Thieves, scoundrels, and the RSF breakfast bunch

Up in tony Rancho Santa Fe, the county’s preserve of genteel wealth and privilege — along with a few occasional swindlers, suicide cults, and spies — takes the public interest seriously. A campaign committee called the Rancho Santa Fe Public Interest Committee recently filed its semi-annual financial disclosure statement with the county registrar of voters. The group reports collecting $7700 during the first half of this year, boosting its bank balance to $26,501. Donors included hotelier Jack Giacomi ($200); retired savings and loan mogul Kim Fletcher ($100); and real estate developer Sandy Kahn, son of the late Irvin Kahn of mobbed-up Teamsters pension fund fame ($200). But what does the committee do to advance the public interest with the money? Of $4545 spent, $3539 of it was for the “group’s breakfasts” at the exclusive Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club. An additional $343 went toward “holiday gifts to club servers. (Breakfast meetings.)”…It looks like icPurple, the self-styled “independent” super PAC that bankrolled TV spots for Nathan Fletcher after he forsook the Republican party when it didn’t endorse his bid for mayor, is folding up shop. According to a termination statement filed by the committee, financed in large part by La Jolla computer mega-millionaire Ted Waitt — and helped along by $10,000 from garrulous genome-sequencing pioneer Craig Venter — the group ended life on July 25.