San Francisco News Blog

But that's not what did it for us. Despite the sheer unpleasantness of this interview, the takeaway was how, after excoriating Plante for focusing on "the past," when finally asked questions about the city's budget deficit, all Newsom could think to say was "It's a big deficit" and "it's a challenge." Plante had to all but stage-mother Newsom to get anything more than that.

It appears Newsom has been taking his interview etiquette lessons from Crash Davis. It also prompts the question: Which is worse -- for Newsom to sanctimoniously avoid the press or to deign to speak with reporters yet blow off reasonable questions and come off as utterly contemptuous and condescending? Experts we tracked down say it's the latter.

After a while, they all blend into one another; the terms "Dear Mr. Joe," "AMAZING!" and "Your readers" become one big Evel Knievel toilet. Until now. That's because we've gotten an e-mail -- from a man and a company we're going to do a massive favor to and not name -- offering San Franciscans "fun" suggestions of what to do when waiting in line to hear Sarah Palin speak.

Allow that statement to wash over you as you gargle its ridiculousness. Because if there's one thing San Franciscans need, it's a way to pass the tedious hours as they wait in block-busting lines to hear the dulcet tones of Sarah Palin.

The vote pertained to a subject we covered earlier this year: the Navy's dissolution of the Restoration Advisory Board, a citizen's group that oversaw the military's clean-up of the radioactive waste at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The RAB members had turned against each other -- one half accuse the other half of grandstanding at the cost of getting anything done, the other half accuse the others of rubber-stamping the Navy's plans. After much rancor, the Navy couldn't take the chaos anymore and shut the board down. 

At Tuesday's board meeting, Supervisor John Avalos introduced legislation urging the Navy to resurrect the RAB. Maxwell stepped in with an amendment to give the Navy the option of creating other forums for community outreach -- just like the Navy has already been doing since taking away the soap box from its most vociferous critics.
 

Carole Migden

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Every day it seems like there's another name to add to the list of potential candidates thinking about running for the supervisor seat in District 10 (Bayview-Hunters Point, Potrero Hill). Well, today you can take one person's name off that list: Former State Sen. Carole Migden.

Migden tells SF Weekly that she's going to step aside and let a new generation of politicos compete for the seat being vacated by termed-out Supervisor Sophie Maxwell. "I'm more in a position of wishing them well and allowing them to proceed," Migden said.

Yet it seems unclear just how many workers stand to lose their jobs. First we heard it was well over 500. Then in the flier announcing last week's boisterous City Hall protest, the number 500 was bandied about. Then, the number 100 found its way into the press. And, today, we saw "45 to 70." What's the correct answer? Well, all of them -- depending on whom you ask.

In this case, we asked SEIU organizer Robert Haaland, and he answered 546. But there's an explanation that goes with that. Yes, 546 people are slated to be laid off. But the vast majority of them will almost certainly be hired back by the city.

Having a mayor acting a little bit loopy is an interesting novelty for a while, just as it was to have a former action star or pro wrestler serving as a state governor. But, barring Ed McMahon heading to City Hall and handing stunned city controller Ben Rosenfeld an oversize check, this city is in dire financial straits right now. And this kind of political theater begins to lose its charm when people begin to throw around terms like "insolvency," and "deficit" while coupling them with figures exceeding $50 million.

That's why it's a mistake to think the media is giving Newsom a hard time over his self-imposed press blackout because we feel threatened. Rather, we feel a bit cheated. This is a mayor whose critics -- with some merit -- have accused him of governing by press release. When you take the press releases away, well, then what? Newsom's not saying. And as for the notion that the mayor is now going "directly to the people" -- this is an awesomely half-baked concept. As if globetrotting, gadabout Gavin Newsom needed more ways to resemble "Where's Waldo," now he's randomly popping up at receptions, open mic nights, and, for all we know, keggers at S.F. State.

