Kofi Bonner hired Carmen Policy - Matier and Ross made a mistake

Former 49ers President Carmen Policy has just been recruited by Mayor Gavin Newsom to lead the city's effort to keep the team from exiting for the South Bay - bringing the veteran football executive's long journey to build a stadium in San Francisco full circle.
Policy headed the $100 million bond measure drive in 1997 that would have helped pay for a stadium at Candlestick Point. The voters approved it, but the stadium never got built.
Now Charmin' Carmen will serve as San Francisco's go-between with the Niners and the National Football League. He will also help lead a referendum headed for the ballot next June to allow construction of a stadium at Hunters Point, along with a housing and retail development at neighboring Candlestick Point.
"I consider it unfinished business," Policy said of the assignment.
"I'm absolutely thrilled Carmen will be joining our team," Newsom said. "Carmen's track record speaks for itself."
While Policy will be reporting to the mayor's office, Lennar Corp. - which is behind the stadium and Candlestick developments - will be footing the bill for his work as well as for the ballot referendum.
Policy was at the side of then-49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo when the 1997 bond measure narrowly passed. But then came DeBartolo's fall from grace as he was caught up in a federal bribery scandal involving the former governor of Louisiana.
Team ownership transferred to DeBartolo's sister Denise and her husband, John York, Policy left to run the Cleveland Browns, and now - after many years of butting heads in San Francisco - the Yorks plan to move to Santa Clara.
Last month - on the very day Policy appeared on a Commonwealth Club panel to talk about the Niners' stadium plans - Newsom invited Policy to breakfast to ask him to help the city try to keep the team.
Policy agreed, but only on the condition that both the league and the Yorks would deal with him - assurances he soon got.
"There's still a lot of work to be done in terms of infrastructure, cleanup and financing (at the Hunters Point site), and if Carmen can help make progress in that direction, it's a very positive move," 49ers spokeswoman Lisa Lang said. "But it doesn't change the current situation of what we're doing in Santa Clara."
The arrangement allows the Yorks to continue pursuing the South Bay stadium while San Francisco works to assure the league that it has an alternative plan lined up in case the South Bay effort falls flat.
It also means that the Yorks won't actually have to campaign for the San Francisco deal - a commitment that virtually would force them to stay in the city if voters approved the plan.
"So we will be stomping the streets of San Francisco and campaigning, while they sit back and let everyone do the heavy lifting," Policy said.
Much of that lifting, by the way, is already being done by Lennar's local development rep, Kofi Bonner, who - yes - worked under Policy in Cleveland.