Supervisor Jake McGoldrick: Reform Public Notice Advertising

This November's ballot contains an unusually large number of significant initiatives, one of which I want to address in this month's column. I hope you all will take the time to read and understand all of these measures, as each one of them proposes significant changes in city policy.

Along with four other supervisors, I submitted Proposition K to the voters for consideration in November. Proposition K is an ordinance that will increase competition for the city's public notice advertising in newspapers. By increasing competition for the bidding on these contracts, Prop K promises to save more than $250,000 in taxpayer dollars each year spent on such notices, while also increasing the number of households that receive notice of official meetings.

Unfortunately, for the last eight years the city's bid process has been politically rigged to ensure that only one company has a real chance to win the contracts. Consequently, only one newspaper, the San Francisco Independent, even bothers to bid on the contract at this time.

Without any meaningful competition for the legal notices contract, the result has been a steady increase in both the rate and the total dollars the City pays for advertising each year.

Since 1994, when this phony bid system was put into place by a ballot measure, the cost of city advertising has tripled. From 1997 to 2001, the cost of official advertising increased from $340,000 to more than $970,000.

It is time to reform this system and stop the waste of taxpayer money that results from a lack of competition in the bidding process.

Proposition K will increase competition in several ways. First, bidding is allowed by any newspaper that meets state law requirements to qualify for publishing official advertising. Currently, there are at least 12 newspapers that meet such requirements in San Francisco, including the SF Independent, the SF Examiner and the SF Chronicle. All of these newspapers are located and publish in San Francisco.

With more bidders competing for the contract, the cost of advertising will be driven down, allowing us to shift the dollars saved into crucial programs, such as health insurance for uninsured children.

Second, Prop K will require that all of the City's public notice requirements be assembled into a list based upon the required frequency of notice of publication. Bidders will be free to bid on one or any combination of the notice categories. Companies also will be free to form joint ventures to bid on these categories.

Smaller, neighborhood newspapers will be able to form joint ventures and bid on the contract, thereby providing new opportunities for small businesses. As a result of such flexibility, the City will be able to assemble the best possible package of bids for our official notice requirements.

Third, Proposition K continues to use the same general criteria to rank bids currently employed by the City, but we will be able to select from a broader range of bidders. The criteria ranks bids first on the cost of the advertising to the City, then on the breadth of circulation of the newspaper(s), and finally on the cost of the newspaper(s) to the general public.

Finally, please do not be misled by erroneous charges from opponents of Proposition K. This measure does not eliminate preferences for local, women or minority owned businesses. The City Attorney has advised that the City's preferences for disadvantaged local, minority and women-owned businesses, under Section 12D of the Administrative Code, will continue to apply to the bid process for official advertising under Prop. K.

Proposition K will reform the bid process for the city's legal notice advertising, replacing a politically-rigged bid system with a fair and competitive system.

Competition in the bidding process will save the City hundreds of thousands of dollars that may then be better spent on crucial programs to help our children and our seniors.

I hope you will join me in supporting Proposition K.

Jake McGoldrick is a San Francisco supervisor representing District 1.