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And one of those clients has absolutely no compunction about admitting that she took advantage of every ounce of political power she possessed.
"We actually took it to her," Kiefer says, explaining how Bierman came to introduce the legislation. "We [Sanger and I] both contacted her."
Kiefer makes no apology for it. "Here is this little neighborhood with this little neighborhood issue," she says, seated in front of a large, homemade map on which she has used felt markers of varied color to delineate each household and how it stands on the Chans' plans. "The only way to address it was through the Board of Supervisors."
And so the objective was finally clear.
No compromise.
No house for the Chans.
You would think a political journalist, and a political journalist's wife, would see the value of compromise. For there might come a day when the tables turn, or you require dispensation yourself.
In addition to attorney Alice Barkley and architect Gary Gee, the Chans eventually got mad enough to add a new professional to their team: high-priced campaign strategist and lobbyist John Whitehurst.
Bierman's legislation, wrongheaded as it was, posed a threat. The Chans had spent so much money already; what was a little more to drive a stake through Bierman's play?
After Bierman introduced the bill to reverse the Chan subdivision, Board of Supervisors President Barbara Kaufman, a Whitehurst client, sent it to a three-member legislative committee. The committee is chaired by another Whitehurst client, Supervisor Mable Teng. With Supervisor Leland Yee, who is sympathetic to the Chans' plight, also on the committee, Bierman, Sanger, Roberts, and Kiefer will be lucky to get the bill a committee hearing, much less to hustle it past the entire board.
Meanwhile, as Gee arranged the geotechnical and shoring study, a new survey of the Chan property turned up a new wrinkle in the Chan-Roberts-Kiefer brouhaha. It now appears that the Chans' original lot was bigger than first thought. And that had one purely academic consequence, and one that is anything but academic at this stage of the game.
If, as the survey appears to show, the lot for Gary Chan's home is in fact greater than 2,500 square feet in total area, then the Chans should have obtained their subdivision faster, without the need for a conditional use permit. That is the academic consequence of the new sur-vey.
The new survey found something else, though, that is not academic at all. It is a finding that amuses the Chans. It is a finding that Jerry Roberts and Linda Kiefer consider irksome.
It turns out that, according to the new survey, the fence marking the rear of Roberts and Kiefer's back yard is actually standing on the Chans' property. This discovery gives the Chans some leverage in the dispute. But all they really want, at this point, is the final approval to begin building Gary his new home.
As the lunch crush at Yet Wah on Clement whirls about her, Sandra Chan coaxes an old Chinese man to his seat. Placing a hand on the back of his chair, she scoots him forward to his table, as if tucking him into bed.
A consummate hostess, Chan spends most every afternoon and evening greeting her restaurant guests, overseeing her waitstaff, and ringing up the checks. Because she runs the restaurant, Chan is often working when other people are socializing, or getting to know the neighbors. Or organizing a petty political campaign.
On this Monday afternoon late last month, as Sandra Chan contended with the lunch crowd at Yet Wah, Leland Yee, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, picked up a fax at his office.
Linda Kiefer was calling. She wanted to meet, to talk about her neighborhood, and a project involving some people named Chan.
