There's a profile of Phil Ginsburg, the new mayoral chief of staff, in today's Chron. Basically, it's a hard job, Ginsburg took a $75K paycut when he took it, and he was nonplussed when, about one week in, he got stuck dealing with the Ruby Rippey-Tourk/rehab circus. Also, Ginsburg is really into org charts.
Interestingly, though, pretty much everyone admits (or at least doesn't deny) that Gavin is difficult to work with, and praise Ginsburg for "not drinking the Kool-Aid" for the administration. Supervisor Bevan Dufty was brave enough to go on the record and say that when he heard Ginsburg had accepted the position, he called Ginsburg and said, "You didn't ask me, but I would have told you not to take the job." Guess Dufty and Newsom are still fighting, then?
Newsom, for his part, says he's glad he has a chief of staff that has little political experience, saying, "I don't want a political strategist. I want a manager. I'll ... sort of come up with the audacious ideas." We're looking forward to seeing the audacious ideas that Newsom sort of comes up with next!
Picture by Kim Komenich for the Chron.