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Avoiding The Question (Time)
Ques-tion TIME! Ques-tion TIME!
Gavin Newsom sees your "immature" comment and raises, Board of Supervisors! Now the mayor's announced that his first non-Question Time "community panel" will be in Jake McGoldrick's District 1 on Saturday Jan. 13, at 10 a.m. at the Richmond Recreation Center, 251 18th Ave. Save the date! (oh, don't worry about writing it down -- we'll be reminding you.)
The problem is, though, Newsom didn't bother to check with Supervisor McGoldrick first to see if that date was good for him before going out and announcing it as a done deal. McGoldrick is pissed, saying "[Newsom]'s taken it down to the level of a circus. And now he starts looking like one of the clowns." When McGoldrick was asked if he was planning on attending, he said, "I don't jump into circus routines." (The idea of McGoldrick dressed up like a bear in a tutu dancing on its hind legs has now popped unbidden into our mind.)
After the jump -- even the Examiner's unhappy with this move, Gavin!
Picture by Adam Aufdencamp from Gavin's community meeting with Bevan Dufty earlier this year (pre-Halloween and foot patrol fights). Note color of Gavin's tie.
Sean Elsbernd, new on the attacking Newsom train, was displeased as well, saying that this surprise community stop-in “was kind of an executive fiat” and lacked the “spirit of collaboration.” And even the Gavin-loving Examiner's kind of appalled by the disregard of the voters' intent, running an editorial today called "Answer the Questions, Mayor Newsom." (Well, and the Guardian is mad too, but you probably figured that out already.)
The Board's expressed willingness to compromise on a procedure that Gavin could live with -- maybe submitting questions in advance, putting time limits on questions, and putting a limit on the number of questions a supervisor can ask (Chris Daly), but Gavin so far seems uninterested in playing along. We kind of like the idea that they had on SFWall that the supervisors be available to answer Gavin's questions as well ("Hey, what do you guys think of this tie?").