Having already spent 10 years at the helm of the city's public health system – longer than any of his predecessors – Dr. Mitch Katz is expected to step down as health director by December 2009, when he will turn 50.

The openly gay Katz, an adoptive father of two children, a son, 5, and a daughter, 3, has told colleagues he wants to relocate his family to his home state of New York to be closer to his aging parents.

"One possible vision is to move to New York. My parents are older and live in upstate New York," said Katz, who met his current partner a year ago. "I don't have another plan. I am not leaving to do something else."

Katz first joined the Department of Public Health as head of the AIDS Office's research branch in 1991. He then, in December 1992, became director of the AIDS Office, and in 1997, then-Mayor Willie Brown tapped him to run the health department, following the resignation of Dr. Sandra Hernandez, who left to run the San Francisco Foundation.

"I love the department very much and what we have done. It will be very sad to go," Katz said. "It is a little bit frightening to be planning on leaving without a new job or necessarily certainty on what I want to do."

Katz said he wants to remain in his job for the time being in order to pass a General Hospital facility bond in November 2008, reopen Laguna Honda Hospital with assisted living services, and implement the city's universal healthcare access plan.

"I am not resigning; I am not leaving; I am not burnt out. I just want to get these things done and stay here for the time to do it," said Katz.

He informed City Hall, his staff, and health department officials of his plans last December in order for there to be enough time to plan for his departure and to allow his staff time to weigh whether they should pursue other job offers.

"Given the enterprise we run, it would be a disservice to give the usual six weeks notice and then I am gone. What is best is to know how long I am here for and when to initiate a search to replace me," said Katz.

The Health Commission is charged with forwarding three possible candidates to the mayor, who then decides whom to hire. The health director serves at the pleasure of the commission, which has the sole power to fire or retain the person, though maintaining a close working relationship with the mayor, who sets the department's budget, is also key.

Jim Illig, one of four openly gay health commissioners and director of government relations at Project Open Hand, commended Katz for allowing city officials to prepare for his departure.

"It is not like he is burned out. He is giving us early warning, that down the line, he is thinking of moving on," Illig said. "It is a good thing for the commission and the city so we can plan way ahead of time on how to address that."

Nathan Ballard, a spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom agreed.

"It is an enormously long time in city government to have a heads up. It is a testament to Mitch's excellent managerial ability," he said.

Yet Katz's departure is already causing controversy, with one department gadfly claiming the Health Commission violated open meeting laws by discussing how to replace Katz at a special retreat it held Tuesday, May 15 at Laguna Honda Hospital.

"None of this discussion – from Katz's planned departure two years or less from now, and the need for thoughtful 'succession planning' – was adequately noticed to the public. No small wonder this discussion was suddenly scheduled to be held as far away from City Hall

Rec and Park Commissioner Michael Sullivan. Photo: Rick Gerharter

as humanly possible, with little warning to the public about what the TRUE agenda of this meeting was about," wrote Patrick Monette-Shaw, who plans to file a sunshine complaint, in an e-mail he circulated after the meeting.  

Since the e-mail went out, Katz said he has had to "calm down hundreds of people" who have asked if he is stepping down soon. Illig said the commission did not violate any open meeting rules.

He said the retreat was meant to look at updating the department's strategic plan, and part of that discussion was whether to change Katz's job title to chief operating officer, as recommended in a report issued last year.

"We have never done a COO. It would be very expensive," said Illig. "It was one of the things we looked at in this retreat. What do we need in this department leadership-wise?"

The Bay Guardian's sour beer

Since 1974 San Francisco's gay, labor, and progressive communities have supported a boycott against the Coors Brewing Company due to its anti-union stance and the Coors family's financial backing of anti-gay groups.

So it came as a surprise last week to see a color Coors ad in the SF Bay Guardian, the bible of progressive politics in town. The ad for the company's Coors Light brand, which ran on Page 13 in the May 16 edition, is believed to be the first such ad to appear in the alternative newsweekly in nearly two decades.

"I wish they would not carry it. I think they are mistaken to do so," said Howard Wallace, vice president of the San Francisco Labor Council, who helped launch the Coors boycott with the late Supervisor Harvey Milk. "Coors continues to put money through its Castle Rock Foundation and other forces that are the main leadership of the extreme right in the U.S."

