Newsom's first priority

GAVIN NEWSOM WILL be sworn in as mayor Jan. 8, and if he wants to be successful, the first and most important thing for him to do is demonstrate that he's not Willie Brown. Brown leaves office with a powerful stench of corruption and a legacy of secrecy that have seriously undermined people's faith in city government. Newsom studiously avoided criticizing Brown, his political mentor, during the campaign, but also he claimed he'd be an independent mayor with an interest in real reform. The first test will be the tone he sets early on for his administration.

To his credit, Newsom is avoiding the sort of gaudy, expensive inaugural gala that was a Brown trademark. But even before he gets into major policy debates, he can send a signal that the worst of the Brown era is over by immediately taking steps to ensure that the office of Mayor Newsom is not bound by Brown's near pathological obsession with secrecy.

A few immediate moves that would send a positive message and let a few rays of sunshine into City Hall, Room 200:

• Keep a paper trail. Brown was obsessed with avoiding paper: his advisers presented information to him verbally, he wrote few or no memos, and staffers were forbidden to take notes in mayoral meetings. Newsom should inform his senior staff that all meetings should have proper minutes, all decisions should be documented in writing – and unless there are specific legal reasons to the contrary, all of the paperwork that shows what the administration is doing and how those decisions are reached should be released to the public in a timely fashion.

• Preserve Brown's files – and release them. Sunshine activists are worried – for good reason – that thousands of pages of important records from the past eight years will be destroyed or removed from the Mayor's Office when Brown leaves. As the incoming mayor, Newsom should demand, publicly, that all of his predecessor's records be preserved and should make sure that as much as possible of that material is quickly made public.

• Don't gag the staff. Brown didn't like to see his senior advisers or department heads speaking to the press without his knowledge and permission, and often even routine requests had to go through official public relations flacks. Newsom should make it clear to the press, the public, and his staff that the people involved in formulating policy and running city agencies are free to talk to reporters or community activists without clearing all comments through a sanitizing P.R. machine.

• Respect the Sunshine Ordinance. Getting even basic information out of Brown's office was a hassle, and the mayor made it clear from the start that he opposed and would just as soon abolish the sunshine laws. Newsom needs to tell his staffers at every level that they will be expected to comply with open-government statutes – and as a first step, he should designate a "sunshine officer" whose job is to facilitate public records requests and, among other things, to go through all the existing unreleased files of executive agencies in the city and look for documents that can be made public.

It will be months before the public can determine whether Newsom is going to succeed in his campaign promises and whether his administration will be free of the systemic scandal and corruption of his predecessor. But he can show almost immediately that he won't be so secretive – and that would go a long way to establishing credibility for a mayor who won with only a slim mandate.