SAN FRANCISCO—Rose Pak had more in mind than a light Thai dinner when she walked into the now-shuttered Bong Su restaurant, with David Chiu in tow, on 3rd and Folsom in March 2009.
Harlan Kelly, her old friend who is assistant general manager for infrastructure of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, was waiting for the pair. Pak had been Chiu’s date for the first few months of his time as Supervisor of District 3.
At Bong Su that night it was a rendition of “Getting to Know You,” Rose Pak-style.
She introduced the two of them, highlighting how wonderful it was that Chiu was a Harvard graduate, and that Kelly was an old friend. Pak had slipped into a black dress for the occasion. Chiu was in his characteristic blue suit. Kelly stuck with shirtsleeves.
Nursing her whiskey after the initial chit-chat, Pak dived into the nitty-gritty of the meeting: Kelly manages billions of dollars in contracts; how might those (nudge, Chiu) be made available not just for the international players, but local contractors, too?
It was left unsaid that “local contractors” meant businesses that could later throw money at Pak’s political projects on call. The conversation didn’t get that far. Chiu wasn’t ready to commit to anything and he had another function to attend, so he excused himself after about 45 minutes, according to an individual sitting at an adjacent table who heard the entire exchange. When asked about the encounter, Chiu said he couldn’t remember clearly. He said that he might have been with Kelly and Pak at a table together at some time.
Rose Pak has been a power broker in San Francisco politics for two decades, but how she acquired that power is something of a mystery. She is not registered to vote, is not a registered lobbyist, and is not reported to receive any remuneration from her sole reported place of employment, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Yet friends and foes alike credit her with being someone who gets things done.
“For the people who have gone down that road, it’s very difficult to figure out… what you find is one percent of the iceberg, the other 99 percent nobody can see,” says Aaron Peskin, a former confidant and now political nemesis.
Pak’s influence has waxed and waned across the over two decades she had been involved in city politics. But the trend has always been upward.
She is a short, rotund, loud, and cantankerous woman known for her foul-mouth and frequent drinking and smoking. She also craves attention, and has been comfortable calling elected officials late at night to list her demands: sitting on the balcony of her condo, with a bourbon and a cigarette nestled in her hands, she gets ready to settle into long, late night conversations.
In some cases, the other party gets fed up with it. Former Mayor Art Agnos, for example, whom Pak exercised significant sway over, frequently tried to get off the phone. Pak would portray her suggestions as being in the interest of the mayor or his administration, without suggesting that it was in her interest, according to Larry Bush, former aide to Agnos.
She was most dangerous when trying to exclude members of the Asian community that she did not like, Bush says. “There was a constant intimation of loyalty tests.”
Agnos and Pak later had a falling out over the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway, which was damaged with the Lomo Prieta earthquake in 1989.
Under Frank Jordan, the mayor from 1991 to 1995, Pak had less influence. Jordan was supported by Pak’s opponents in Chinatown, like Pius Lee. But while she did not have the inside track to the mayor as she did under Brown and does under Ed Lee, she did her best, plying chief of staff Jim Wunderman, for example, with an all-expenses paid trip to China.
Pak’s influence hit the stratosphere when Willie Brown became mayor. Brown and Pak had been good friends since at least the early 1980s, and shared a close relationship with a similar outlook: essentially, that political power is meant to benefit the friends of the victor.
In Gavin Newsom’s term beginning in 2004, Pak was on the outside again. Newsom, with national political ambitions and a war chest filled with old money from the Getty family, had no time for a backroom dealer from Chinatown. He was notorious for ignoring her phone calls.
Pak still made sure she still had her people on key commissions, and she raised money to help elect progressives to the Board of Supervisors, which gave her sway.
