REPORTERS’ NOTEBOOK : Rain-Out Forces Inaugural Double-Header for Wilson

It may not have rivaled President Bush’s flip-flop on taxes, but the embryonic Wilson Administration was having trouble all weekend coming to a decision about what to do in case of rain.

On Friday, Wilson staffers insisted that the inaugural ceremony would remain outside on the west steps of the Capitol unless the deluge reached biblical proportions.

By Sunday, inaugural organizers considered moving the entire ceremony down the street to the dry confines of the Sacramento Community Center. At 3 a.m. Monday, having been assured by a local television weatherman that the skies would clear, Wilson Chief of Staff Bob White and inaugural committee director Marty Wilson decided to stay with Plan A--an outdoor ceremony.

Five hours later, with rain falling steadily, the Wilson team did what their chief says he plans to do as governor: compromise. They held the actual swearing-in under the Capitol dome, where a few guests and the live television feeds could be accommodated. And they decided to re-enact the whole thing an hour later for the general public at the community center.

The back-to-back events apparently were a first in gubernatorial history.

“We wanted the public to be able to take part in the celebration,” said communications director Otto Bos. “We’re happy with the way it worked out.”

The inaugural committee left nothing to chance. Or so thought Wilson (no relation to the governor), who took steps to make sure that the new governor’s inaugural speech would not be interrupted. Remembering that George Deukmejian’s address had been drowned out by a low-flying helicopter taking pictures for a newspaper, the inaugural director persuaded the Sacramento Municipal Airport to restrict the airspace around the Capitol for the 11 a.m. event.

But just as the new governor began his remarks in the Capitol rotunda, protesters outside started chanting anti-war slogans, making portions of his speech nearly inaudible.

Richard Hansen, a 24-year-old Cal State Sacramento student who led the demonstration, said the 15 students decided to show up at the inauguration when they discovered that White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu would be part of the program.

“We just wanted him to tell George Bush students are concerned about the war,” Hansen said.

The students left quietly about 20 minutes later when police requested that they move.

Wilson’s replay of the speech an hour later also was interrupted. Members of ACT UP, an organization of AIDS activists, shouted protests just as Wilson began his address for the second time. This time, police moved in quickly to break up the demonstration and usher the protesters outside.

As protests go, neither seemed to make much impression on the new governor. “I’m going to have to give a class in heckling,” he quipped. “I’ve dealt with the real pros.”

As with most chief executives before him, Wilson and his staff pride themselves on guarding the little secrets that make for what serves as drama in state government. Appointments, policy initiatives and important speeches are kept under wraps until the last possible moment.

So, the Wilson team was a little red-faced when the top man himself inadvertently leaked the text of the biggest speech of his career--Monday’s inaugural address.

Wilson practiced the speech Sunday in the governor’s press conference room. The room was empty, but the audio feed was unintentionally transmitted over an intercom system to scores of legislative offices and reporters. One radio reporter picked it up on a voice-activated tape recorder he leaves next to the intercom speaker.

Wilson spokesman Dan Schnur said the governor was not “particularly concerned” about blowing the cover on his speech 12 hours early.

“If this is the worst thing that happens in a Wilson Administration, we’re in for a very successful term,” Schnur said.

As Wilson & Co. were settling into the seats of power, the woman he defeated was shaking off jet lag. Democrat Dianne Feinstein and her husband, Richard Blum, returned to San Francisco 4 a.m. Monday from a two-week Hawaii vacation.

Blum took up windsurfing, Feinstein said, and she did a little painting and walking.

“It was really just R & R,” said the former San Francisco mayor, who is expected to run for the Senate in 1992.

Feinstein and Blum had no plans to attend Wilson’s inaugural gala, to which they were invited because of Blum’s role as honorary consul for the state of Nepal.

Another top Democrat defeated by Wilson, former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., did attend part of Monday’s ceremony. Brown, who lost to Wilson in the 1982 U.S. Senate race and is now state Democratic Party chairman, was seen leaving the Capitol halfway through Wilson’s first rendition of his address.

Monday also marked the inaugural of permanent television coverage of the Assembly, which for now is being broadcast in the Capitol, but eventually will be distributed live to cable television systems statewide.

As the television cameras were installed, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) ended a long tradition by clearing reporters off the Assembly floor, placing them in the back of the chambers with visitors and staff.

Brown’s press secretary called the two events “a coincidence of timing.”

As Wilson was in the governor’s inner office signing the paperwork to make his swearing-in official, outgoing Gov. Deukmejian handed him what in most homes can be considered the real tools of power: the remote controls for the television set.

“One is for the volume, the other changes the channels,” Deukmejian said as Wilson solemnly accepted his new authority.

Times political writer Bill Stall contributed to this report.