"Even if he's licking his wounds after the gubernatorial race, Newsom can still give the appearance of running the show -- and he's not," one veteran political consultant told us. "This not talking to the press is just not good." Added another: "In bad times, sometimes the most valuable thing an elected official can provide is that ephemeral quality called leadership."

On a serious note, Ryan's departure comes one day after that of spokesman Nathan Ballard, and on the heels of a number of key members of Team Newsom bidding adieu.

Whether or not this is business as usual or the prelude to more bizarre behavior by the mayor is a matter of opinion; while longtime consultant Jack Davis couldn't think of another San Francisco mayor who suffered such a bevy of resignations at this point in his tenure, fellow consultant Alex Clemens noted that "People move on in politics -- this is not a Japanese salaryman profession where the first job you get is what you retire from."

That's certainly true; political apparatchiks move from job to job with the abandon of assistant football coaches. Still, the glut of high-profile figures resigning from Newsom's campaign while the mayor's political prospects fade and his behavior sinks past eccentric to legitimately strange is difficult to rule out as irrelevant -- no matter how many departing officials assure the media that this was in the works for months, that the mayor is a great man doing a great job, and they want to spend so much more precious time with their families.

This takes the wind out of the sails of the Progressive Armada, which had been planning a showdown today regarding legislation that would have spent around $8 million to stave off layoffs of union health workers and rescinded pay freezes. Now, noted Deputy Controller Monique Zmuda, the supes are forbidden from passing such measures unless they hack an equivalent amount out of the city budget or devise revenue-boosting measures (fees or taxes).

It didn't take long for accusations to be made that this cry of insolvency was a veiled political move. SEIU organizer Robert Haaland commented on SF Weekly's Web site that "I smell not only one rat but several." Supervisor John Avalos, author of some of the union-friendly legislation, complained to the Chronicle that the controller's report was "a little bit cooked" and included totals that were harmful to his cause and left out totals that were beneficial.

Zmuda told SF Weekly she can't remember the last time her office was accused of playing partisan politics. She methodically explained that the smell of rodentia isn't emanating from our city -- that's the odor of nightmarish financial shortfalls.

Yet it was a mirage. What good does it do to dump on Ballard when you can pick him up and toss him at your real target -- Gavin Newsom? (See: Daly, Chris) 

Still, others think Ballard is irreplaceable -- or at least hope he is. They're encouraging Newsom to do the ailing city budget a favor by not hiring anyone to take Ballard's place (the mayor is down to his last three or four spokesmen with Ballard on the way out).

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi told SF Weekly he will encourage the mayor's office to go with one fewer spokesman. And, if he gets the backing, he may be doing more than just asking.

But as the San Francisco Chronicle reported, there's already one obvious problem with Dunn's candidacy, and it's a big one: Despite aspiring to an elected position in which his duties would include administering state elections, Dunn has only voted once in his life. In May, the 33-year-old made it to the polls for the first time.

We can do better

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Dunn joins a slate of other GOP hopefuls for statewide office who have spotty voting records, including gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, who's running for the U.S. Senate. In the Chron story, state GOP Chairman Ron Nehring said the campaign effort of a political newbie such as Dunn "challenges existing stereotypes and inspires others from a variety of backgrounds to seek elected offices."

Right. Demonstrated apathy toward the political process is just what California needs as it teeters on the edge of Armageddon. But Nehring may have a point. Following his reasoning, we here at SF Weekly would like to suggest a few other potential candidates, from a variety of backgrounds and with the requisite ignorance of government, whom Republicans might consider as they look toward the 2010 elections: 

And yet, Newsom's legitimately bizarre behavior since he withdrew from the governor's race made the severance of his 12-day Twitter silence into newsworthy fodder for both the Chronicle and local television stations. Yet the news for Newsom's attention-starved 1,239,249 Twitter followers was even better than reported on TV. Newsom authored not one but two Tweets in the past two days; soon he may yet begin speaking in complete sentences to reporters and his colleagues in city government.

