Five employees of the Sacramento Mountain Lions – including former Raiders defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan, who held the same position there – say that owner Paul Pelosi, a real-estate investor and businessman, owes them $250,000, according to the suit filed this month in San Francisco Superior Court.

That would seem like pocket change to Pelosi. He and his wife, the top Democrat in the House, are worth $26 million, according to federal financial disclosure statements. Their investments range from real estate around the Bay Area to their vineyard and home in St. Helena.

The league’s founder is Pelosi’s friend Bill Hambrecht, a San Francisco investment banker who managed Google’s initial public offering.

“It’s a vanity sports league and the people who own them are wealthy men,” said Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco civil-rights attorney who is representing the plaintiffs. “They have ignored their obligations to pay these people. Hambrecht and Paul Pelosi could write a check for what they owe these people without blinking, and they haven’t bothered to do it.”

In meetings before the team, Dhillon said, her clients recall Pelosi guaranteeing that they would get paid.

An additional political twist: Dhillon is the vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party – but she said she this is not about politics.

“I didn’t go out and seek this case; these plaintiffs sought me out,” Dhillon said. “You can take this set of facts, you can take out the name Pelosi and take it to any labor lawyer in California and they would file this lawsuit because it is outrageous.”

Paul Pelosi did not return phone calls requesting comment Monday.

When the league canceled the second half of its season in October, Paul Pelosi said in a statement that “it is our first priority to take care of our players, coaches, and staff and then to raise sufficient funds to take care of our other obligations and to resume fully financed operations in 2013.”

Speaking as a “spokesman for the UFL ownership group” in that same statement, Paul Pelosi blamed postponement on “a lack of sufficient funds due to the high cost of workmen’s compensation insurance and other elements.”

Dhillon said, “They never got (worker’s compensation insurance) from what my clients told me.”

Nancy Pelosi has a 95 percent lifetime rating on labor issues, according to the AFL-CIO rating of legislators.

Paul Pelosi’s stake in the Sacramento football team is in the range of $5 million to $25 million, according to the broad scale used in federal financial-disclosure forms. He claimed between $1 million and $5 million in losses, according to the disclosures.

Founded in 2009, the UFL has teetered on the edge of viability. It promised to return in the spring of 2013 but didn’t, and a future return is in peril.

Earlier this year, 78 of its players sued the league, its teams and Hambrecht for failing to pay them fully. They were seeking $1.5 million plus fees.

Nearly a year ago, Dennis Green – the former Stanford and Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals head coach – sued the Sacramento team for $1 million that he said he is still owed for coaching the Mountain Lions. The matter is in arbitration.

Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/Employees-of-UFL-Sacramento-team-sue-Paul-Pelosi-4667148.php

Lee’s no dummy. He knows there’s little, if any, chance such a policy would pass political muster in San Francisco. But that was never the point. He was planting a seed.

“It’s controversial. I will be tagged – as the minority mayor of this city – for racial profiling,” Lee, a former civil rights attorney, said at the meeting. “But I’m going to let everybody know that if it works … I’m going to do something in that direction.”

In his first term, Lee’s displaying the characteristics of real leadership. His decision to boldly go where no San Francisco mayor has gone before underscores both his confidence and control. He’s the captain of this vessel.

That the mere mention of Lee’s plan has made San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr and some members of the Board of Supervisors nervous means he may be on to something.

Across the bay, Oakland residents desperately need a mayor with as much resolve.

Whenever Oakland Mayor Jean Quan hears the word “controversial,” she starts moving in the other direction, away from the potential danger. Luckily for Quan, her travel plans have often coincided with controversy at City Hall.

Because otherwise some people might have gotten the false impression that Quan was unwilling – or worse, afraid – to tackle issues head-on, especially when they involve violent crime. When controversy struck last week, Quan cracked like a walnut at a squirrel party.

At a press conference she held to reaffirm the credibility of a crime reduction plan based on bad statistical data, Quan was soon fending off questions about whether she is really committed to fighting crime.

A reporter brought up Quan’s reluctance last year to support gang injunctions and curfews, and the mayor – true to form – revised history. “I’d actually support a curfew that was aimed at hot-spot areas and not a citywide curfew, because I don’t think we have the resources for a citywide curfew,” Quan said.

Really? Because last year, Quan dismissed a proposal from former Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts, who wanted the city to impose a curfew for underage teens. She outright rejected the idea of using gang injunctions to reduce crime before a court approved their use in two Oakland neighborhoods. A few months later, Batts resigned, saying City Hall was making it difficult to do his job.

In San Francisco, Lee knows he’ll never get the political support needed to enact a stop-and-frisk policy, but he just might get a modified, lesser version that can be used as an effective law enforcement tool.

He has started a buzz, fired a hot potato in the air and opened the door to a public debate about further law enforcement remedies.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re mashed, boiled or french-fried and served with onions, Lee has made it clear that come dinnertime, he expects to see some kind of potatoes on his plate. Period.

Quan has shown none of the same political strength or individual courage needed to do the job of taking on one of the toughest urban crime problems in the nation.

It’ll take the kinds of radical steps proposed by Lee, and used in other cities, for Oakland to get results and achieve a respectable level of safety on its meanest streets. It will also take leadership, which has been the rarity instead of the rule in the Oakland mayor’s office.

Chip Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday. E-mail: chjohnson@sfchronicle.com

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/johnson/article/For-bold-ideas-on-crime-look-to-S-F-not-Oakland-3680370.php