EARLY HITCH FOR AMBITIONS OF SAN FRANCISCO'S MAYOR

SAN FRANCISCO -- Gavin Newsom, the popular and telegenic mayor of San
Francisco, declared this week that he was forming an exploratory
committee to consider a run for governor in 2010.

His move was not surprising: convincingly re-elected last fall, Mr.
Newsom, a Democrat, is riding a wave of local adoration. His embrace
of same-sex marriage, and the California Supreme Court's ruling in
May legalizing the marriages, also put him in the national spotlight.

But his announcement came amid revelations in The San Francisco
Chronicle about the city's handling of teenage Honduran crack
dealers. Suddenly, Mr. Newsom was on the defensive and off message.

On Sunday, The Chronicle reported that city officials had been
shielding from federal authorities juvenile offenders who were in the
country illegally, using San Francisco's longstanding "sanctuary
city" policy as justification.

The policy, approved by the Board of Supervisors in 1989, directs
city employees not to cooperate with immigration enforcement actions
by federal agencies.

The Chronicle said that officials in the city's Juvenile Probation
Department had been sending young Honduran drug dealers back to their
native country on flights paid for by the city, with city probation
officers often on board, rather than handing them to federal
immigration officials. Mr. Newsom said the city had regularly
cooperated with federal authorities on the handling of adult felons
in the country illegally.

The city's actions on juveniles, which date to 1989, are the focus of
a federal criminal investigation, the paper reported, and federal
officials recently detained a San Francisco probation officer in
Houston, where he was on a trip intended to take two young drug
suspects back to Honduras.

A subsequent article revealed that eight juvenile crack dealers had
disappeared from a Southern California juvenile facility where they
had been sent by San Francisco officials.

That article appeared on Tuesday, the day that Mr. Newsom revealed
his ambition to be governor, and apparently surprised the mayor, who
said he had been unaware of the policy.

"We should have caught it earlier, and we didn't," Mr. Newsom said on
Thursday. "And I take account for that."

Law enforcement officials say juveniles are frequently used by drug
cartels because charges against them are often less severe than they
are for adults. Mr. Newsom said the city's approach had been
developed by an array of officials in the city, including the
district attorney, court officials, the public defender and officials
in the Department of Juvenile Probation, to try to comply with both
the sanctuary policy and state and federal laws.

"It's something that's part of our history," Mr. Newsom said.

The city attorney, Dennis Herrera, issued a short statement outlining
the legal underpinning for the policy, citing local, state and
federal laws, some of which provide protection and privacy for
juvenile offenders.

Mr. Newsom said that the juvenile policy had been revoked in mid-May
and that city officials were working with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement to develop new protocols, which he said would not use the
city's sanctuary policy as "a shield for felons."

"We do not allow sanctuary status to commit crimes," he said. "It
never has for adults, and it was never intended to for anyone in
juvenile policy."

Mr. Newsom had little time this week to talk about his possible run
for governor because of the questions about the city's sanctuary
policy. Should he run for governor, he is expected to face stiff
competition for the Democratic nomination, possibly from Jerry Brown,
the former governor and current state attorney general, and Antonio
R. Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles.