Hey, did Gavin think about this?We know at this point that Mayor Newsom didn't seek legal counsel before he decided to ask for everyone who runs anything in town to resign. If he had, and he'd thought about it a little bit, he might have discovered what City Attorney Dennis Herrera did: This could cost the city big money.
I'm not talking about lawsuits by forcibly resigned employees -- Newsom had ever legal right to do what he did. No, what's fascinating is a two-sentence note at the end of the city attorney's seven-page opinion on the mass resignations. It says:
"The resignations of certain department heads or commissioner may present other legal issues for the City depending on the particular facts and circumstances. For example, There could be questions about whether to make public disclosures under certain City bonds or municipal debt issuances."
What that means is that the city might have to notify the financial markets -- the bond holders and brokers -- about the mass almost-firings, the same way a company that holds public debt would have to notify debtors that all of its senior staff had resigned.
If the bond-rating agencies decide that a mass exodus of all the experience and talent managing the city is a bad thing for San Francisco's financial stability, we could see a downgrading of our bonds -- and that could cost us a lot of money.
I wonder if Gavin ever thought about that.
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Comments (5)
uh, excuse me...
anyone that does not live here knows how fucked up we all are in head and that mass resignations could be the best thing to happen to any sitting administration
we are all guilty of smoking our own poles so to speak
i bet our credit worthiness goes up, not down
just with we could force all the stupidvisors out too
Posted by james | September 21, 2007 11:53 PM
um james, he's apparently firing people he already hired, so does that mean he's not good at picking out people?
and don't forget, he has already said no one is going to go to the unemployment office - they'll just get another job with the city.
swiss cheese, meet SF city politics...
Posted by notjames | September 22, 2007 12:29 PM
He should of used the word re-organize.
Posted by Jerry Jarvis | September 23, 2007 02:44 AM
Yes, he's firing people he hired, which raises questions about his management. But he's also taking the wimps way out -- asking everyone to resign instead of simply firing the people he wants to fire.
This does not speak well for the way the city is run.
Posted by tim redmond | September 24, 2007 02:31 PM
If we could get rid of all of the Democratic machine hires, and replace a chunk of city employees with private contractors, maybe we'd be on to running the city with the residents and taxpayers in mind.
SF needs to ditch about half it's employees and start looking at how to run things better.
Gavin has every right to start with a clean slate in a new term, and asking for resignations isn't that unusual...
Posted by ChristopherX | September 25, 2007 12:42 AM