Yet if we're going to cover the ephemera of Tweets, we're going to have to really cover the ephemera -- so we'll be nit-picky and point out that neither the Chron nor TV got the story quite right. As noted above, television reports didn't catch that Newsom sent two messages instead of one. The Chron reported that both messages were sent on the same day when they came on Nov. 10 and Nov. 11. And neither reported that Newsom is still listed as "Candidate for Governor of California" in his Twitter bio.

If only there were a method of rapidly conveying short messages that Newsom could utilize to instantly inform millions of people that he's dropped out of the gubernatorial race. What a pity. 

Dennis Herrera, man in the middle

​In a letter to U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello, posted on the city attorney's Web site, Herrera asks that Russoniello "provide an assurance that if the City proceeds to implement this Amendment... City law enforcement officers and employees will not be prosecuted for violating federal criminal laws." The city law revises the sanctuary ordinance so undocumented juveniles would only be reported to federal immigration authorities if convicted of a crime -- not after they are arrested, which is the current city policy.

Herrera's letter goes on to state that if the U.S. Attorney's office does not provide "an adequate assurance" of city employees' freedom from criminal liability under the new sanctuary policy, the city might file for declaratory relief in federal court -- essentially asking a judge to decide the matter.

A crowd gathers around Supervisor David Campos after today's veto override

​"This veto override cannot really take effect," Newsom spokesman Nathan Ballard said immediately after the vote, which took place at today's full board meeting. Ballard contended that the legislation cannot be enforced because it conflicts with federal immigration law. "The board can't force our law-enforcement officials to break federal law." He added, "We've got to protect our city officials from symbolic gestures like this bill, no matter how well-intentioned it is."

Supervisor David Campos, the bill's chief sponsor, anticipated this response in his remarks before the vote on the ordinance, which passed 8-3 with Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd voting no. "It is unfortunate that we are at this point," Campos said. "It saddens and pains me to say that what we hear from the mayor is that he is going to ignore the democratic process that's been followed."

Lauren Smiley

Supervisor David Campos meets the press after initial passage of his ordinance in October

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With a vote of 8-3 (Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Sean Elsbernd dissenting), the supes adopted a new policy in which law enforcement would not be required to inform immigration authorities of a juvenile's status until after he or she is convicted of a felony.

A more complete writeup is forthcoming.




 

Meanwhile, one has to wonder: If Gavin finally leaves his office at Room 200, sees his shadow, and retreats within, will we have six more weeks of budget deficits?

Still, a handful of longtime City Hall employees seemed unfazed by The Gavin Newsom Reality TV Show currently not being filmed by the pod of increasingly cranky reporters hanging out in front of the mayor's office. "Gavin's MO is to get out of his hybrid Tahoe, walk briskly to and from his office -- and he has a suite of offices -- and not come out," said one City Hall insider. "Like most politicians who get a lot of press attention -- particularly this one, because he's so bad with people -- he walks briskly to his office. And he always has two police guards with him to keep everyone away he doesn't want to talk to."

Adds another longtime City Hall employee (and, by the way, these are all folks whose names you'd know if you follow politics closely in this city), "The mayor is never around City Hall. He does his presntation of the city budget, and pops up at press conferences or to announce initiatives at random locations around the city. That's his role."

The takeaway: "My mayor sightings are few and far-between," said a City Hall insider. Now "the only big deal is that the mayor is being weird."

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Has Newsom ever before gone cold turkey on the Twitter before? Surely you can't Tweet everything. Well, the answers to those questions are "not really" and "unfortunately, you can."

