What is the new new "low" in city politics? It sure isn't Daly, Newsom, and the cocaine use charges. Public Power SOS: scroll down for the news and the action alert
By Bruce B. Brugmann
On the front page of today's San Francisco Chronicle, June 2l, Mayor Gavin Newsom is pictured, grim, scowling, arms clenched, over this caption:
"Mayor Gavin Newsom denies Supervisor Chris Daly's suggestion that he has used cocaine. "That's how low politics now has gotten in this city, and I seriously thought it couldn't get much worse."
The story by City Hall Reporter Cecilia M. Vega had this head: "CITY HALL UPROAR AT COCAINE CLAIM," with this subhead, "Angry Newsom blasts Daly for bringing politics to a new low."
This jolly back and forth, I submit, is far from a new low. (See City Editor Steve Jones's blog in our politics blog.)
For starters, I would submit there is a new new low and a most timely new new low at that. This new new low is the fact that Newsom, despite the public power mandates of the federal Raker Act, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the crucial Ammiano/Mirkarimi CCA legislation approved by the Supervisors only last Tuesday, reversed his public pledges supporting CCA and public power and clambered into bed in hot embrace on Tuesday with PG&E. (See my previous blog.) He allowed PG&E to call the shots in a PG&E-arranged and PG&E- promoted press conference at the Presidio announcing that the city in effect was turning over its public study of tidal power to the private utility that has perpetuated the PG&E/Raker Act scandal for decades.
This is the new new low: the scandal of how the mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, after PG&E has privatized and stolen the city's cheap, green Hetch Hetchy power, and after PG&E helped privatize and steal the Presidio, was in effect turning over the choppy waters of the bay and the ocean to PG&E to privatize and steal. Incredible. Newsom was doing his damndest to put PG&E in the catbird seat on the next giant step on power generation and to further entrench the illegal private utility in City Hall. No wonder Newsom gets so "agitated" over the handy dandy issue of whether he did or did not use cocaine.
Even the Chronicle's Vega figured something was amiss when she wrote up the PG&E/Newsom announcement story on Wednesday. She put in her lead five consecutive paragraphs that laid out how (a) Newsom in September held a news conference "in the same Crissy field location in front of the same backdrop and announced another study on how to harness the tides in the bay to create power." (b) That Newsom in his Tuesday news conference was talking about the third city-backed study on tidal power in two years. (c) That he used the same phrases in both news conferences to describe the potential of generating power from the bay tides: "This is not science fiction." (D) That there was a crucial difference between the two press conferences: the Tuesday conference was a PG&E press conference and Vega drove home the point with this paragraph, "Only this study, paid for mainly by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., will be 'the most comprehensive study yet,' promised a (B3: PG&E) press release distributed at the event." The headline did away with her subtleties: "PG&E backs new study of bay's tidal power." Bully for Cecilia M. Vega and her editor back in the office. Now: go after the new new low and the the PG&E/Raker Act scandal angle!
SOS news tip: Newsom may veto the CCA legislation, Guardian reporter Amanda Witherell reported late this afternoon. She said that Sierra Club representatives spent much of the day talking with officials in the Mayor's office who told them that Newsom was mulling over whether to veto the legislation. And so the word of the Newsom high octane waffling was immediately flashed from City Hall, the CCA and public power forces sounded the alarm, and a flood of phone calls started coming in to the mayor's office.
Join the crowd and call the mayor's office of communications office at 554-6131. Tell Newsom to sober up and stop helping PG&E and the gang from doing any more privatizing and stealing of any more of San Francisco's public treasures. Now! Now! Now! Right now! B3
Click here to read Supervisor Daly's statement on mayor's health cuts.
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Comments (3)
Bruce and the staff at the Guardian should know that the Mayor's office is being inexcusably rude to anyone calling about CCA. I called Thursday and was hung up on twice, even though I was being very polite and respectful. If the press thinks Daly is out-of-line, they should see what kind of treatment we get from the Mayor's highly paid staff! It wasn't just me either. Everyone I know who called (at least 3 others) got rude treatment and at least 1 other person was also hung up on. Our tax dollars at work!! How dare we ask questions about the Mayor's position on CCA!
Posted by Erika | June 22, 2007 06:46 PM
Daly did not accuse Newsom of using cocaine; rather, the supervisor said allegations to that effect have been circulating -- which is true.
Newsom, meanwhile, has declared that Ed Jew has to prove his innocence, which seems to me to run counter to the principle of innocence assumed absent proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Perhaps the mayor should apply the same standard to himself that he wants to apply to Jew, and should immediately undergo drug testing, making sure that the entire process is open to public scrutiny.
Posted by Richard Knee | June 23, 2007 02:06 AM
Recall all the defunct Supervisors in 2008
Peskin
Mcoldick
Gay Boy Amiano
Duffay
et al
Recall the DA who had no guts to pull the switch on a Cop killer
Harris
Posted by Al | June 25, 2007 09:57 PM