Mayor Gavin Newsom is staying put.
For now.
The holiday rumor mill was churning Monday, with several reports that Newsom would soon make official his intentions to run for the August office of California lieutenant governor. The mayor quashed those rumors as merely that — rumors — shortly before noon Tuesday, while leaving the possibility wide, wide open.
“I don’t know who said what to who (Monday), but there is no pending announcement. There never was,” the mayor told a pack of online, print, radio and television media in Room 200 at City Hall. “I haven’t made up my mind. There is no pending decision.”
Tuesday was prime fodder for rumors, as it is the deadline for candidates to submit a personal statement to the voter pamphlet (without which surely folks in Fresno will know nothing about Gavin Newsom). The actual for-real deadline to file paperwork to run for the office is 5 p.m. March 12.
By that time, Newsom said, he will have mulled it over and will decide. In the meantime, he said, he is focused on his daughter first, his wife second, and running his hometown third.
“I’ll let you know,” he promised. “Don’t believe the rumors until then.”
Photo of Gavin Newsom at Tuesday’s press conference by Chris Roberts for the Appeal
