Former San Francisco Supervisor Michael Yaki has agreed to pay the city $75,000 over nine years to settle claims that he lobbied for a fire equipment manufacturer. The city attorney claims Yaki violated the city's lobbyist ordinance -- which he voted for as a supervisor in 2000 -- at least 70 times.
In a lawsuit filed last December, the City Attorney Dennis Herrera alleged that Yaki "flouted the lobbyist ordinance in every way." The suit claims that Yaki:
"spent over a year lobbying Board members, the Mayor's Office, members of the Fire Commission, and the Fire Department on behalf of his client, Rescue Air Systems, Inc. Yet despite making more than 70 lobbying contacts, Yaki ... failed to register as a lobbyist, failed to disclose who was paying him to lobby and how much he was paid, and failed to disclose any of his lobbying contacts. With his identity as a paid lobbyist undisclosed, Yaki sometimes misrepresented who he worked for."
Yaki, a lawyer and political consultant who served as supervisor from 1996 to 2001, neither admits nor denies the allegations in the settlement. He currently serves on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
The lobbying claims center on a San Carlos company, Rescue Air Systems, that is the exclusive manufacturer of a firefighter air replenishment system, meant to enable firefighters to refill their portable oxygen tanks while fighting fires in highrise buildings. Starting in 2004 San Francisco required such systems in all new buildings more than 75 feet tall.
However, in 2012, the city's Fire Commission began exploring allowing developers to use different methods of oxygen delivery. The lawsuit says Rescue Air Systems then hired Yaki to convince city officials to stick with the existing fire code. The Fire Commission did delay consideration of the change. But despite the emails, texts, phone calls and in-person meetings that the lawsuit claims Yaki employed, the Board of Supervisors last September did vote to allow alternative oxygen systems.