Sunshine magnified

Pub date August 4, 2006
SectionPolitics Blog

By Steven T. Jones
It was good to see the Sentinel today amplifying our story about how the mayor’s office gave us seven contested e-mails that Sup. Chris Daly has been trying to get for months. But Pat Murphy is a bit off mark to imply that Daly got snubbed or that our obtaining the documents was anything more than solid reporting work by reporter Amanda Witherell (who confronted the mayor on a Saturday with facts that supported the release of the documents, an action that he then ordered). The mayor’s office told us Daly would also be receiving the e-mails. For his part, Daly was happy about our successful efforts to pry loose the docs, calling it “a great victory for sunshine in San Francisco.” He also told me, “It was always unclear to me, unless the administration was trying to cover something up, why they were unwilling to release the e-mail, whether or not they were compelled to do so under the Sunshine Ordinance.” And it turns out the e-mails do show an effort by the Mayor’s Office of Communications to bury news of Newsom’s veto of an eviction notification measure, who was so popular that voters approved it as Prop. B in June.