‘Hit-Piece’ in Forbes Starts a Ruckus at S.F. City Hall

There’s nothing like a little bad press to get local politicians steamed.

Mayor Art Agnos and city supervisors are fuming over a Forbes magazine article that ridicules city policies as anti-business.

The article, appearing in the Sept. 2 issue, lambastes the city’s “wacky economics,” including new business taxes and “the nation’s most draconian building regulations.”

Author John H. Taylor stood by his story Tuesday, saying Agnos and the supervisors have adopted “a three-blind-mice pose and are saying everything’s great.”

“San Francisco has always been liberal, and it’s always been free spending. That’s admirable, to take care of your people. You do what you can. But that’s the operative concept. If you can’t afford it, for God’s sake don’t gouge businesses that are paying for it.”

Agnos has called the article a “one-sided hit piece.”

In the magazine, Taylor cited the supervisors’ 1986 decision to stop buying gas from Chevron Corp.--the biggest corporation based in the city--because the oil giant had a joint venture in South Africa.

The company has since moved thousands of employees outside city limits, he said.

And the board’s approval last year of a resolution declaring the city a sanctuary for Gulf War resisters led to the cancellation of two major conventions and a storm of bad publicity, Taylor said.

As companies flee the city, those that remain are bombarded with taxes “almost no other municipality imposes,” Taylor wrote, including a small business tax and a tax on payroll or gross receipts, whichever is higher.

Pacific Telesis paid business taxes that amounted to $720 per employee in San Francisco last year, compared to $240 per employee in Los Angeles and only $10 per employee in San Jose, Taylor said.