Contrarian Pundit

The EPA has ordered Columbus Salame, a Bay Area Italian-meats producer, to upgrade its deficient refrigeration systems within 90 days, after one of two serious chemical leaks last year sent 17 employees at nearby Genentech to the hospital.  But the long overdue order and the way the plant’s problems have been handled raise serious questions [...]

The bad news has continued for San Rafael’s Tamalpais Bank since I broke the story that the institution had lent the equivalent of almost all its capital to the highly leveraged, publicly excoriated, and increasingly bankrupt Lembi Group in the middle of the 2008 real estate crash. In January, the Federal Reserve took enforcement action [...]

FAQ
Who are you?
My name is David Johnson, and I’m a journalist and editor at San Francisco magazine.  I’ve worked for the Staten Island Advance as a beat reporter, Harper’s Magazine as an intern (north) and researcher, and Columbia Journalism Review as a fact-checker. I’ve written for the New York Times and San Francisco magazine, and [...]