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Committee recommends splitting official and outreach advertising between Examiner and Chronicle; outreach papers named
Summary
After presentations and public testimony from newspaper representatives and labor, the committee amended the purchasing recommendations and will send items designating official and outreach newspapers to the full Board, splitting type 1/type 2 between the San Francisco Examiner and the Chronicle and assigning outreach newspapers for Hispanic, Chinese and African-American communities.
The Budget and Finance Committee on June 18 reviewed the city's annual contracts for official and outreach advertising (Items 5'8) and moved to send the four items to the full Board as a committee report with amendments to split type 1 and type 2 advertising between the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Bill Jones of the Purchasing Office explained the sealed-bid points-based evaluation and said the Examiner scored highest on responsiveness and cost for type 2 advertising. He recommended the Examiner for type 2 official advertising largely because the Examiner's bid was free while the Chronicle charged a fee. For outreach contracts, Purchasing recommended El Rapatero for Hispanic outreach, San Francisco Bayview for African-American outreach, and Asian Week as the responsive bidder for Chinese outreach; the LGBT outreach bids from Bay Area Reporter and Bay Times were initially nonresponsive for administrative reasons and the purchasing office deferred to the Board.
Representatives from the Chronicle, Chronicle in Education, Bay Area Reporter, the Examiner and Teamsters Local 853 testified. The Chronicle speakers described broad classroom distribution and community programs; Bay Area Reporter and Bay Times representatives acknowledged bid irregularities and asked for board discretion; Examiner representatives highlighted circulation reach and local investments; Teamsters urged awarding contracts that preserve union jobs and benefits.
In committee action, supervisors agreed to split the official advertising between the Examiner and Chronicle, designate El Rapatero for Hispanic outreach, designate the San Francisco Bayview for African-American outreach (it was the only responsive bidder), and divide LGBT outreach among the two respondents; the committee will forward the amended recommendations to the full Board for final action.
What happens next: The full Board will review the committee's recommendations and may adopt the purchasing designations as amended or take alternative action.