Newsom has been Tweeting ever since December of 2007 and has amassed 520 Tweets -- but he didn't start Tweeting compulsively until this year. Scrolling through his feed, a gap of even more than two days is rare in this the modern Tweeting era, though he has gone on hiatus for up to six days at a time (He Tweeted "Hitting the trail hard next couple weeks. Town halls in Long Beach, OC, SAC and Riverside. Hope to see you." on Aug. 4 and "Talked with company, @Kiva that is changing lives through micro-lending on my radio show. Podcast is up" on Aug. 10, for example).

Back in his primordial Twitter days -- that'd be December and January, he once went a full 14 days between Tweets (Dec. 31: "Help me launch my campaign for Governor, go to www.GavinNewsom.com/Contribute and give $5 before midnight tonight!". Jan. 14: "Great day for equality. Aide announces that President Obama will end "don't ask, don't tell" http://tinyurl.com/7d4yjs12:27 AM Jan 14th from web."). And, finally, back in the Pleistocene Newsom went between December of '07 and October of '08 between Tweets. 

Following last week's embarrassing quasi-meltdown, many members of Mayor Gavin Newsom's staff were blissfully unaware he'd headed to the Aloha State -- and the haste with which he left the continent called into question who, exactly, was acting mayor.

Well, never again. SF Weekly has garnered a sneak peek at the handy-dandy new chart that will now hang outside City Hall's Room 200.

Accountability at last!

Image | Audrey Fukuman

 

John Grubb, a spokesman for the Bay Area Council, confirmed what SF Weekly had heard through the grapevine: Reilly will direct his first campaign in 14 years in leading the charge for a state constitutional convention.

"I can't discuss details of his contract," said Grubb. "But let's just say we're getting a really good deal for the advice we're getting."

The Bay Area Council is a consortium of the region's 75 largest employers, including folks you've heard of such as Google, Yahoo, Wells Fargo, BART, The Chronicle -- and Clint Reilly.

Messages for Reilly have not yet been returned. But Grubb had an interesting rationale of why the BAC would, in essence, opt to play its coming political match with a wooden tennis racquet. 

​On the one hand, following Mayor Gavin Newsom's abrupt withdrawal from the governor's race, he spent quality time back in a beautiful city nestled in the bosom of the Pacific. On the other hand -- it was in Hilo, Hawaii.

When you take off for an impromptu jaunt several thousand miles away from City Hall and even your top aides don't know where you are -- well, gifts are in order. Here's a gift guide from the Aloha State:

Acting Mayor Carmen Chu: T-shirt reading "I was controversial acting mayor and all I got was this lousy T-shirt," size small. Also, macadamia nuts.

Board President David Chiu: T-shirt reading "I shoulda been acting mayor and all I got was this lousy T-shirt," also size small. And macadamia nuts.

Mayoral Spokesman Nathan Ballard: A new chair to replace the one that is now unusable after he realized the mayor took off to Hawaii without telling him.

The promised land

​The city's Public Utilities Commission and Local Agency Formation Commission -- commonly known as LAFCo, the commission helps formulate energy policy -- yesterday issued a Request for Proposals from potential bidders who would run the program. Called CleanPowerSF, the initiative is a "community choice aggregation" plan that would allow the city to pool all its power customers together and offer them to a private supplier.

CleanPowerSF's purpose is to break up PG&E's monopoly on the city's power supply, ushering in more renewable and local sources of energy. (As such, it has the support of many "public power" advocates, who have supported past unsuccessful efforts to gain voter approval for a city takeover of PG&E's local power grid.) But the softened bid requirements -- in particular the loosening of the city's commitment to CleanPowerSF providing rates for customers at or below those of PG&E -- raise questions about where the effort is headed. In theory, the less stringent bid request could lead to a program that is less green, and more expensive for the city's ratepayers, than what CleanPowerSF proponents have promised.

Sing along with our erstwhile mayor, Gavin Newsom, as he belts out the SF Weekly original tune, "If I Were a Nice Man," (to the tune of "If I Were a Rich Man" of Fiddler on the Roof fame. At last, the great Topol/Zero Mostel debate is over: Gavin is the greatest Tevye of them all!). We hear this tune is very popular now in Hawaii, thanks in large part to Newsom (along with Hawaiians' traditional love of Broadway musicals).

