California - Airport spokesman's ouster -- trail leads back to mayor

Normally, the ouster of an airport spokesman -- even such a popular figure as San Francisco International's Ron Wilson -- wouldn't be all that newsworthy.

But then around here, even the smallest of shakeups can usually be traced back to Mayor Willie Brown.

And this one is no exception.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/08/07/BA187599.DTL

This is really a shame. He is a very candid spokesman and did a great service for our community.

Here's an interesting followup story:

RON WILSON PART 2: Just when it looked like the embers of controversy were starting to cool, Mayor Willie Brown -- with some very hot prodding from KGO radio talk show host Ronn Owens -- rekindled the sparks over the very public ouster of veteran San Francisco airport spokesman Ron Wilson.

Owens jump-started things with an on-air reading of an e-mail from a Berkeley listener.

"Ronn," the listener urged, "please do not let Willie get away with a chuckle over the firing of probably the best government agency spokesperson.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/14/BA180608.DTL

The substitute spokesman on the news last night, speaking about UA, made me miss Ron Wilson within the first utterance out of his mouth.

I think it would be great if he turned up as a spokesman for a competing airport with less politics (like OAK, or SJC).

It would be great, but there's much less news and politics, so his usefulness would be so much less.