The San Francisco Chronicle has repeatedly extolled Mayor Newsom’s alleged “break from the past.” We have been told a “fresh breeze” has blown away “business as usual” at City Hall. Not quite.
Other than Joe Marshall of Omega Boys Club fame, Mayor Newsom’s selections for the Police Commission were distinctively old-guard. Newsom appointed Louise Renne, who has been working in City Hall and/or for the City for nearly 20 years. He appointed Doug Chan, a former Human Rights Commissioner who also sat on the Board of Appeals over a decade ago under Mayor Frank Jordan. Joe Alioto-Veronese—grandson of a former Mayor, son of a former President of the Board of Supervisors and three-time mayoral candidate*now there’s a real break from the past.
The Supervisors, many of whom promised voters fresh faces and a new direction when they took office in 2001, also played by the usual rules. Appointee Teresa Sparks is the former President of the Alice Toklas Democratic Club—a clear political insider. Appointee Gayle Orr-Smith was a Commissioner under Mayor Art Agnos fifteen years ago. Appointee Peter Keane was second-in-command to Jeff Brown at the San Francisco Public Defenders Office for over a decade, where he mentored Matt Gonzalez. He, too, hardly constitutes a “fresh face.”
In contrast to those actually appointed to the Commission, none of the individuals proposed by Supervisor Daly and community groups had previously served on a city commission or in city government. All were “fresh faces,” and all were bypassed by the Mayor and Board in favor of political insiders.
Somewhere in retirement, Willie Brown is having a good laugh over this.
