Mayor Gavin Newsom
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Luke Thomas
May 7, 2008
Citing budgetary constraints, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced Friday his veto of legislation that would expand City Hall transparency and sunshine.
“I support open government and believe the goal is laudable,” Newsom wrote in a letter dated April 30 to Board of Supervisors Clerk Angela Calvillo. “However, it is extremely difficult to justify expanding our City Watch Services at this moment when I have directed other departments to make cuts to vital services and reductions in staff.”
The letter conspicuously omits hefty pay raises gifted in January to inner-circle loyalists ahead of news reports highlighting Newsom’s gubernatorial ambitions.
Authored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and co-sponsored by Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Chris Daly, the legislation mandates all City Hall meetings to be video or audio recorded and made available on the City’s website.
The cost of the program includes a one-time new equipment cost of $55,000 and a recurring annual labor/administrative cost of $76,000. According to Mirkarimi, the equipment cost would be funded by a capital grant already negotiated in the City’s Cable Franchise Agreement with Comcast.
Commenting on Newsom’s veto, Mirkarimi told Fog City Journal, “I think the veto is foolish and misguided. The mayor is not taking into account that for $76,000 a year we are offsetting potential litigation and the accusation that this government is not transparent or practices full disclosure.”
“And here was a perfect remedy to advance our commitment to sunshine,” Mirkarimi added.
On April 15 the Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 in support of the legislation. Supervisors Sophie Maxwell, Jake McGoldrick, Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd voted against the ordinance.
The following week, support for the legislation increased to 7-3 when Supervisor Maxwell changed her vote. Supervisor McGoldrick, who cited a need for budget items to go through the Budget and Finance Committee, was absent during the second and final vote.
“It’s not a huge sum of money, but I wanted the item to go through the Budget Committee,” McGoldrick explained to Fog City Journal yesterday.
As is customary, the Board of Supervisors will have an opportunity as soon as next Tuesday to vote up or down against Newsom’s veto.
Eight votes are required to override a mayoral veto placing Supervisor McGoldrick in the unenviable position of deciding the legislation’s fate.
Luke Thomas
Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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The Hunger Site
May 8, 2008 at 8:17 am
For a far more rational, reasoned and responsible update on the Lennar, Newsom, Maxwell – Bayview Hunters Point Boondoggle, I recommend two recent columns by Randy Shaw at BeyondChron:
The case against Prop G.
Lennar’s Prop G. Vision or Mirage
May 8, 2008 at 7:34 am
I didnt think it was possible to have an administration more beholden to the corporate special interests than most of those we have suffered under in the last few decades. Almost makes one wish for a return of Slick Willie. At least he had chutzpah, a sense of humor and an authentic personality. This jumped up, arrogant, devious little man is a disgrace. His use of public funds and resources to advance his own political career is blatant and despicable, maybe even actionable. His recent series of stump speeches presented as “Town Hall Meetings; his refusal to engage in public dialog with our elected representatives; the installation of his gubernatorial campaign, state of the art “War Room”; salary increases and appointments for his inner circle and campaign staff; his racking up of frequent flyer miles under the pretense of conducting city business; his subservience to speculators, developers and his ‘downtown’ paymasters. All the while pleading poverty and proposing inhumane cuts in vital health and human services.
We have to stop enabling him and get him back in treatment, for a whole bunch of reasons. Even Mutt and Jeff, his lap-dogs at the Chronicle, yesterday acknowledged the writing on the wall for Lennar, one of his most venal assosciates. Let’s send him a message that we’re mad as hell and ain’t gonna take no more.
YES ON F. NO ON G.
Put the pretentious little puppet back in his box – NO NEWSOM FOR GOVERNOR.
No more Madame Pelosi – CINDY FOR CONGRESS.
Save our homes – YES ON 99. NO ON 98
Patrick Monk.RN. Noe Valley.
May 7, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Amen, Sue! The veto is highly suspicious. It indicates there must be a lot of blatant corruption revealed at these meetings. What is Gavin so eager to hide?
May 7, 2008 at 9:53 am
Let’s see … I’m famously bad at math, but I think I can figure this one out. Fifty-five thousand dollars plus $76,000 equals $131,000. Yet Mayor Newsom vetoes an expenditure of of this amount to improve our local democracy — purportedly for budgetary reasons — all the while firing Susan Leal, head of the SFPUC, at a cost of over $400,000 (due to her severance package) and creating the new position of climate czar for political advisor Wade Crowfoot, at a salary of about $160,000. (Don’t we already have a Department of the Environment?) If the mayor is concerned about the financial state of the city, somehow, these decisions just aren’t adding up.