Five candidates for mayor aren’t waiting around for Ed Lee to announce he’s in the race next week. They’re calling for an investigation of Rose Pak, the Chinatown political maven who along with Chronicle columnist Willie Brown are the interim mayor’s two biggest backers. Specifically, they want to know whether Pak has violated election law in pushing Lee’s candidacy through Progress for All, the group fronting the “Run, Ed, Run” campaign. Here’s a snippet from the Chronicle’s John Cote:
On Thursday, the company that recently won a critical vote for the city's $112 million garbage-shipping contract acknowledged Pak had pressed a senior executive to provide workers to help her effort to get Lee to run for a full four-year term.
Two temporary Recology employees, at the encouragement of an unnamed company supervisor, gathered signatures urging Lee to run, while a separate petition was placed in one of the company's workrooms, which 86 employees signed, Recology officials said. Those efforts came after Pak had approached a senior executive on multiple occasions, requesting company help in urging Lee to run.
Add: Local Democratic Party Chairman Aaron Peskin tells the Chronicle “we have a campaign committee that is operating illegally in broad daylight.”
Noted: The candidates who’ve asked for a probe: Leland Yee, David Chiu, Dennis Herrera, Michela Alioto-Pier and Joanna Rees.
Image: Examiner
