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Public Defender Adachi Fired

By Neela Banerjee

San Francisco’s newly appointed public defender, Kimiko Burton, wasted no time organizing her office. In her first week, she fired her second-in-command, longtime public defender Jeff Adachi.

Adachi, who has already started organizing a serious campaign to run for Burton’s position in 2002, received a termination letter at his home on Friday while on vacation.

Earlier, Adachi had expressed concern about his job when he found out about Burton’s appointment, saying he was “not sure [he was] going to stay on. But, I am definitely going to run for office.”

His termination comes just days before his campaign kick-off event in Japantown, where former Public Defender Jeff Brown and other key supporters will speak. Needless to say, it is shaping up to be a heated election.

Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors stepped up to the bat this week on a number of issues affecting the Asian American community. Supervisors Jake McGoldrick and Leland Yee jointly called for a Board hearing looking into the recent extortion and threats made against Chinatown merchants in the Richmond district.

Police said the two Chinese restaurants may have been targets in the fire-bombings because their owners cooperated with police last year in an extortion investigation. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce is now putting up a $25,000 reward to help track down those responsible.

“Last year, there were already reports of attempts to extort money in the Richmond area,” Yee said. “But the Taraval Police Station did a good job making sure this kind of thing stopped in the Sunset. That is why it is unfortunate that it is happening again.”

Yee said he sees the extortion and the gang activity as part of a bigger problem, and that is why he sees the hearing as a start to the solution.

“The people who are involved in this are from our community and are in their late teens,” Yee said. “The gang activity has to do with them being estranged from their homes and families. Unless we target this problem, a new batch of people are going to crop up each year doing the same things.”

McGoldrick said he is aware of the issue and had heard rumor about it for years, and that gang activity like this can be stopped by the victims.

“It is above all important that the people who would like to come out and reveal that someone is trying to extort them understand that they will be protected,” McGoldrick said.

But then he admitted that this protection might be hard, “We can’t put an officer in front of every business, but by Jove, if we could, I would go for that.”

Supervisor Aaron Peskin announced the first of a series of proposals to improve the quality of life in Chinatown. Peskin proposed that he would look into improving pedestrian safety in Chinatown, and work to have policies implemented to install four-way crosswalks at every intersection.

The proposal asks for a detailed report from the Department of Parking and Traffic detailing if four-way crosswalks are feasible for Chinatown, and what other pedestrian safety and traffic management features are important.

Peskin aide Wade Crowfoot said that Peskin has spoken to a lot of people in the Chinatown community by attending numerous Lunar New Year engagements, and that they plan to unveil a lot of new plans in the upcoming months.

Peskin also joined Supervisors Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano and Mark Leno in encouraging President George Bush to provide immediate aid to India following the earthquake in Gujarat. Leno proposed that the meeting be adjourned in memory of all those who lost their lives in the disaster.