Way To go Jim March! Yeahaaaaaa!
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Million Mom March leaving its office space
By Christopher Merrill
Of The Examiner Staff

The Million Mom March foundation is moving out of rent-free office space it enjoyed for two years on the third floor of a building at San Francisco General Hospital.

A pro-gun activist launched a campaign against the group this year when he discovered what he said were unapproved taxpayer subsidies — meaning free rent — going toward the ailing gun-control organization.

The foundation, which gained notoriety for its march on Washington last year, has had financial trouble lately, said Mary Leigh Blek, president of the foundation. Thirty of 35 staff were let go last month out of the national office in the hospital. Executive director James McGuire resigned as director and as a board member last month.

The questions about the propriety of the group’s office space was another headache for the organization.

The hospital property belongs to the city, and the Board of Supervisors has to approve such arrangements. That has not happened in the case of the Million Mom March, an education and advocacy group that supports stricter gun laws.

McGuire said the group is an offshoot of the Trauma Foundation, a nonprofit injury prevention group that has rights to the space. That group, which McGuire also founded, was given the space for free in 1981 through an arrangement with Donald Trunkey, then the director of the hospital’s burn center. McGuire said all political activities of the Million Mom March are carried out at another office, meaning that taxpayers aren’t unwittingly supporting a political organization.

Gun activist James March dismissed that explanation, saying McGuire is involved in several gun-control groups, some of which are used as a cover for others.

“They can’t keep their story straight,” March said. “All roads lead back to (McGuire).”

On Wednesday, some supervisors said they were concerned the groups may have become too cozy with city property.

“Any property that the city and county owns, that we then lease to someone, should not be subleased,” said Supervisor Leland Yee, who has questioned the hospital’s financial practices in the past.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a member of the city’s finance committee, raised questions about the lack of lease for either group. He noted that the city administrative code requires all leases worth more than $500,000 in a five-year period be revisited.

Blek is confident the group will rebound in the coming year. Rallies are planned on Mother’s Day in every state the group has chapters. In Sacramento the group will support a bill that requires Californians to pass a written test, a firing-range demonstration and a thumbprint for a state Department of Justice background check.

Email Christopher Merrill at [email protected]

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