In the dark with Susan Leal and PG&E
vs. 
During last night's City Desk News Hour, the Chronicle's Marshall Kilduff, Cecelia Vega, Rachel Gordon, Marisa Lagos, and I were discussing SFPUC appointments and the ouster of manager Susan Leal -- which I blamed at least in part on PG&E's influence -- when suddenly the power went out in the television studio. Wow, we joked, PG&E was really playing hardball now. The lights and cameras came back on after about 10 minutes and we finished the show, careful not to again anger those with power (well, OK, not really).
Yet the real news on the SFPUC/PG&E/Leal front was made on the second half of the show (which is actually taped earlier in the day, whereas our part is live) when host Barbara Taylor interviewed Leal, her first extended comments since she was inexplicably fired by Mayor Gavin Newsom and then hit by a car in front of City Hall. Leal said she was more shocked than anyone that she was sacked by Newsom -- who, to her face, said she was doing a fine job -- and she still doesn't fully understand it. But she did lay out some possibilities, including her public power moves that upset PG&E and innovative green programs that upstaged the moribund Mayor's Office.
If you have Comcast cable, check out the show on Channel 11 when it replays tonight and Sunday night, both at 8:30 p.m.
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Comments (1)
I think that Leal is being fired because Newsom needs more landing spots for his growing patronage army. Now that Newsom is seeking higher office, those spots need to be diverted from Leal's growing coterie of flacks towards Newsom's ascension.
Lost in this discussion, of course, is that fact that Newsom's own judgment on who should manage a key department has been proven wrong as it was Newsom himself who appointed Leal to head the PUC.
As Newsom moves to consolidate power as a springboard, he risks alienating the very constituencies upon which he has relied. The frat boy sense of entitlement over at the Bull Pen is back after being temporarily banished prior to the election with the dispatching of Ragone out of City Hal. As annoying as they are, such antics serve to highlight Newsom's own inability to deliver city services against the backdrop of his narcissism, bringing common anti-Newsom, anti-downtown cause to neighborhood folks and progressives alike.
Are we seeing another incarnation of the Moscone coalition, 30 years hence?
-marc
Posted by marc | February 18, 2008 12:15 PM