Volume 4
March 1988-February 1989

Konnyu's Solution

Embattled Rep. Ernest Konnyu told Eye this week that he is sticking to his guns and calling for an end to private, confidential testing for the AIDS virus. Instead, Konnyu has authored a bill that would require all health authorities to compile a list of HIV virus carriers and notify their spouses. Konnyu says he "expects to get the support of the homosexuals" for his legislation "once they realize that they are the group with the most to lose" under current public health policies.

--Public Eye, March 31, 1988

Konnyu was defeated in the 1988 GOP congressional primary by law professor Thomas Campbell. Last year, Konnyu ran for tax assessor and made it into the runoff, where he was defeated by former Sunnyvale Mayor Larry Stone.


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Domestic Problems

FBI probes, questioning of employers and landlords, surveillance by secret informants, sifting through garbage for documents, opening mail, unsolved break-ins. ... For the first time since the Watergate era, a series of troubling events raises the specter of widespread--and possible illegal--spying on U.S. citizens. The spate of domestic spying includes everything from the FBI's counterintelligence forces and Oliver North's secret to the seeding of private operatives in conservative groups. The stepped-up surveillance has alarmed political activists and has sparked investigations of the FBI's role by two congressional committees.

Rep. Don Edwards ... calls the FBI's recent actions "Joe McCarthy stuff" and warns that the agency is drifting dangerously off course.

"We don't want a domestic intelligence-gathering organization paid for by the taxpayers," Edwards says. "That's outrageous conduct by a government agency."

--Jonathan Dann and Dan Noyes, "Spies Like Us," July 7, 1988

Currently the Northern California office of the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation is fighting the Omnibus Terrorism Act, introduced by President Clinton earlier this year and now inches away from passage.

According to Dick Criley, director of NCARL, the bill would criminalize donations to any organization classified by the president as a terrorist organization, even if the money is earmarked for humanitarian purposes. Opponents are concerned that the bill's language is particularly vague. "It could criminalize the innocent act of giving money to a hospital," Criley says.

Citizens who violate the law would be subject to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine; noncitizens would be deported without the opportunity to challenge their accuser or the accusation. That information and any evidence would be kept secret to protect the identity of FBI informants.

The bill has passed the Senate but has yet to be voted on by the House. Thus far, the bill has had strong bipartisan support. For more information, contact NCARL at 202/549-4225, or via email at [email protected].


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The Big Sleep

As time neared for the opening bell at Friday night's Boxing at the Civic card, San Jose promoter Babe Griffin looked around at the half-empty auditorium and shrugged, "No advance press, no publicity. What do you expect?"

Publicity in deuces is what Griffin had by evening's end. ... Ricardo "Rico" Velasquez, the California State Lightweight champion, collapsed at bout's end and died the next day following brain surgery. A massive brain hemorrhage ended the 22-year-old's life. Boxing played no small part in the death.

--Pat Burnson, "Knockout Blow," Aug. 25, 1988

As fate would have it, Velasquez's last fight was caught on film by photographer Larry Brazil, while on assignment for Metro. The European press picked up Brazil's exclusive photographs, as did the San Jose Mercury News and a local television station. Velasquez's death rattled San Jose's small-time professional boxing community, and for a time revived calls for a ban on the sport. But, interest in local professional boxing had already begun to sputter. A few years later it was all but dead. It's been a year since San Jose, once the center of boxing in the Bay Area, has had a professional match. In fact, except for the Los Angeles area, where the sport is booming, state officials say pro boxing is dead in California. At least for the time being.


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Just Say Yes

Twelfth district Republican congressional contender Tom Campbell told Eye this week he is inclined to support legislation passed by the House last week that, among other things, provides for $10,000 civil penalties to be levied against casual users of marijuana and other illegal drugs. "There is a role for civil fines" in drug enforcement, Campbell said. "It does sound like something I would support."

--Public Eye, Sept. 29, 1988

State Sen. Campbell cosponsored legislation with Assemblyman John Vasconcellos this year designed to allow marijuana use, under medical supervision, by people afflicted with AIDS or other terminal diseases. Gov. Wilson has promised to veto the measure.


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No Calls, Please

The Pentagon quietly and indirectly funnels several hundred million dollars annually into the bank accounts of a handful of media conglomerates. These corporations--which control virtually all of the nation's major daily newspapers--receive the money for publishing employee recruitment ads that experts say don't work. "We have ads running nearly all the time," says Dee Imazeki, advertising coordinator for Lockheed. "We got over 30,000 resumes last year but we find that our employee referral system ... actually works best." Over at McDonnell Douglas, Barry Waller agrees. "About 99.5 percent of the time," he says, "we get our employees from personal referrals, headhunters or by word of mouth."

--Hal Plotkin, "Daily Bread," July 14, 1988

The Metro exposé led then-Rep. Barbara Boxer, among others, to request a federal investigation into advertising and public relations costs passed along to the Pentagon by defense contractors. The 1989 investigation, conducted by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, looked at 118 cases and determined that of $269 million charged to the Pentagon, contracts worth $53.7 million were considered "questionable." The regulations were subsequently changed to require defense contractors to better justify advertising and PR costs. Despite the hefty savings to taxpayers, the story was never mentioned by the Bay Area's dailies.


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Job Mystery

Fiscalini left alexian in 1986. He stressed repeatedly during the interview that his departure from Alexian was amicable and voluntary. "It was time for me to move on," he said. ...

Contacted at the chain's headquarters in Elk Grove Village, Ill., the president of Alexian Brothers Health Systems, Brother Felix Bettendorf, discussed the San Jose hospital during Fiscalini's stewardship. ...

Was Fiscalini asked to leave?

"That would be accurate," the hospital founder said.

For performance reasons?

"Yes."

--Public Eye, March 31, 1988

The publication of this interview may have changed the course of San Jose history. Fiscalini lost the mayor's race to Susan Hammer in 1990 by a razor-thin margin. The Alexian Brothers termination that Fiscalini initially denied became a key campaign issue that helped tip the scales in Hammer's favor. Hospital officials clammed up following the Metro interview, but they never disputed the quotes, and even the Mercury News was forced to repeatedly quote the Metro exposé.

Fiscalini went on to win a District 6 council seat and now represents Willow Glen.


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Coincidence? I Think Not

Political researcher Mae Brussell died of cancer in a Carmel nursing home at the age of 66. She left behind 39 four-drawer file cabinets of information compiled during her 26 years of research. "When I heard President Kennedy say there was a hidden government operating behind his back, I began research to find out who this government was," Brussell told the UC-Santa Cruz newspaper City on a Hill last year.

--Public Eye, Oct. 6, 1988


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On to March 1989-February 1990

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