http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/02/BAVA12420H.DTL&t... Mayor accused of going back on transit deal Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writer <mailto:hknight@sfchronicle.com> Saturday, August 2, 2008 San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom broke a promise to withdraw a measure from the November ballot that would change the makeup of the panel that oversees the city's transit system, a steaming-mad city supervisor charged on Friday. Supervisor Jake McGoldrick in May proposed a ballot measure to strip the mayor of some of his control over the Municipal Transportation Agency, which operates the city's programs for transit, parking enforcement and traffic control. The mayor countered with his own measure. McGoldrick said the men struck a handshake deal that the supervisor would withdraw his proposal before it reached the board for a vote if the mayor withdrew his ballot measure. But when the Department of Elections shut it doors at 5 p.m. Friday - the deadline for withdrawing ballot measures - Newsom's was still on it. That means voters will have their say on the mayor's proposal in November, but not on McGoldrick's. "The mayor is the most duplicitous elected official in the city of San Francisco," a fuming McGoldrick said Friday evening. "His word is not worth the breath it takes for him to expel it. He's a total phony who's fooled a lot of people for too long." McGoldrick and Newsom never had any such deal, said Nathan Ballard, the mayor's press secretary. "That's an absurd allegation," he said. At issue is who should comprise the seven-member panel that oversees the transportation agency. Currently, the mayor picks all seven, although the board can reject his picks. McGoldrick had proposed the mayor select three, the board select three and the city controller select one. Newsom at the time said the supervisor's plan was a power grab that voters had already opposed in a similar ballot measure in 2005. Newsom countered with his own measure making it a five-member panel comprising the mayor, the president of the Board of Supervisors, the city treasurer, and one member each appointed by the mayor and board president. It also urges the agency to adopt the ethics and public records law that applies to other city agencies and to bring in a financial expert to review budgets. "We don't understand why anybody would be against better coordination and oversight of transportation dollars," Ballard said. "This is a sensible measure and we look forward to enjoying the support of Supervisor McGoldrick and other members of the legislative branch." That doesn't seem likely. McGoldrick said he will "devote every waking minute" to quashing the mayor's ballot measure. "I'm beyond belief that anybody could be fooled by this man's toothy smile," he said of Newsom. "It's amazing I got fooled one last time." The mayor also left on the ballot a measure to create the Community Justice Center in the Tenderloin, a controversial court to prosecute misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. The board was poised to reject funding the court in the 2008-09 budget, but McGoldrick introduced money for it and it was approved. Still, Ballard said the mayor's administration didn't want to take any chances that a new board after November's elections would withdraw money for the court. /E-mail Heather Knight at hknight@sfchronicle.com <mailto:hknight@sfchronicle.com>./ http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/02/BAVA12420H.DTL This article appeared on page *B - 3* of the San Francisco Chronicle -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara