We're so excited! We've never actually someone we've written about in the Political Junkie column before! Usual Suspects is reporting that 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place is abuzzzzzzzz with the word that GavNew's going to appoint Phil Ting to Mabel Teng's former assessor/recorder position.

Phil's the current executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, but we actually know Phil because he and your Junkie were in a Mandarin Chinese class together at a jointly-shared institute of higher education! Your Junkie was hung over through a large number of those classes but nonetheless remembers that Phil was always very attentive and had good pronunciation. (But who knew he had all that real estate experience?)

Could Newsom be appointing Phil (who we've always thought of as progressive) to try and forestall Sandoval in the November 2005 assessor's election? Is Newsom trying to get Phil out of the way for the District 4 run that Phil was going to make? Is Newsom trying to get Building Inspection Commission Phil out of trouble with the land use crowd? Or is Newsom just trying to make sure that Chris Daly doesn't appoint public-power Phil to the PUC board when Newsom goes on vacation?

So many things to think about! Especially since everyone else in our Chinese class just went to medical school or something. If the rumors are true -- congratulations, Phil! We can't think of a nicer person to sign San Franciscans' marriage licenses.

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