Newsom's Friday SpecialBudget Analyst Harvey Rose says he couldn’t believe it when he got a call from the San Francisco Chronicle reporters on Feb. 8, asking him to comment on a draft report that Mayor Gavin Newsom had just released -- five days before the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to see the report’s final, authorized version.
Rose’s draft, which Newsom did not invite the Guardian to read, reportedly slams the Mayor for taking more than $1 million a year from the budgets of several city departments, including the Human Services Agency and the Municipal Transportation Agency, and using these funds to pay the salaries of 11 staffers.
“I was absolutely appalled, because I never issued that report,” Rose told the Guardian, explaining that, in the interests of objectivity, he lets audited departments see a draft before he delivers the final version to the Board.
“It’s totally inappropriate to discuss a not yet signed report,” Rose said.
Sup. Jake McGoldrick who commissioned the report, called Newsom’s leak, “a serious breach of trust, a Karl Rovian move.”
“They wanted to spin the story their way, do a character assassination on Harvey Rose, instead of having a civil, open discussion,” McGoldrick said. “It’s not so much the report that disturbs me, as the way the Prince formerly known as the Mayor is handling the report.”
Even Newsom ally Sup. Sean Elsbernd said the Mayor broke normal auditing procedures.
“Usually, reports aren’t released until the t’s are crossed, and the i’s are dotted,” Elsbernd said.
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Comments (1)
Well this tactic by Newsom staff seriously backfired. By them making it a big news item late Friday it became the front page above the fold story in the Sunday edition the largest circulation of the week.
Posted by Kimo Crossman | February 13, 2008 03:07 AM