San Francisco’s Absent City Father

Gubernatorial hopeful Mayor Gavin Newsom appears more interested
in running for higher office than running the City of San Francisco.
Photo by Luke Thomas

By Patrick Monette-Shaw

February 18, 2009

You have to wonder whether it’s Mayor Gavin Newsom’s hubris (insolent pride), ego (idealization of himself), or hyperbole (exaggerated statements not meant to be taken seriously) that led him to claim in the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday, February 12, “I don’t know that you can humanly be any more engaged in this (budget) process than I already am.” Already am? Or already aren’t?

I say this because during the past 44 working days, Newsom’s appointment calendars show he has scheduled just 90 minutes of meetings specifically dealing with City budget issues. How can just 90 minutes be considered “humanly engaged”? Is Newsom again employing hyperbole?

Newsom scheduled one 30-minute meeting on January 6 with his Chief of Staff, Steve Kawa; City Controller Ben Rosenfield; and the Mayor’s Budget Director, Nani Coloretti, ostensibly about the City budget, although the calendar entry does not explicitly state the four people got together to talk about the budget for 30 minutes. Newsom scheduled another 60-minute meeting on February 3 with Board President David Chiu and Controller Rosenfield, which calendar entry did, in fact, state the purpose of the meeting was budget issues.

But that’s it. Two meetings, totaling 90 minutes (assuming the meetings ran as scheduled). Two meetings focusing on the budget, the last of which was nine days before the Chronicle story on February 12. Across 44 of Newsom’s daily “Prop G” calendars, there are a paltry 76 calendar entries, only one of which explicitly noted the purpose of the meeting was “budget issues.”

While the Chronicle reported Newsom claimed he and his staff have been meeting with labor representatives and business leaders separately for weeks, there is not one calendar entry showing Newsom met with any labor leaders during the 44 days of his calendars. The only meetings with “business leaders” involved a 60-minute meeting on January 14 during which Mr. Newsom attended the SF Hotel Council Monthly Meeting; a 150-minute calendar entry showing Mr. Newsom attended the SF Business Times Economic Forecast with Oakland’s Mayor Dellums; and a 60-minute meeting with clergy leader Fr. Gabriel Flores and others from the San Francisco Organizing Project, the latter of which is a community organization, not a business organization per se.

If Newsom has been meeting with Labor leaders, he’s not including notice of those appointments on his Prop G calendars, violating, at minimum, the spirit of San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance.

The Chronicle reported Newsom claims he has been “extensively involved in the [City’s] budget process, despite multiple out-of-state trips all on city business” that reportedly “kept him out of City Hall for almost one-third of January.” Well, let’s look at the facts.

Newsom’s out-of-state trips in January totaled eight weekdays, admittedly one-third of January. [Note: One of the eight days fell on a City holiday, so it really shouldn’t even count, but let’s be generous.] Two of the eight weekdays involved attending the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s meeting in Washington (one on a City holiday); his calendar blocked out just two hours to attend those meetings out of the 16 hours across both days. A third weekday was spent in Washington, but his calendar only blocked out 3.5 hours to attend President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Three more weekdays were spent in Paris involving a “sister-city” trip; across these three days, his calendar blocked just 3, out of 24, available hours. Newsom spent another two weekdays in Davos, Switzerland attending the World Economic Forum meetings, but again, only two hours out of the 16 hours available were actually blocked out for this meeting.

So across the 64 hours available during his eight weekdays out-of-town, only 7 hours were booked on his calendar (excluding the 3.5 hours for the presidential inauguration) that could potentially be attributed to “City business.” Besides, it’s a stretch to consider the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, a sister-City trip, and a world economic meeting as “official” City business.

And why would a mayor “extensively involved” with the City’s budget process be out of town for a third of January, spending only 7 hours on quasi-official City business during a third of the month?

