[Sustain] Mayor Cuts Leah Shahum From MTA

[Eric Brooks]

The Mayor just got rid of a strong alternative transportation advocate 
on the MTA.

See lower down in this SF Guardian Article;

http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=5385


  Heads roll

/Newsom accepts more than two dozen resignation letters/

By Steven T. Jones

In the week leading up to Mayor Gavin Newsom's Jan. 8 second-term 
inauguration ceremony, he accepted more than two dozen of the 
resignation letters he demanded Sept. 10, 2007, from his senior staff.

"Today I am proud to introduce a new team of 27 people that is a blend 
of fresh talent, extensive policy expertise, and proven experience in 
government," Newsom wrote in a prepared statement released at 5 p.m. on 
Jan. 4, a Friday, which is not considered the spot in the news cycle for 
"proud" announcements.

"Other than the very unfortunate firing of Susan Leal from the [general 
manager job at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission] --- who, 
by all accounts, has been doing a good job --- the rest of the changes 
are fairly perfunctory and far from the bold or audacious move he 
promised," Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin told us.

Yet the changes --- which the /Guardian/ discusses in more detail in 
Editor's Notes, the editorial page, and our politics blog --- do seem to 
signal that Newsom is placing a high value on personal loyalty and 
political pragmatism.

Some examples are the promotions of inner-circle members Mike Farrah 
(new director of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services), Ben 
Rosenfield (controller), and Wade Crowfoot (now the newly created 
director of climate protection initiatives) and the hiring of former 
United States attorney Kevin Ryan, a conservative Republican, to head 
the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice.

But gone are Leal and Metropolitan Transportation Agency board member 
Leah Shahum, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition director who has chided 
the mayor for not supporting alternative transportation. "The Mayor's 
Office was none too pleased that the SFBC did not endorse him," she told 
us, noting that she is urging Newsom to fill the spot with another 
advocate for sustainable transportation. "I hope this is not a sign of 
what's to come."

Wednesday January 9, 2008

-- 
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

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