Click above to listen. Lyrics below:

So, what does this mean for California? Oddly enough, yesterday's Maine election seems to appear as all things to all people. Those dead-set on attempting to repeal Proposition 8 on the 2010 ballot see this as all the more impetus to get cracking. And those hoping to wait until 2012 point out how this startling failure indicates the benefits of waiting for the right time to unhorse Prop. 8, not merely the soonest.

Today, Restore Equality 2010 unveiled its "Million for a Million" fund-raising campaign, hoping to amass the cash necessary to garner the million signatures necessary to get a same-sex marriage initiative onto the 2010 ballot. Spokesman Jeffrey Taylor told SF Weekly that there's no time to lose in getting back on the ballot -- "I think waiting for [elderly anti-gay marriage voters] to die is not a very nice strategy." Added Robert Polzoni from Yes! On Equality, "We believe 2010 is still viable. We can't allow those bigots and National Organization for Marriage who beat us in Maine to beat us again in California. If we wait three years, we hand them another victory."

And yet, an anonymous source within Restore Equality 2010 told us even within the ranks of organizations pushing for a 2010 initiative, trouble is brewing. There are those who favor delaying a ballot measure if polling and fund-raising doesn't materialize, and others who favor a 2010 initiative come hell or high water. Our source does not believe the latter possess the ability to gather the necessary million signatures on their own.  

Daly is entitled to write whatever he pleases -- and, on Fog City Journal, it seems he can truly write whatever he pleases; the Web site serves as the Kato Kaelin to Daly's O.J. Simpson.

But we are also entitled -- and some would say obligated -- to point out that the central premise of Daly's diatribe, that articles in SF Weekly and San Francisco Magazine are part of "The Big Rollout," that shadowy, high-placed apparatchiks of downtown sidled up to us and said "Hey kiddo, I'm rich and powerful and I've got a pitch for you" -- is bunk. Not only is it bunk, it reveals a lot more about Daly than about Sparks (or us). Along with a large portion of the city's hard left, Daly seems disturbingly eager to engage in paranoid conspiracy theories.

According to the city's Department of Elections, just 56.6 percent of San Francisco's 451,861 voters are registered Democrats (it's not as if the party is sweating bullets; only 42,089 are Republicans, 8,776 are Greens, while 133,577 are "decline to state/non-partisan").

According to an interesting list of "the most partisan districts in California" in Capitol Weekly, the most Democrat-friendly realm in all the state is Assembly District 52 -- Compton -- with 70.9 percent of all registered voters aligned with the Dems. The second-most Dem-heavy district is AD 48 (Los Angeles). Three through five are: AD 46 (Huntington Park) 65.7; AD 16 (Oakland) 65.5; and AD 47 (Culver City) 64.9. 

When we spoke with Department of Elections head John Arntz Monday, he reported that around 49,000 of the 183,849 absentee ballots mailed to San Franciscans had been returned. San Francisco's Department of Elections doesn't project voter turnouts -- but they do acknowledge the obvious. This is a crap turnout; "It's tracking more like a special election," admits Arntz. It also figures that more people will vote via mail than in person. So the above numbers point to two things: Folks don't care about this election (probable) or folks notice their absentee ballots sitting beneath a pile of unopened letters and figure "eh, too late."

Well, if you had the ballot mailed to your domicile a month prior to election day and consciously chosen to blow it off -- hey, that's on you. But if you're figuring the deadline has passed to return those absentee envelopes -- you're wrong. Here's how.

​Brown's office has released a resignation letter from Gerber, dated today, in which the former head of the AG's press office admits to "serious errors in judgment." He continues, "I suspect that the few reporters involved in the calls I taped would have readily said yes, but nonetheless it was wrong not to ask them first." Gerber states that, "as a result of my actions, I realize that I can no longer effectively serve the Office of the Attorney General."

