San Francisco was so damned corrupt from its very beginning as a USA State in 1850 that the ranchers, settlers in the largest part of the county demanded to be set free of its politicians. Thus, San Mateo County was born in 1856.
The corruption in SF City continued nonetheless. As per a SFgate article, “,,.One of the most lucrative operations was the sale of licenses and city franchises. The machine was said to control the bribes paid by Chinatown merchants, and fixed liquor licenses for so-called French restaurants, where the lower floors served meals and the upper floors served women.
The machine politicians were also in the vice business. One such operation was so close to city government it was called “The Municipal Whorehouse.” The Board of Supervisors, it was said, sometimes took bribes from both sides in controversial cases (note: just like the Californication legislature and Congress do today in 2020!). The sore losers complained that the crooks were so crooked they wouldn’t even stay bought. The city fathers were so crooked they would eat the gilded paint off the walls, according to Abe Ruef (political boss type and seller of City services) who ought to have known.”
In the 1970-80’s, the city required bricks for the sidewalk contract to be slightly smaller than normal sized bricks (which then cost 11 cents per, retail). The explanation, believe it or not, was that normal sized bricks would not fit the sidewalks. The special-order bricks were supplied by a “friend of city hall” at the cost of over $1 each. Needless to intuit, there was plenty of room in that sweetheart deal for lots of kickback$.
And SF is the home of such spectacularly honest politicians as Willie Brown (former State of Californication legislative leader who was famous for selling new laws) and Nancy Pelousy (lies like a rug) and Dianne Feinstein (who is reportedly hanging on in the Senate at her advanced age for the protection it offers from criminal prosecutions, and who is said to be making many more millions through her husband’s contract with the ill-fated multi-billion dollar Bullet Train to Nowhere). Go figure. San Francisco has been a moral cesspool from its beginning, and its politicians have included some of the most corrupt of all.
truly, there’s very little new under the sun in foggy San Fransicko.
A lot of SF history I’d never heard of.