Wallace said the boycott against Coors is ongoing, despite the company's move toward enacting policies protecting its LGBT employees. He said Coors management still resists seeing its workforce unionized and the Coors family still takes anti-gay stands.

"Peter Coors, when he ran for Senate, supported a constitutional amendment" against same-sex marriage, said Wallace, referring to the company's vice chairman, who is the great-grandson of company founder Adolph Coors. "Progressives shouldn't drink Coors. They should have nothing to do with Coors."

Asked if the Guardian was right to run the Coors ad, Supervisor Tom Ammiano said, "not given the history. I would like to know who made the decision."

With publisher Bruce Brugmann out of town, executive editor Tim Redmond fielded the Bay Area Reporter's questions on how such a pro-labor publication could run such an anti-union company's ads.

"I drink only Bud Light," said Redmond, adding that the advertising staff did nothing wrong since the paper does not restrict ads from companies or products that are the focus of a boycott. "If every ad met my political correctness test, there would be no ads in the paper and I would be out of a job."

Redmond, who said he is "very sympathetic of the Coors boycott," said the paper's policy when it comes to advertising is it will run any ad that is "not libelous, obscene, or consumer fraud." The paper has been criticized for the number of cigarette ads it used to run. Redmond said the paper doesn't get many tobacco ads these days.

"We try not to reject ads. If the Republican Party wanted to take out an ad, we would let them," he said. "I understand this is a different twist. I understand the concern here and that my answer may not be a terribly satisfying one."

But he did say he thought the issue of rejecting ads from boycotted companies is one the paper should address.

"It has never come up before. It is something we should look at," he said.

It is not the first time a Coors ad has caused debate. In 2001 the producers of the Folsom Street Fair faced criticism for accepting a Coors ad in the yearly outdoor party's guidebook, and in 2004 the B.A.R. also received complaints for running the company's advertisement during Pride month that June.

That ad was part of a national LGBT press buy Coors paid for to launch a new gay-focused campaign to counteract its anti-gay image in the community. B.A.R. general manager Michael Yamashita said like the Guardian, the paper does not censor advertising except for cigarette ads.

"We want to be sensitive. If it is a really big issue in the community, we would have to refuse advertising," he said. "But we don't want to be censoring people's right to be advertising either. It doesn't mean we wouldn't."

Commissioner news

Filling a three-year void of having queer representation on the city's Recreation and Parks Commission, Mayor Gavin Newsom tapped openly gay Michael Sullivan to fill a vacancy. Sullivan will take his oath of office today (Thursday, May 24) at 3:30 p.m. on the mayor's balcony in City Hall.

Sullivan, who turned 48 last Saturday, has been with his partner, Paul Loeffler, nine years. The domestic partners have a 3-year-old son named Joseph .

"I am a regular user of parks and playgrounds," said Sullivan, a Cole Valley resident.

Sullivan, a founder of the moderate political group Plan C and a strong Newsom backer, wrote the book The Trees of San Francisco and is an arborist. He currently works as an attorney with the law firm of Howard and Rice in its venture capital division.

The commission is embroiled in a dispute with outdoor events producers over potential fee hikes for using city parks. Groups such as San Francisco Pride and LoveFest fear the increased costs could put them out of business. Newsom stepped in last month to postpone adopting any fee hikes, and the commission has yet to readdress the issue.

"It is important events like Pride and other community events can happen in the city, so whatever we do, we ought to be setting fees so we don't price those events out of existence," Sullivan said.

In other news, B.A.R. publisher Thomas E. Horn also will be sworn in today; Horn was reappointed by the mayor to the War Memorial Board.

Clinton taps gay PR director

Luis Vizcaino resigned Friday, May 18 as the Human Rights Campaign's communications and marketing director in order to work on New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign to win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2008. The openly gay Vizcaino will serve as Clinton's California communications director.

He begins June 1 and will be based out of Los Angeles. It is a return home, of sorts, for Vizcaino, who was the chief spokesman for the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and a senior adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's 2005 campaign.

It also marks the fourth time Vizcaino, who is fluent in Spanish, has served on a presidential campaign. He worked on President Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 and the unsuccessful bids by Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry in 2004.