San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bay Area: Phil Matier looks at Gavin Newsom’s high-priced inauguration parties.
Incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom is throwing himself a two-day swearing-in bash, with ticket packages running as high as $200,000 for the inaugural festivities and up to $1 million for “champion” corporate sponsorships to Sunday’s charity concert benefiting victims of California’s wildfires.
Celebrations kick off Sunday morning with a private “leadership circle” luncheon at Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum, followed by a “family inaugural celebration” with a focus on children at the California State Railroad Museum.
The main event comes at noon Monday, when Newsom takes the oath of office on the
Capitol steps.
Sponsor ticket packages to help pay for the inaugural parties range from $25,000 to $200,000.
The $25,000 package comes with five general and two VIP tickets to Sunday’s family celebration, plus one seat at the leadership circle luncheon and a seat at the swearing-in.
The $200,000 package gets you 40 general admission and 12 VIP tickets to the family event, along with eight leadership circle lunch tickets and eight seats at the swearing-in.
The money will go to covering the cost the inauguration.
“We don’t have a cost estimate yet,” Newsom spokesman Nathan Click said, adding that all donations over $5,000 will be publicly reported.
The big money event, however, is the fire victims relief concert at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Arena featuring rappers Pitbull and Common, along with the X Ambassadors, Betty Who and Coldwater Sons, a band from Paradise, which was devastated by November’s Camp Fire.
Corporate sponsorships for the concert start at $25,000 for a “patron” package and climb to the $1 million “champion” package that gets the buyer’s logo up on the stage screens along with dozens of floor seats and 40 tickets to the VIP concert reception.
There is a cheaper option: General admission tickets are $25.
“It will be the honor of a lifetime to take the oath of office as California governor,” Newsom said by email. “But it seems appropriate to use this moment to unite as a state — stronger and more resilient than ever — to do whatever we can to ensure all of our fellow Californians, especially those impacted by tragic wildfire, have the opportunity to build a brighter future and pursue their dreams.”
Not everyone can share in the dream.
The inaugural committee is nixing any money from foreign governments or foreign principals, or from investment advisers and municipal bond brokers.
It’s big money, and if history is any indication many of the donations will come from people or interests who do business with the state.
But it’s not taxpayer money. And its not the first time it’s been done this way.
Outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown raised more than $500,000 when he returned to Sacramento in 2011. Being a well-known tightwad, Brown actually spent less than $100,000 on his swearing-in.
The remainder of the money went into the Governor’s Residence Foundation of California to pay rent on a loft Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown, rented in Sacramento.
Fire alarm: At the request of Mayor London Breed, the San Francisco Fire Commission is reopening its selection process for a new a chief, after the firefighters union raised concerns that the number of inhouse candidates with long firefighting experience was insufficient.
According to Fire Commission President Ken Cleveland, the Human Resources Department forwarded 36 candidates to the commission, along with their answers to eight pages of questions on everything from management and budget issues to emergency medical and high rise fire procedures.
“They were divided into good, better and best,” Cleveland said. “We looked at them all and initially selected 11 to interview.”
At the end of the interviews the top names of three to five candidates were to be sent to the mayor for consideration.
The new chief will replace retiring Chief Joanne Hayes-White.
But no sooner did word of the 11 semifinalists get out than firefighters began raising questions about why experienced SFFD assistant chiefs and battalion chiefs failed to make the cut.
In a Dec. 31 letter to Breed, Firefighters Union Local 798 President-elect Shon Buford said the Fire Commission “may have unnecessarily rushed the selection process.”
Breed asked Cleveland to reconsider the process, and he agreed to add another eight candidates to the interview list.
“It was a reasonable request, given her position,” Cleveland said.
Breed is herself a former fire commissioner, and firefighters have been some of her earliest and biggest political backers, canvassing neighborhoods in her various elections.
The union also served as a conduit for $840,000 in independent expenditure money to help get Breed elected in June’s special mayoral election.
“She wants to have a broad selection of candidates,” said mayoral spokesman Jeff Cretan.
“She reviewed the selections herself and talked to a number of people in the community including Local 798,” Cretan said. “It’s a big appointment for her, and she wants to make sure she gets it right.”