Laughably, Newsom claimed to the Chronicle that “his own budget meetings with a variety of City leaders have to take precedence over” attending meetings arranged last week by Board President David Chiu. That would be the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” or the “Emperor’s New Meetings,” since Newsom last scheduled meeting on the topic of “budget issues” was on February 3, attended by the City Controller, and before that, on January 6, also with the City Controller. What precedence is he talking about?

The only City leaders Newsom met with during his five working days preceding the Chronicle’s February 12 article were Supervisor Carmen Chu for 90 minutes, and Supervisor David Campos for 30 minutes, both on Wednesday, February 11 that were both billed to discuss district, not budget, issues. By way of contrast, Newsom also booked 30 minutes for a photo opportunity with artist Bill Fontana just last Monday, February 9, which apparently also took priority over budget meetings involving Supervisor Chiu and anyone else, along with another 60-minute photo shoot for a local magazine on January 6. Let’s understand this irony: A total of 90 minutes for photo shoots, and an equal 90 minutes devoted to “budget issue” meetings, as if they are synonymous?

But enough about Newsom being “humanly engaged” with the City’s budget. What about the rest of his time?

Of the 21,120 minutes of time available during 44 weekdays between December 12 and February 11, Newsom scheduled no appointments whatsoever for nearly 63 percent of his weekday time. He was out of town for 16 percent of the time (counting only 7 days), and another 6.8 percent of his time included three official City paid holidays.

Newsom devoted as much time to press announcements and interviews (approximately three days, or 1,410 minutes), as he earned for paid City holidays. He booked a scant 210 minutes with only 6 of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors, all of which was booked as time to discuss “District Issues,” except for 30 minutes when he met with Board President David Chiu on January 15 over an unstated issue (Newsom booked a total of 90 minutes with Supervisor Chiu, 60 minutes of which was with Controller Rosenfield on February 3). The five Board members Newsom failed to meet with during the past 44 weekdays include Supervisors Avalos, Mar, Maxwell, Daly, and Mirkarimi.

Looking at it another way, Newsom prioritized City holidays, being out of town, not scheduling meetings, and spending a significant portion of time governing by press release, worthy of 92.3 percent of his time, and actual City business just 7.7 percent of his time worth scheduling appointments for:

A fair question may be how much time Newsom is running the City, rather than running for governor. I don’t see where he’s been “extensively involved” with the City budget.

Me? I think he’s just running on hyperbole, again. Another often-absent City father.

More Info

Calendar entries from Mr. Newsom’s 44 “Prop G” calendars were copied into Microsoft Excel, and assigned a category of the type of meeting. Subtotals of the number of minutes for each category were then calculated. For instance, the Category “Meetings with Mayor’s Staff Members” involved meetings with three people of Newsom’s staff (Steve Kawa, Jason Chan, and Michael Cohen). The “Department Head – Individual” category included two 30-minutes meetings with the City Attorney, and 30-minute meetings with the Director of the MTA and the SF USD Superintendent. The “Meetings and Conferences” category includes meetings with the U.S. Interagency Council on Homeless, and the California Mayor’s Education Roundtable. The “Business and Community Leaders” category included the SF Hotel Council Monthly Meeting, the SF Business Times Economic Forecast with Mayor Dellums, and a meeting with the SFOP. The “Ceremonial Duties” category included attending a Black History Month Celebration, the installation ceremony for the Northern California Chinese Media Association, the United Educators San Francisco Rally, the Board of Supervisor’s Swearing-in Ceremony, and attending Project Homeless Connect. The “Press Announcements/Interviews” category included all appointments noting interviews with local press members, radio station interviews and radio show tapings, phone interviews with local press members, and all appointments marked “press announcement.” The “Budget Meetings” category included two meetings: One with Supervisor Chiu and City Controller Ben Rosenfield, marked as a “Budget Issues” appointment; the other was with Newsom’s Chief of Staff Steve Kawa, Controller Rosenfield, and the Mayor’s Budget Director, Nani Colorretti. The remaining categories are self-explanatory.

FCJ Editor

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