary is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or so. But EDC is a private corporation run by business for business and the financial details of individual staff salaries are not made public. That would be OK if business pays its way instead of asking for a hand-out from taxpayers like me.
In 2005, EDC received $1,013,466 from the city of San Diego whereas the county of San Diego and the Port District valued the services offered by EDC at a mere $15,000. Click here for more information about EDC. It is curious that EDC is listed on the city of San Diego website as a city corporation but refuses to honor California Public Record Act requests.
Equally curious is that the city funding to the International Sports Council and EDC do not appear in the mayor’s transparent 2007 budget and are buried deep in the recesses of the financial managements systems of City Hall.