https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Has-the-mayor-s-new-girlfriend-who-is-only-20-2468236.php
Has the mayor's new girlfriend, who is only 20, been drinking?
Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Published 4:00 am PDT, Sunday, October 15, 2006
SEPT 6 - Opening night at the San Francisco Symphony. Vignettes of various fashion of San Francisco's well-heeled. Brittanie Mountz and Mayor Gavin Newsom. By JOHN LEE/SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE Ran on: 09-21-2006 Symphony board of governors President John Goldman and his wife, Marcia Goldman, in a beaded chiffon chocolate gown by Max Nugus. Ran on: 10-15-2006 Gavin Newsom and Brittanie Mountz Ran on: 10-15-2006 Gavin Newsom and Brittanie Mountz less
SEPT 6 - Opening night at the San Francisco Symphony. Vignettes of various fashion of San Francisco's well-heeled. Brittanie Mountz and Mayor Gavin Newsom. By JOHN LEE/SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE Ran on: ... more
Photo: JOHN LEE
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's new squeeze, Brittanie Mountz, just turned 20 last month -- and that raises a couple of questions about the couple's nights on the town.
The biggest question is whether Mountz has been drinking, and it's been swirling since the pair made their first public appearance and walked down the red carpet together at the San Francisco Symphony in September.
At the time, Mountz had a MySpace page that said she was 19. It now says she's 26.
But according to the Sonoma County registrar of voters, the Rohnert Park resident turned 20 on Sept. 17 -- three weeks and two days before Newsom turned 39.
A model by day, by night the Sonoma State alum works as a hostess at San Francisco's trendy Aqua restaurant, where she and the mayor met.
Photos of Mountz holding a wine glass during the opening of the new Westfield San Francisco Shopping Center, where Newsom also made an appearance, raised some eyebrows.
The photos had been posted on society photographer Drew Altizer's Web site this past week. After Chronicle City Hall reporter Cecilia Vega began asking whether Mountz had been drinking alcohol at an event where the mayor was present, the photos promptly came down.
The questions infuriated Newsom, who told a group of reporters Friday, "I've got to deal with all kinds of terrible calls from reporters doing horrible things that are mean-spirited."
Whether Mountz was actually drinking alcohol at the shopping center opening remains a mystery. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful.
But Newsom spokesman Peter Ragone distanced his boss from the event, saying the mayor and Mountz had arrived separately and had not been there together.
In a statement, Ragone said, "Brittanie is a friend of the mayor's. They did not attend the Bloomingdale's event together. Obviously there has been some uncertainty about her age. However, given what The Chronicle has dug up on her, if she was in fact drinking, that is a mistake."
Newsom has never provided Mountz with any alcohol, and if she ever had a drink in his presence, that's news to the mayor, Ragone said.
"If she was drinking," he said, "the mayor didn't notice."
By the way, Mountz's voter registration revealed something else interesting -- she's a Republican.
Strange bedfellows: It turns out that ultra-hot conservative talk show host Michael Savage is backing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown for state attorney general.
"What can I say? I think he'd make a great attorney general compared to the other guy. By the way, who is the other guy?" Savage said, when asked why he chose Democrat Brown over conservative Republican Chuck Poochigian.
Savage, whose rants can be heard locally on KNEW-AM, is backing up his hot talk with some hot money as well. Savage Productions, which lists Savage as president and his wife, Janet Weiner, as director, has donated $5,600 to Brown's campaign.
"You have to make choices in an imperfect world," Savage said. "And this, this Machugian guy. (Like we said, it's Poochigian.) I never heard of him. I don't even know who he is."
Poochigian has spent the past 12 years in Sacramento, first in the Assembly and now in the Senate. Doesn't impress the president of the Savage Nation.
"Why bet on a horse that isn't going to win? Why throw your money into the garbage?"
So how did the best-selling author of "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder" wind up backing a liberal once nicknamed "Governor Moonbeam"?
"People change. He changed. He has experience," Savage said of Brown. "He started the Oakland military academy -- that was a good thing."
And Brown's politics?
"He's moved to the center, which is what this socialist state needs," Savage said.
"So that's about it. I'm sure you will spin this and make something out of it."
Brown campaign manager Ace Smith would say only, "Michael Savage is one of 5,000 contributors to the campaign."
As for the Poochigian campaign, chief adviser Ken Khachigian told us, "We have Bo Derek, they have Michael Savage -- so between us, we've got the Good, the Bad and the Ugly."
Who needs to spin after that?
Arnold arrives: Considering the amount of security surrounding Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to the Chronicle editorial board, the guy doesn't have to bother running for president.
He already thinks he is.
The pre-Arnold prep began in earnest the day before his visit Wednesday, when a California Highway Patrol detail arrived to check out the building.
The next morning the bomb dog showed up to sniff out any possible explosives.
Then came the security contingent itself -- a couple squad cars and a town car full of earphoned officers who proceeded, two hours before the meeting, to stake out the building and shut down the main elevator pending the Terminator's arrival.
Arnold showed up at 11 a.m., only half an hour late.
When Schwarzenegger sat down in the meeting room, his handlers promptly removed the labels on the bottled water -- apparently worried about photos that might make it appear the governor was endorsing a particular brand.
Like his predecessor, Gray Davis, Arnold takes his water at room temperature.
At least Schwarzenegger drinks his host's water -- the White House brings its own.
G is for goof: You can imagine the surprise that Gary Smoot must have felt earlier this month when he was awakened in the middle of the night with a call from Stockholm, congratulating him for winning the Nobel Prize for physics.
Then came a second call. And a third.
The thing is, Gary Smoot teaches at Pacifica's Ingrid B. Lacy Middle School. The prize's actual winner, George Smoot, is a UC Berkeley astrophysicist.
EXTRA! Check out the new Matier & Ross Web page at www.sfgate.com/matierandross. Cast your vote for Mayor Newsom's hair. Play the Kim Jong Il photo caption contest. Lob a brick or blow a kiss in the reader feedback. And check out the Extra, Extra, Extra musings and insights of their many friends, including Rich "Big Vinny" Lieberman and The Chronicle's Carla Marinucci and Don "Bad Reporter" Asmussen.