Petrelis Files

Castro Supe's Staffer Won't Call
'Private Citizen' Over Rainbow Flag Pole

My head is still spinning from a frustrating phone conversation earlier this afternoon with Gillian Gillett, staffer to gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, because of all the verbal dancing around and vagueness on her part.

The goals I wanted to achieve were some answers about where Wiener stands on the failure of the Department of Public Works to find any agreement granting Steve Adams of the Merchants of Upper Market/Castro control of the rainbow flag pole at Harvey Milk Plaza.

Gillian said she would not call Steve and request that he produce the alleged document "because he's a private citizen." Huh? Two months of questions and confusion about the city allegedly giving MUMC sole control of a piece of public property could be dealt with if the Supervisor's office took a few minutes to call or email Steve.

Further, this private citizen right now is in control of an important piece of municipal real estate and I see not reason why he should not be contacted, since he's made many public claims to have city approval to control the flag pole.

"I'd rather wait until I have answers from DPW regarding my request for more information about Milk Plaza," Gillian said. She explained her concern that my public records request, which stated I wanted any agreement with MUMC from any time, didn't go back far enough. I asked for a copy of her request to DPW and it has not arrived yet.

To further avoid clarifying the situation, she said she wasn't sure if her boss would stake out a position on the matter of activists wanting a democratically run process making decisions about the rainbow flag pole.

When I asked her again to simply call Steve, while she waited for DPW's reply, she was only interested in doing the latter. Guess it's asking too much for Wiener's office to multitask on the flag pole.

After speaking with Gillian, I phoned Steve and left him a voice mail, again requesting that he produce the alleged agreement or at least explain to me why he won't communicate any more and the DPW not locating the agreement in their archive.

Something about the control over the flag pole on city property, especially the silence of Steve Adams and the troubling dosey-doing by Scott Wiener's office, doesn't smell right. Too bad neither Adams nor Wiener is doing anything to clear the air and end the needless confusion.