Word: newsom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Shortly after graduating from college, Newsom opened a wine shop, with the help of investor Gordon Getty, one of the Bay Area's most wealthy scions. The Gettys had been family friends of the Newsoms for years and reportedly even bankrolled Newsom's lavish wedding to his first wife...
...Newsom's wine shop eventually sprouted 15 separate businesses and made him a millionaire. In 1996, then Mayor Willie Brown appointed Newsom to the city's parking and traffic commission and later the board of supervisors. Newsom ran for mayor in 2003, narrowly beating out a Green Party candidate in a runoff. (Newsom was re-elected in 2007 with 73% of the vote...
...36th day as mayor, Newsom ordered the City Clerk to start marrying same-sex couples, in violation of California law. Newsom made the controversial move against the advice of much of his staff as well as Democrats concerned the action would galvanize the Republican Party. Some 4,000 gay couples tied the knot before the state courts declared the marriages invalid. During the height of the ensuing publicity, Newsom said he received over 1,000 death threats...
...public office, Newsom has gained a reputation as a policy wonk and has focused on several other key issues: - reducing San Francisco's homeless population by cutting welfare payments in exchange for services, including housing - universal health care, championing a program that has insured nearly 40,000 uninsured San Franciscans, funded in part, by fees paid by employers - the environment, banning plastic bags in the city, endorsing the Kyoto Protocol and luring "green" companies to relocate to San Francisco
...Shortly after he became mayor, Newsom dressed in disguise and walked around some of San Francisco's roughest neighborhoods to survey for himself what needed to be cleaned up and fixed. He also appointed the first woman police chief in the city's history and the first female fire chief in a major city...