No Porn Purge at Planning Department, Source Says

Motivated Photos

Ha! Your'e fired!

​A well-placed source within the city tells SF Weekly that the ongoing porn scandal at the planning department is both more and less hardcore than previously reported.

No, we are told, longtime planners are not being summarily fired for sending around harmless photos of scantily clad dancers. This is no "purge." All of the five employees so far dismissed were viewing and sending around "sexually explicit material" with at least one amassing a two-inch-thick dossier of "raunchy" images gleaned during long afternoons of cruising the Internet for porn during working hours.

The scandal broke in December, when a whistleblower objected to the below image (uncensored) being sent their way. This image, SF Weekly is told, was sent by veteran planner Craig Nikitas.

​
Nikitas was one of the five planners so far fired as a result of the scandal, which led to the ouster of longtime zoning administrator Larry Badiner. Oddly, despite being fired, Nikitas was temporarily given Badiner's job following his departure; considering Nikitas purportedly sent the e-mail that triggered the entire scandal, this decision is looking odder still. Nikitas left the department at the beginning of the month.

While multiple sources within the Planning Department have told SF Weekly that 19 to 24 planners are slated for termination, our source said that this is not the case. Thirty employees were "exposed" in the scandal, and "there were some terminations. There were some suspensions, some were sent to counseling, there was a lot of training, and a lot of reprimands." Another wave of firings is not anticipated.

Finally, our source believed that the investigation has moved beyond porn to allegations of illegal online gambling, as SF Weekly earlier reported. But that will have to come later.

"Right now, we have our hands full with the porn."

Follow us on Twitter at @TheSnitchSF and @SFWeekly