BayView Newspaper Tells Mark Leno Where He Can Put His Op-Ed

Newspaper to Leno: Buzz off!

​Earlier this week, Sen. Mark Leno's press office sent several community newspapers including the San Francisco BayView an op-ed on senate bill 792, the legislation that will give 23 acres of Candlestick Point State Recreation Center to Lennar Corporation for development. Leno put his optimistic spin on the measure, talking about how the bill won't destroy but save the majority of the park in a time that state parks are at risk of being closed. The bill passed both the state Senate and Assembly last week, and awaits action by the governor.

But the BayView newspaper, which has weighed in against the legislation for months, told the senator to go jump in the Bay. Editor Mary Ratcliff wrote an e-mail to community activists with her response to the senator: "Fat chance." Then, one of the paper's contributors, doctor and former supervisor and mayoral candidate Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, slammed the senator to his face in an e-mail:

Dear Senator Leno,

     We will not be running this column at the SF Bayview and we will not be supporting you in the future. They day is over when you think you can go over the heads of legitimate leadership in Bayview Hunters Point. I want to personally promise you that things will be changing in the future and suggest that you rethink who your friends are in positions of power and influence in the district you pretend to represent.

                                                 Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D.

Granted, Leno's office sends the BayView frequent op-eds which he also posts on his Web site, and the BayView usually doesn't print them. But he usually doesn't get such vituperative rejections.

Leno is currently home in his native Wisconsin (at one point he said, "Yes, Mom, I'm on the phone") and seemed taken aback by the paper's response.

"I have great respect for the paper, but I would be less than forthright if I didn't say it surprises me that a newspaper that is supposed to be about providing equal time for all arguments would deny a state senator the opportunity to express an opinion."

Like many community papers, the BayView takes more of a activist role, with its articles often penned by community activists themselves. Its recent pieces on SB 792 are titled "Unfair trade!" "No on SB 792!" and "Don't Privatize Our State Park!" Yes, all three had exclamation points in the headlines.

"That they won't print Mark's piece isn't at all surprising," said Saul Bloom of Arc Ecology, an environmental nonprofit that has shifted its stance from "against" to "neutral" on the bill after Leno amended it to only sell 10 percent of the park, instead of the original 25 percent. "The BayView has never hung its hat on journalistic impartiality."