The walkaway mayor walks away again.

Mayor Gavin Newsom finally sat down with CBS 5 political reporter Hank Plante.

Watch ’til the end when Newsom rips off his microphone and goes “off the record”.

Really?

In public, the Newsom administration puts on a really good game face. But in private, there are all kinds of awkward silences and a lack of basic civility. And now the window is open and the public is seeing what many leading city people have seen for the past couple of years.

Before the life coach came.

SFIST — Rumors are percolating that Gavin Newsom might pull a Sarah Palin.

That is to say, he could very well resign. Or not. No one can say for sure, of course.

As I see it, Gavin really has three choices:  man up, maintain status quo, or resign.

He’ll probably just continue to be the best (paranoid) walkaway mayor there ever was.

Go, Gavin!

Go.

"If you guys asked nicer questions, I would show up for work."

CBS 5 – Reporter Joe Vazquez tries to pin down the man-child mayor to ask him about his new disappearing act, but the mayor just walks away.

Now where I have I seen this before?

It’s been a week since Newsom quit the governor’s race.

There has been some awesome analysis and Monday morning quarterbacking on his fail.

But who would’ve thought in a million years that the mayor who wasn’t there would act like a spoiled child who didn’t get his way and completely abandon San Francisco?

Take an unplanned trip to Hawaii?

Really?

The trip, which the mayor apparently booked on his own, caught his staffers off guard. Many did not know he was gone until the city attorney’s office sent out a notice informing them that the mayor had left the state…

Aren’t you the chief executive of a $6.5 billion city in continual budget crisis? Shouldn’t you give your staff proper notice when you decide to leave the state?

Maybe the mayor has gone on a permanent “vacation”.

I asked a clinical psychologist what he thought about all this recent random and impulsive behavior — he thinks Gavin Newsom is behaving like a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

I’m no head shrinker, all I know is that Gavin is acting kind of crazy, even for Gavin.

I wonder if Gavin Newsom is even fit to be mayor anymore.

The circus tent taxpayers bought Oracle.

San Francisco Chronicle – A scheduling snafu involving the big annual Oracle party and the TV show “Trauma” has wound up costing San Francisco taxpayers $270,000.

The mega mix-up revolves around the party that Oracle tosses for 22,000 select clients.

For years, Oracle has rented out a big chunk of the eastern side of the island for its party, including an old airplane hangar.

That was the plan for this year’s Oct. 14 bash as well.

However, the city rented out the hangar to NBC’s “Trauma,” which, while filming in the city, has provided a number of people with jobs – including the mayor’s actress wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

Oracle – one of the biggest conventions of the year – found itself out in the cold.

Now, to keep everyone happy, the city is putting up a football-field-size tent on Treasure Island for the Oracle party. Cost: about $270,000.

Newsom didn’t try to explain away the mix-up or defend the ensuing costs.

How’s that?

The city is in an ongoing budget crisis and no explanation from the man-child mayor?

Network World is on the ball with a thoughtful analysis of the Newsom administration’s ineptitude, facilities mismanagement and callous response to the scandal.

Now times are tough in the high-tech industry, but Oracle last year made a profit of $5.6 billion on revenue of $23.2 billion. Not bad. They’re willing to spend $7.4 billion to buy Sun. And, of course, Oracle head honcho Larry Ellison is among the most ostentatiously rich people on the planet; Forbes has him pegged at No. 4, worth a sweet $22.5 billion.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s municipal finances have been anything but rosy given the destitute state of that state.

Under the circumstances, couldn’t the company — or Ellison himself — have picked up the tab for that tent instead of sticking it to the already traumatized taxpayers of San Francisco?

If not, the least the mayor’s office could have done is apologize for the costly screw-up.

Don’t hold your breath.

The lights are off and nobody's home.

The Chronicle — Gavin Newsom has been increasingly absent from San Francisco, and his decision to enter the 2010 race for California governor means now he’s MIA for good.

Gavin Newsom has spent the equivalent of more than nine months traveling outside of California since he became mayor in 2004, in addition to his frequent in-state trips to Sacramento or Southern California.

His regular absences – particularly the recent ones that have coincided with ever-worsening news about the city’s budget deficit – have prompted some accusations that Newsom seems more devoted to his own agenda than he is to San Francisco.

Critics say it’s problematic because the city faces a $576 million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year, representing the worst fiscal crisis in San Francisco since the Great Depression.

Newsom’s critics, most of them speaking privately (for fear of retribution) say it’s a question of how much face time he gives the city.

Department heads have complained of feeling abandoned by the mayor at a time when they’re being asked to make deep budget cuts.

It seems he’s always somewhere else — and let’s be real — long-distance relationships never work especially with a mayor.  I guess he’s just not that into me.

Gavin's "green" ride costs $58,000 and gets 18.4 MPG.

Gavin Newsom is using the San Francisco MUNI budget to balance his massive budget deficit.

Gavin is raising public transit fares and cutting service lines while he drives his SUV around.

SF Streetsblog writes that this has left a lot of transit riders and advocates pissed off and feeling rejected.

But, these bus- and cycle-riding folks are doing something creative about their collective pain. My favorite is this blog Where’s Gavin?

He’s in his gas-guzzling hybrid SUV — that’s where!

"At least my shoes are new and shiny."

The Chronicle — San Francisco’s annual budget of $6.5 billion dollars would make it No. 376 on the Fortune 500 list, but Mayor Gavin Newsom and his department heads have made it almost impossible for the Average Joe to see whether that money’s being well spent.

A civil grand jury was convened and came to the obvious conclusion that most of us have already figured out — Gavin is a man-child mayor.

The mayor cancelled two meetings he had scheduled with the grand jury during its investigation.

A citizen in San Francisco would have even more difficulty digging out the facts on City efficiency than the Jury did.

The City has invested in both people and systems to set and manage annual operational goals in a systematic way under the general term of Performance Measurement.

Regrettably, that management process does not deliver on its promise of making City operations effective and efficient.

The Grand Jury found that the primary cause of the failure to deliver on the promise of Performance Measurement is lack of leadership on the part of the Mayor and his department heads.

The Jury makes a number of recommendations to rectify this situation, the most important being that the Mayor take charge by managing the City by the numbers, rather than just publicizing those favorable to him.  Snap!