Acting Mayor’s Act Infuriates Willie Brown

An outraged Mayor Willie Brown on Thursday planned to cut short a two-week Asia trip to contend with the political coup by a city supervisor who secretly made two appointments to an important commission while briefly serving as acting mayor.

“It’s like a father having to return home to deal with unruly children,” Brown spokesman P.J. Johnston said of the mayor’s decision to book a flight back to San Francisco before his scheduled return Monday. “Clearly, members of the board are up to some mischief.”

During the 14 hours he spent as acting mayor Wednesday, Supervisor Chris Daly, 28, secretly appointed and swore in his choices for the city’s Public Utilities Commission and then announced his potentially binding act on official letterhead he had drawn up for the occasion.

Less than 20 minutes later, one of Brown’s aides told Daly his mayoral powers had been revoked. A Brown ally, Supervisor Bevan Dufty, stepped in as acting mayor and immediately tried to undo Daly’s appointments by naming two commission members favored by Brown, including one the mayor had endorsed to the Board of Supervisors the day before he left for China.

But city attorneys said it looks like Daly’s power play will be successful unless Brown can persuade at least eight of the city’s 11 supervisors to reject the two environmentalists Daly personally swore in.

“The City Charter is fairly straightforward,” said Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for the city attorney. “If, in his capacity as acting mayor, Supervisor Daly perfected his appointments before Mayor Brown was able to rescind his designation as acting mayor, the Daly appointments stand.”

Johnston, the mayoral spokesman, said Brown was particularly incensed because his choice of Daly as acting mayor was an olive branch to someone Brown has never gotten along with. Before Wednesday, Daly, who was elected in 2000, was the only city supervisor Brown had never asked to fill in for him.

“Mr. Daly showed he is still the spoiled little brat of San Francisco politics that we all knew him to be, totally abused the limited powers afforded him as acting mayor and betrayed the grudging respect that Mayor Brown had shown him by doing something that is totally unprecedented,” Johnston said.

Daly’s voicemail box at City Hall was full Thursday, but he earlier defended his actions, which he said he had plotted for several days.

“When you ask if this is what should have been done, you have to look at what’s good for San Francisco,” Daly said.

He described his appointments of Robin Chiang, whose architecture firm has worked on numerous public transit projects, and Adam Werbach, former president of the national Sierra Club, as necessary to ensure that environmentalists are represented on the commission.

The Public Utilities Commission oversees the city’s Hetch Hetchy water and power system, which is slated for a multibillion-dollar project to improve its aging infrastructure. The commission faces difficult decisions about system expansion and whether the city should set up a public power utility.

Some supervisors said Thursday they were offended by Daly’s maneuver; some said they were amused. Supervisor Tony Hall, who heads a board committee that holds hearings on all mayoral appointments and issues recommendations on whether they should be rejected, said he intends to side with the mayor. “This is nothing but an immature, selfish act that was used for political exposure and expediency,” Hall said, calling Daly “the Madonna of the board.”

But Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who is running for mayor, said he was torn. He said the two people Daly appointed are well-qualified, whereas Brown’s selections “are usually patronage.” But on one thing, Ammiano said he was perfectly clear. “When I’m mayor, I’m not going to appoint Chris Daly as acting mayor,” Ammiano said. “That career is over for him.”