Last week, the Chronicle reported that Gerber had taped an on-the-record conversation with Chron political reporter Carla Marinucci and two senior staff attorneys from the attorney general's office. While his actions were probably not illegal under state law, they ran counter to the typical protocols followed by both reporters and government spokespeople, and caused an unwelcome scandal for Brown, the current front-runner in the 2010 governor's race.

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One of the "wild rumors" Newsom has spent much time angrily dismissing -- along with the rumors he'd quit the governor's race shortly after the birth of his child, which turned out to be way off base -- was that he'd turn his flailing campaign for the top job into a more realistic shot at the lieutenant governor's seat. It's hard to rush off into a new political race moments after claiming your exit from your last race was undertaken so you could be a better father and mayor. But -- that's what politicians do.

Still, can you name our current Lt. Gov.? With the exception of Gray Davis, the position hasn't exactly served as the threshold to greatness -- and that may be the first sentence in which the terms "Gray Davis" and "greatness" were ever juxtaposed. For every Davis, there are many Garamendis, Bustamantes, and Leo McCarthys.

"I think it would be a mistake [to run for Lt. Gov.] ... if he's looking at his future," said political consultant Jim Ross, who ran Newsom's 2003 mayoral campaign. Yet Ross' opinion was far from unanimous. "I wouldn't be surprised if there's a deal in place for him to be lieutenant governor," said another Ross, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. For Newsom to drop out was "an astute decision -- but not one that was made in a vacuum."

In a statement sent to SF Weekly in response to questions about the incident, Brown staffer Christine Gasparac said the spokesman, Scott Gerber, "has been put on administrative leave and appropriate disciplinary action will be taken." The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that Gerber had recorded a conference call with Chronicle political reporter Carla Marinucci without informing her beforehand.

​"Mr. Gerber's recording of certain telephone conversations was done without Attorney General Brown's knowledge and in direct violation of explicit directions regarding office policy," Gasparac wrote. "These conversations were on the record and in no sense confidential. Nevertheless, the explicit agreement of all parties should have been obtained."

Audrey Fukuman, based on original illustration by @yiyinglu

Gavin Newsom and the Bay Bridge came up short this week

​If you see a tall, handsome man with slicked-back hair wandering forlornly through the city on Halloween, it may not be a denizen dressed as Gavin Newsom. It may be the real thing.

The mayor's traveling political roadshow came to an end today when he fired off a press release acknowledging he is dropping out of the governor's race:

"It is with great regret I announce today that I am withdrawing from
the race for governor of California. With a young family and
responsibilities at city hall, I have found it impossible to commit the
time required to complete this effort the way it needs to -- and should
be -- done...This is not an easy decision. But it is one made with the best
intentions for my wife, my daughter, the residents of the city and
county of San Francisco, and California Democrats."

Newsom was far behind Attorney General Jerry Brown in both the polls and fund-raising. It is unclear if Newsom will, as many have speculated, set his sights on the lieutenant governor's chair.

As Johnny Carson used to say, "More to come..."

What were the odds of this happening?

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In examining Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's letter to the California State Assembly in which the letters I F-U-C-K Y-O-U appear vertically down the left-hand side, it is hard to imagine that it could have happened randomly.

The letter purportedly explains Schwarzenegger's refusal to sign AB 1176 -- an ordinary piece of legislation regarding the Port of San Francisco's finances -- which happened to be sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who recently told the governator to "kiss my gay ass." Motive? Check. 

In all seriousness, we wondered what the chances were that the letters "I FUCK YOU" ended up on the page via sheer coincidence. So we called a few math professors.

Stephen Devlin, the chair of the math department at the University of San Francisco, got excited about the challenge. The first thing he had to do was estimate how frequently the letters in question generally appear at the beginning of words.