Yee was not the initial target of what has been described as a “massive sting operation” launched by the Justice Department centering on Bay Area politics. Instead, he was only ensnared in a bribery probe involving a fake, FBI-created software firm seeking government contracts, which led to the discovery of his other crimes.

Meanwhile, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon is building off the FBI’s probe with his own prosecutions. In late January, he announced that two former employees with the city’s Human Rights Commission had been arrested for allegedly trying to sell access to Mayor Ed Lee. Nazly Mohajer, a former agency commissioner, and Zula Jones, a former staffer, allegedly took $20,000 from an undercover agent.

Although he met with the undercover agent, Mayor Lee has strenuously denied any role in the alleged bribery and money-laundering. But the fact that Mohajer and Jones were taped discussing how to break the money into smaller amounts to surreptitiously pay off Lee’s 2011 campaign debts has added to the loud whispering campaign that suggests the San Francisco mayor may be the FBI’s — and/or Gascon’s — ultimate target.

The FBI’s initial target was Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a leader of a San Francisco-based gang that had ties to Chinese business groups and politicians, including Lee. Chow was convicted in January on federal racketeering charges after his defense — claiming to be a reformed ex-criminal turned humanitarian and businessman — fell short.

It is not clear what sort of arrangement that the FBI and Gascon have — whether certain crimes will be prosecuted by the Justice Department and others by the San Francisco DA. But the most intense focus of the past month has been on Gascon’s attempts to keep a file of evidence related to the charges announced in January from being disclosed. He has so far persuaded a federal judge to keep it under wraps, arguing that its disclosure would reveal undercover agents and ruin promising corruption investigations.

“The evidence is a time bomb waiting to explode,” declared city Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who speculated that Lee or a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors might be implicated.

Lee appears to think he’s the target, or a target, of the investigations. According to campaign records, he spent $19,000 of his political funds last year on criminal defense attorneys. This year, he’s used allies to depict Gascon as launching a politically motivated smear effort.

Democratic strategist Nathan Ballard described Gascon as a craven publicity hound in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“If the DA has the goods on Mayor Lee, he already would have come out with it. There has never been one credibly sourced allegation of pay-to-play being brought forward,” Ballard told the Times.

But Gascon is winning plaudits from San Francisco’s alternative media, which has long seen the city as a hotbed of corruption and phony progressives.

The SF Weekly recently praised the Cuban-American DA for blasting Police Chief Greg Suhr — and Mayor Lee — for allegedly blocking attempts to reduce misconduct within San Francisco police ranks. The department has drawn sharp criticism since the Dec. 2 shooting death of stabbing suspect Mario Woods.

Though police had credible reason to believe Woods was armed and dangerous, cellphone video of him being shot as he walked away from officers has generated raucous protests.

San Francisco has a consolidated city-county form of government.

A municipal personality split came on April 23 when the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors made moves to join the electricity buying cooperative in Marin County, MarinCleanEnergy.

The county Board of Supervisors does not need the approval of the city to join MCE. CleanPowerSF and MCE would form a joint powers authority, as provided under California law.

In reaction, on May 1 San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee moved to pull the plug on $19.5 million in funds that was to be used to establish CleanPowerSF.

To circumvent Lee’s defunding move, the county supervisors even have gone to the state Legislature to approve Assembly Bill 2159, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco.  This bill would allow the state to usurp home rule and allow the county to join an “over-the-fence” electricity-buying cooperative, such as in adjacent Marin County. The bill is unnecessary, but would promote lower power rates to his San Francisco constituency.

Ammiano’s bill did not pass in committee but is being reconsidered.

Positive declaration

To add more confusion to the dispute, Assemblyman Steven Bradford, D-Inglewood, has proposed Assembly Bill 2145. Unions, PG&E and the Construction Trades Council back Bradford’s bill.  A number of clean energy interests oppose the bill.

Right now the law authorizing the creation of electricity buying cooperatives only provides for electricity customers to opt-out of the program, not opt in.  Otherwise, customers are automatically enrolled in the buying program.

Bradford’s bill would reverse that and require that each customer of an electricity-buying cooperative be required to give a written positive declaration that they wanted to join the cooperative.

Additionally, Bradford’s bill would require an electricity-buying co-op to disclose the percentage of annual greenhouse gases actually delivered to customers in accordance with standards of the California Air Resources Board.  Electricity buying co-ops would have to stop any false advertising of the percentage of its clean power.

For example, MarinCleanEnergy claims it has the highest percent of green power – 51 percent – of any electric utility in California.  But the actual proportion of clean energy it provides customers is 27 percent.

MCE currently procures a minimum of 50 percent renewable energy (27 percent from California Renewable Portfolio Supply-eligible sources), not from delivering actual clean power. In Figure 4 on page 13 of its 2013 Integrated Resources Plan, MCE shows that about 50 percent of its current energy mix comes from what is called “Renewable Energy Certificates.”

RECs can come from so-called “dirty” power plants that have reduced their emissions or purchased pollution allowances from the Air Resources Board.  In other words, there is no guarantee that RECs deliver clean power.

The Bradford Bill further requires that CleanPowerSF or MarinCleanEnergy co-ops cannot claim to reduce their electricity rate lower than PG&E by avoiding paying their share of bond-related costs for hydropower from the state Department of Water Resources.

As with other environmental initiatives, such as endangered species laws, seemingly good intentions only have led to fighting over the spoils of who gets the jobs and political patronage from purchasing electricity under California’s Community Choice law.