San Francisco will soon have an Office of the Inspector General, with a mandate to investigate and expose corruption in city agencies. Proposition C, which authorized the new office, passed with about 60 percent of the vote in November, and soon Controller Greg Wagner will appoint someone to run it. The mayor and the supes have to approve the appointment.
In the meantime, Sup. Dean Preston has asked the Budget and Legislative Analyst to conduct audits of all the city departments that have the authority to sign public works contracts.
Six department heads—at the SFPUC, the Airport, the Port, the Recreation and Parks Department, the SF Municipal Transportation Authority, and the Department of Public Works—have that authority.
That practice has caused some serious problems in the past, and the former director of the SF Public Utilities Commission is now in prison for abusing it. So is the former head of DPW…