Randy Shaw’s calling on the supervisors to wait, and let the next board pick the next mayor. I don’t get his argument. In fact, it seems to me that there’s every reason for this board do its Charter-mandated job.
Think about it: everyone on the board has served for at least a year and a half, and some for a lot longer. They’ve been around enough to have some sense about how political decisions are made and some experience making tough calls. Two of the people who appear to be the new supes — Malia Cohen and Mark Farrell — have never held any elective office before. And if the decision is left to the new board, the first thing that group of 11 people, including four newcomers, will have to do — minutes after they’ve taken the oath of office — is make perhaps the most important decision any of them will face as supervisors.
And in that case, backroom deals made in the interregnum will play and even bigger role.
There’s no “rush.” I don’t think the board should choose a new mayor tomorrow. But I think the supes ought to get the process going — and do it in a way that is open and honest and gives the public faith in the results.
If you want to be appointed by the board to a commission or task force, you have to go before the Rules Committee and be vetted. The committee members ask questions. There’s testimony. Why should the mayor’s job be any different?
The process that makes the most sense would go like this: Starting this week, the supervisors nominate candidates for interim mayor. Everyone nominated is contacted and asked if he or she is interested in the job. Then the ones who want to serve — either as a “caretaker” or with the hope of running in the fall — appear at a series of hearings of the full board, sitting as a Committee of the Whole. Every supervisor gets to ask questions; the candidates respond, and the whole thing is open to the public.
When that’s done — in a couple of weeks — the board can select the best candidate. That person would then start forming a transition team and prepare to take office January 4th, when Newsom becomes lieutenant governor; the board would simply ratify its choice that day.
I’m not going to argue about whether the incoming board is more or less “progressive” than the current board. I am going to suggest that experience matters, that there are serious problems for the new mayor to take on, that the mad scramble approach (the way board presidents are elected) is a bad way to choose a new mayor and that there’s plenty of time to do this right, in the open, between now and January.