Petrelis Files

SF Mayor Releases List of Invitees to his State of the City Address

On Thursday, I kvetched about the general public not being invited to Mayor Ed Lee's State of the City address delivered on January 17 at a restricted construction site in the Bayview district. I was very glad to see other writers also noted the mayor's staff had a velvet rope policy of who gained entry to the speech, a policy that only adds to the elitism of the mayor and his administration.

In response to a public records request, the mayor's office today provided me with a nine-page list of hundreds of invitees from all walks of life, it's hard to ignore some names: socialite A-listers such as Dede Wilsey, Stanlee Gatti and George Shultz, Wells Fargo and Bank of America executives, tech mogul Ron Conway and his Oracle and Twitter colleagues, the owners of the Warriors basketball team Rick Welts and Peter Guber, and it seems like every honorary and general consulate from dozens of foreign countries.

It my view, the mayor needs to post this invitation list on his web site and should be regularly and voluntarily posting every such list when he holds an official function or public policy meeting in his capacity as mayor either at City Hall or elsewhere.

If you'd like a copy of the list, email the mayor's public records staffer here: mayorsunshinerequests@sfgov.org .