Car thieves hit S.F. mayor's street, despite lights, video

Photo: Steven Boyle, The Chronicle Photo: Steven Boyle, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Car thieves hit S.F. mayor's street, despite lights, video 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Talk about brazen - three doors down from Mayor Ed Lee's Glen Park home, a pair of thieves were caught on video the other night nonchalantly spending 10 minutes hot-wiring a car.

The pair didn't seem to care that they were being illuminated by motion-sensitive garage lights as they methodically stole the 2006 Honda Accord.

"This is the third car stolen from our one-block street in the past few months," said the owner, who asked not to be identified.

Ingleside Station Capt. Tim Falvey confirmed that car thefts are up about 6 percent in his district this year. Citywide, the increase is 10 percent.

Last year, San Francisco saw 5,574 auto thefts. About one-fifth of them were in the Ingleside police jurisdiction, with older Hondas that are easier to hot wire being a favorite target.

"We are working to try to bring (the total) down," Falvey said.

Mayoral spokeswoman Christine Falvey, who just happens to be the police captain's sister, said her boss thought it was "pretty unusual" to have three cars stolen in his neighborhood in such a short time. He's asked police to attend the next neighborhood association meeting to talk about crime prevention.

As for that stolen Honda Accord - we're told police found it in Pacifica. They're still looking for the thieves.

Taking aim: The soft-pitch politics of the Oakland mayoral race has turned to hardball, with activist attorney Dan Siegel filing a pair of ethics complaints against rival mayoral candidate and Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan.

Siegel has reached back in time a bit and is accusing Kaplan of "an illegal shell game" for allegedly using a countywide Coalition for Safe Streets and Local Jobs committee to bolster her last mayoral campaign.

The committee was formed by Kaplan to support a 2010 countywide transportation tax. Siegel, however, says Kaplan used at least half the $29,500 it raised to pay staffers assigned to her mayoral campaign that year - allegations that first surfaced in a news report a couple of weeks back.

Some $25,000 of the committee's funding came from San Francisco's Kansai Development Corp., so if Kaplan used the company's money for her mayoral campaign, that would constitute a violation of the city's $700 limit on individual donations.

Siegel also smells a pay-to-play scheme. Six weeks before the company contributed the money, he notes, the City Council - with Kaplan's vocal support - voted to let Kansai open a downtown parking lot, overturning a Planning Commission rejection.

Kansai reps did not return our call Friday seeking comment.

Kaplan campaign manager and spokesman Jason Overman called Siegel's money misuse allegations "patently untrue."

Overman also said any suggestion that Kaplan has engaged in pay-to-play politics involving the parking lot or anything else was "reckless ... and really quite a stretch."

Balancing act: Thanks to some big-bucks backing, San Francisco's long-scorned car drivers will have a chance to have their voices heard in the November election.

Backers submitted 17,593 signatures last week for a nonbinding referendum that calls for the city to adopt a "balanced transportation" policy. The proposal needs 9,702 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The measure calls for a ban on paid street parking nights and Sundays, more money for parking garages, a ban on new meters in neighborhoods without residents' and merchants' say-so, and equal enforcement of traffic laws for bicyclists and drivers.

Howard Chabner, a spokesman for the campaign, said, "There is a feeling that for the last several years the city has had ... a campaign against cars and in favor of bicycles."

How did they get so many signatures in this transit-first town? You can thank tech billionaire Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame, who put up $49,000, and the county Republican Party, which kicked in $10,000.

Liar liar: Tomato farmer Dean "Dino" Cortopassi has a point to make about the "whopper" claim that the state's budget is balanced - and he's opening his wallet big-time to make it.

Cortopassi took out full-page ads in The Chronicle and six other leading newspapers in the state Thursday, headlined, "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire."

His complaint: The budget that Gov. Jerry Brown calls balanced doesn't account for $6 billion owed to public worker pension funds.

Cortopassi, 77, paid for a similar round of ads when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor.

Cortopassi runs San Tomo Group, a tomato operation in Stockton. He's not talking, but company spokesman John Segale tells us more ads will follow soon.

Cost?

"I don't know exactly," Segale said, "but it is substantial."