Art Agnos For Mayor Deal Would Come as Surprise to Art Agnos

Art Agnos certainly can dress the part if chosen to be mayor...

​A Monday Chronicle article rehashing the many roads board president David Chiu may take to cling to power included an eye-catching  reference to a hypothetical "deal" to "support the likes of former Mayor Art Agnos" as the city's next mayor.

Well, it was eye-catching to Agnos, at least. If there's a plan under way to put him back in Room 200, he says he doesn't know anything about it.

"I am not part and parcel of any deal at all," Agnos says. As the former mayor has told SF Weekly before, he's talked to many of the supes about how he'd be willing to serve as a caretaker mayor throughout the year 2011.

Agnos sees a distinction between "wanting" the job and saying you'll take it if offered. He also stressed that he's not "campaigning" and "I haven't asked anybody for a vote."

When asked what supervisors he's spoken with in the past couple of weeks, he declined to say. But he did volunteer that one supe he hasn't talked to is David Chiu.

Chiu hasn't returned SF Weekly's calls -- and, earlier this month, he declined to answer when asked if he actually wanted to be this city's next mayor. City Hall sources, however, said everyone in that building is "taking it as a given" that he does.

If so, 2011 promises to potentially be the yearlong winter of David Chiu's discontent. For any number of truly horrifying reasons, the next few months will be a terrible time to be in charge of this city. A kamikaze pilot may have a better career prospectus than our next mayor.

"This is not the stuff of a future in politics," notes Agnos.