One day in San Francisco politics you're in, and the next day, you're out.
IN: District 1 Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who successfully managed to fend off the petitions calling for his recall, which have been vaguely annoying our readers for the last few months. The recall backers managed to get 3844 signatures (about 300 over what they needed), but the SF Dept. of Elections found that about 25% of the signatures were invalid. The recall people asked for a full recount of everyone's residency, but the Dept. of Elections says their rules only call for a complete check of everyone when over 90% of the signatures look okay, so the matter's now closed.
Jake, you can leave the runway.
OUT: Gregg Fortner, the head of the SF Housing Authority. Fortner won us over by refusing to comply with Newsom's request for mass resignations, saying, "I'm old school. If I'm going to turn in my resignation, I'm not sending a letter saying, 'I'm considering it.' It will be a notice I'm leaving." Guess that means Fortner was one of the people Newsom was trying to get to quit, huh? Well, it wasn't a big surprise, given how Newsom flipped out about Fortner's job performance about the condition of public housing in their last public outing together. Fortner's probably getting a sweet severance package (he just got a raise through Nov. 2008 to $210,500), and people are now saying he worked really hard in the position.
Auf Wiedesehen, Gregg -- you'll need to clean up your work station before you go.