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Supervisors expand city advertising outreach to include neighborhood and ethnic papers
Summary
After hearing OCA and bidders, the committee amended outreach advertising awards to add neighborhood and ethnic newspapers including SF Bayview, China Press, Sing Tao Daily, World Journal, El Mensajero, Marina Times and Northside San Francisco; supervisors asked OCA for a 'cost per household' metric to guide future awards.
The committee debated how the City and County of San Francisco should allocate official and neighborhood outreach advertising. Mark Brozian of the Office of Contract Administration said two bids were received for official advertising (the Chronicle and the Examiner) and, under the administrative code requirement that outreach papers be printed in San Francisco, the Examiner's bid was responsive while the Chronicle's technical bid status limited OCA's recommendation.
President David Chu and other supervisors urged preserving the historical practice of splitting type 1/type 2 advertising and expanding outreach to ethnic and neighborhood papers. Jeff Bergen of the San Francisco Chronicle asked the supervisors to award the Chronicle and SFGate the full advertising budget, saying the paper's new technology and bid deliver an estimated 16% savings versus last year.
Supervisors pressed OCA for more outreach and for an apples‑to‑apples metric; Mark Rosen (OCA) later provided a revised spreadsheet that included circulation and a "bang for your buck" column (ad price divided by circulation) so supervisors could see cost per household. Earl Adkins (Marina Times/Northside) told the committee his bid rates were monthly and cited Marina Times circulation as 15,000 and Northside San Francisco circulation as 40 (as presented in his remarks).
President Chu moved — and the committee approved without objection — an amendment to include outreach designations for the African American community (San Francisco Bayview), Chinese community (China Press, Sing Tao Daily, World Journal), Spanish language outreach (El Mensajero), and several neighborhood papers including West Portal Monthly, Marina Times, Northside San Francisco, Central City Extra, Potrero View and Western Edition; supervisors asked OCA to provide cost‑per‑household data before finalizing further additions.
Several public commenters, including Ace Washington, urged stronger and sustained outreach to Black‑owned papers and said the city had undervalued African American media; other neighborhood publishers described circulation and delivery models to support inclusion.
