- Popular social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have proven to be valuable for public officials to communicate with the public. (By the way, check out PublicCEO on Facebook and Twitter.)
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom maybe has become too popular. The mayor is blocking at least five people from receiving his Twitter posts. According to a San Francisco Chronicle piece, Newsom has blocked a former staffer and some high-profile critics.
- Voters in Moreno Valley are going to vote in 2010 on whether or not they want to vote. A measure in November 2010 will ask voters if they want to directly elect a mayor, rather than the current practice of city council members of five districts choosing the mayor.
- The popular “cowboy mayor” of Palm Springs, Frank Bogert, who recently passed away at 99 years old, was remembered by approximately 700 mourners last Friday. Current Palm Springs Mayor Pro Tem Chris Mills is returning to work following quadruple bypass heart surgery weeks ago.
- Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums was requested to not speak at the funeral of the four slain Oakland police officers. According to San Francisco Chronicle writers Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, one of the deceased officers had left instructions that the Oakland mayor did not speak should he be killed in the line of duty.
- Nancy Krasne became the 84th mayor of Beverly Hills as she was sworn in along with vice mayor, Jimmy Delshad, last Friday.
- In an act of full disclosure, Sacramento City manager Ray Kerridge and city officials of Sacramento are notifying federal government agencies that mayor Kevin Johnson is on a list of those barred from receiving federal funds.
Johnson is included among a list of those forbidden to receive federal funds due to allegations of misused funds with his nonprofit Hood Corps organization prior to his time as mayor.
According to The Sacramento Bee, the actions are a result of legal opinion that the city would miss out on millions of dollars in stimulus funds. Sacramento has received $30 million in federal funding since he took office three months ago.
In a morning brief
, Johnson said, “This has been an issue that’s been reviewed by the city attorney, as well as a U.S. attorney and up until this point, the city has not been impacted one iota.”Contrary to the report that Sacramento would be unable to collect stimulus dollars under Johnson, the city landed $4.7 million in United States energy efficiency funding on Thursday.
According to the Sacramento Business Journal
, the money is part of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program in the $787 billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.