In another sign that Mayor Gavin Newsom is increasingly looking past San Francisco’s needs into his own political future as a candidate for governor, he has announced the resignation of chief of staff Phil Ginsburg, a competent manager and bureaucrat who appears to have been forced out for not having sharp enough political teeth. Replacing Ginsburg is Newsom’s longtime homeless policy point person, Trent Rhorer, a young political animal whose fierce loyalty to Newsom has often been at odds with his obligations as a public servant. As head of the Human Services Agency, Rhorer recently helped gut services to humans in favor of big executive salaries for partisans like himself. In covering eight California counties over my newspaper career, I’ve never encountered a more politicized and less diplomatic department head than Rhorer, who seems acutely aware that Newsom is his meal ticket. “He’s a Newsom sycophant,” Sup. Chris Daly said.
Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin also makes another salient point about Rhorer: “This will be the first time in the history of San Francisco that we’ll have a chief of staff who lives in Oakland.” In fact, Rhorer has often joined the chorus of other outsiders like the Chronicle’s CW Nevius in sounding the suburban perspective on the realities of urban life, an approach we’ll likely see more and more of out of Newsom, whose recent flip-flop on cooperating with the feds is just the beginning of the jilting of San Franciscans in favor of more conservative Californians.
I asked Newsom’s press office (which has also become more partisan in the last year or so) about all of the above via e-mail, and press secretary Nathan Ballard responded simply, “Smart remarks like that one cost Peskin his seat on the selection committee.”