By Steven T. Jones
Before hitting the latest news of ethics problems in the mayor’s office, and the brilliant segment that KGO-TV’s dogged investigative reporter Dan Noyes has done to highlight them, it’s important to offer some context and perspective.
Mayor Gavin Newsom imported veteran Democrat Party flack Peter Ragone to be his press secretary upon taking office three years ago. Ragone didn’t really know San Francisco that well, but he seemed to understand the national political landscape and therefore became a trusted adviser to our ambitious mayor. The gay marriage move was brilliant, shoring up Newsom’s support in the city’s queer community and positioning him as a civil rights leader for future campaigns.
Yet along the way, Ragone seemed to forget that Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco at a time when progressives controlled the Board of Supervisors and couldn’t simply be dismissed. Over and over, Ragone spun stories to reporters about the incompetence and/or malevolence of progressives or other critics of the mayor — often attacking or belittling the journalists when they expressed skepticism — until he had very little credibility left with any of us (something I say as someone who regularly talks with journalists from all the other major news outlets in town).
So when the SFist discovered that some posters to their site were actually coming from Ragone’s computer, and Ragone avoided answering questions about it and opted to instead claim on the site that allegedly pseudonymous John Nelson was a real person, his best friend actually, who often stayed at Ragone’s house during the early morning and late night hours when he posted — most people simply assumed Ragone was lying.
I wanted to give Ragone the benefit of the doubt and asked whether I could meet John or otherwise get some verification for his existence. Ragone said no, and said, “I don’t think I’d like to see my friends and family put through the wringer of San Francisco politics.”