Disarray by The Bay : Staff Upheaval, Broken Promises Mark Mayor’s 1st Months

Mayor Frank Jordan took over in January promising to get things “back on track,” a pitch with special appeal to San Franciscans disheartened by the city’s seeming decline.

But the Jordan Era more closely resembles a train wreck. His pledge to get homeless people off the streets has come to naught. The baseball Giants are at the brink of leaving town. And faced with a severe budget crisis, Jordan broke his campaign promise not to raise taxes.

Jordan also has plowed through top staff members, forcing out his own police chief, budget director and press secretary, among others. With the chaos in City Hall, Jordan’s popularity has plummeted even lower than the worst ranking of the mayor he defeated, Art Agnos.

Perhaps most telling, even some staunch allies have turned on the mayor, complaining that Jordan was more interested in attending high society parties than in running the city.

“Your seeming obsession with the perceived society of San Francisco does not demonstrate an image of a serious-minded public official who is concerned with public policy issues,” wrote state Sen. Quentin L. Kopp, one of Jordan’s most prominent campaign backers, in a scathing letter.

Kopp went on: “There is substantial dissatisfaction and a feeling of betrayed commitment all over town.”

Widely acclaimed as a nice guy, the 57-year-old former police chief rode into office as a citizen-mayor who could restore San Francisco’s spirit and rescue the city from mounting problems of poverty and urban decay.

The mayor’s defenders point out that as a non-politician, Jordan came into office without a cadre of aides ready to take control of the city. His political honeymoon ended within days when the Giants announced plans to leave town.

Now he faces a budget shortfall of $61 million and is presiding over a fractious city that is notoriously difficult to govern. Rather than being wishy-washy, supporters say, Jordan is simply a “deliberate” decision-maker who does not act precipitously.

“He’s a very decent, honest guy, who’s not pretending to be something that he’s not,” said press secretary Bob Forsyth.

Jordan acknowledges that he got off to a rough start. “I willingly accept the fact that there have been some growing pains in these first six months of my Administration--widely reported growing pains,” he said in a semiannual progress report.

In a defense of his performance last week, Jordan said: “It’s not (that) no one is running the city. . . . It’s not like this ship is not floating.”

Jordan, however, has quickly gained an image as an indecisive executive lacking detailed knowledge of policy issues and passively sitting astride an Administration rife with dissension.

Critics also say Jordan comes across as a political lightweight who appears to be under the thumb of back-room advisers and his fiancee, Wendy Paskin, a bank executive two decades his junior.

“This Administration is like a clothes dryer,” one staff member told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Everything just spins around, and you never know what is going to fall out when you open the door.”

In the hope of reviving his Administration, Jordan last week hired James Lazarus, vice president of public affairs for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, to take over as chief of staff and restore order to the Administration.

“It’s been a rocky seven months,” Lazarus said, “but most of it has been out of the mayor’s control. The Administration needs to get its act together internally, to begin functioning as a team.”

The blunders of the first seven months, however, could prove difficult to overcome.

One of Jordan’s chief detractors is the man he initially hired as press secretary to boost his image: former newspaper reporter Stephen Bloom. The mayor fired Bloom after only 71 days on the job, and a bitter Bloom responded with a devastating article in the San Francisco Examiner detailing some of the Jordan Administration’s more embarrassing moments.

One episode, involving the son of one of Jordan’s largest campaign contributors, left the impression in some minds that the mayor will tolerate ethical lapses and that he can easily be pushed around.

The episode involved James Fang, 31, whose family publishes the San Francisco Independent. Fang was appointed by Jordan as the city’s director of international trade. Soon, other newspapers began reporting that Fang had exaggerated his credentials, claiming to be an attorney when he had never graduated from law school.

Bloom attended a closed-door meeting with advisers and Fang family members in which Jordan discussed what to do about Fang. Finally, according to Bloom’s account, Fang’s brother Ted told the mayor: “Frank, if you are asking James to resign, that will not happen. Our family will not allow that to happen.”

James Fang kept his job.

Bloom, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee, wrote: “Here was Ted Fang, 28, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, laying down the law to the mayor of San Francisco. And getting away with it.”

Jordan’s office rejects his ex-press secretary’s version of the meeting.

Another of Jordan’s appointments brought national embarrassment to the city.

In a startling move, Jordan selected as his police chief a longtime liberal San Francisco politician who had run against him for mayor--former Sheriff Richard Hongisto.

As police chief, Hongisto ordered mass arrests during the riots after the verdicts in the beating of Rodney G. King; the arrests angered many residents. Then the chief, apparently sensitive to criticism, directed several officers to confiscate copies of a gay weekly newspaper that mocked his authoritarian style.

In the ensuing controversy, Jordan appeared uncertain what action to take. He punted the issue to the Police Commission, which voted to fire the chief 44 days into the job.

Jordan has had difficulty living up to his campaign pledges. Having beaten his rival by promising not to raise taxes, he proposed an $11-million utility tax on businesses. His programs to solve homelessness have been symbolic at best. Jordan proposed picking up the homeless and hauling them off to a work farm. That idea fizzled.

“Frank Jordan has promised a lot but he really hasn’t delivered,” Bloom said. “Seven months into the job and he’s still fumbling.”