Haggard now "completely heterosexual"
February 6, 2007

DENVER – One of four ministers who oversaw three weeks of intensive counseling for the Rev. Ted Haggard said the disgraced minister emerged convinced that he is “completely heterosexual.”

Haggard also said his sexual contact with men was limited to the former male prostitute who came forward with sexual allegations, the Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur told The Denver Post for a story in Tuesday’s edition.

“He is completely heterosexual,” Ralph said. “That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn’t a constant thing.”

Ralph said the board spoke with people close to Haggard while investigating his claim that his only extramarital sexual contact happened with Mike Jones. The board found no evidence to the contrary.

“If we’re going to be proved wrong, somebody else is going to come forward, and that usually happens really quickly,” he said. “We’re into this thing over 90 days and it hasn’t happened.”

Haggard resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last year after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. He was also forced out from the 14,000 New Life Church that he founded years ago in his basement after Jones alleged Haggard paid him for sex and sometimes used methamphetamine when they were together. Haggard, who is married, has publicly admitted to “sexual immorality.”

Haggard said in an e-mail Sunday, his first communication in three months to church members, that he and his wife, Gayle, plan to pursue master’s degrees in psychology. The e-mail said the family hasn’t decided where to move but that they were considering Missouri and Iowa.

Another oversight board member, the Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, said the group recommended the move out of town and the Haggards agreed.

“This is a good place for Ted,” Ware said. “It’s hard to heal in Colorado Springs right now. It’s like an open wound. He needs to get somewhere he can get the wound healed.”

It was also the oversight board that strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work.

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… in case he suffers a “relapse” at some point in the future… 8/

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Newsom to seek help for alcohol abuse – MAYOR’S ADMISSION: In wake of scandal, he says that he has stopped drinking
February 6, 2007
By Cecilia M. Vega and Heather Knight

Just days after disclosing his affair with a staff member married to one of his top political aides, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom admitted Monday he has a drinking problem and said he would seek treatment for alcohol abuse.

During a regularly scheduled weekly meeting with department leaders in City Hall, Newsom said he has stopped drinking and that he is seeking professional help for his dependency.

In a statement issued by his press office after the meeting, the mayor said he has no plans to step down from his job while he undergoes treatment.

“Upon reflection with friends and family this weekend, I have come to the conclusion that I will be a better person without alcohol in my life,” he said in the three-paragraph statement. “I take full responsibility for my personal mistakes, and my problems with alcohol are not an excuse for my personal lapses in judgment.”

The announcement comes at a time when Newsom’s 3-year-old administration is in crisis. Last week the 39-year-old mayor admitted to having an affair 1 1/2 years ago with his appointments secretary, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, whose husband is Alex Tourk, who at the time was the mayor’s deputy chief of staff and moved on to manage Newsom’s re-election campaign. Tourk resigned from the campaign last week after confronting the mayor about the affair.

Rumors about Newsom’s drinking have long swirled around his administration. They reached a head in December after the mayor appeared to have been drinking when he arrived at San Francisco General Hospital to pay his respects for a police officer who had been killed in the line of duty.

One city department leader who attended the Monday afternoon meeting said Newsom appeared pained.

“From my read, the man is actually in physical pain,” said the official said, who like most city employees contacted for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity because they still have to work with Newsom.

At the end of the 1 1/2-hour meeting, Newsom spent more than 10 minutes apologizing for his recent transgressions — including the affair and his betrayal of Tourk — to the more than 50 people convened in a City Hall conference room.

“He said he was solely responsible for causing not only pain to his family and the two people involved that he considers very good friends, but that he knew he had caused pain to a lot of other people, including everybody in the room,” the city official said.

In his statement, Newsom said he would seek treatment from Mimi Silbert, head of San Francisco’s famous Delancey Street Foundation.

“It was very heartfelt,” said another attendee, who asked not to be named because he was not cleared to discuss the matter publicly. “It was also clear that he wasn’t taking a leave from the office.”

Newsom reportedly spent the weekend with family and friends discussing the situation, though insiders said disclosing his alcohol problem probably was a necessary step in his efforts to salvage his political future in the Democratic Party.

Still, the mayor’s disclosure was a shock to department heads and reportedly to some in his closest political circle.

After he apologized, a small smattering of applause erupted in the room, some in attendance said.

Many of those on hand Monday were hired by Newsom or are his close allies. A number of people contacted by The Chronicle either refused to speak about what he said during the meeting or did not return calls seeking comment.

Another department head who was present for the meeting said Newsom appeared to be “getting some clarity” and that he “was pretty courageous.”

Alcohol has been a big part of Newsom’s economic well being. Before taking office in 2004, he built a multimillion-dollar group of wine, restaurant, bar and resort businesses.

He formed PlumpJack Associates in the early 1990s, in part funded by longtime Newsom family friend, oil tycoon Gordon Getty.

It began with a wine shop on Fillmore Street in 1992, and other successful ventures followed, including the PlumpJack Cafe, also on Fillmore Street, the PlumpJack winery in Napa and an online wine outlet.

Newsom also owned a stake in two popular Cow Hollow night spots, Balboa Cafe and the MatrixFillmore bar, a popular club that serves designer cocktails and featured a plasma screen video system and tables shaped as the letters S, E and X.

Reports about the mayor’s after-hours drinking have in recent months become increasingly public and increasingly embarrassing for his administration.

In addition to reports that he had been drinking at a holiday party before visiting the hospital for the police officer, he also was spotted in a restaurant window in North Beach in December, slurping pasta and kissing his girlfriend and appearing to be intoxicated.

In the wake of Newsom’s announcement about seeking treatment for alcohol, those close to him wondered just how much of a problem he really has.

“I honestly had no idea if he did or he didn’t,” said his chief political strategist Eric Jaye. “I don’t know anything about addiction at that level. I know he showed up every morning at work and worked through the day and always was focused, always ready to go.”

Others, however, say Newsom’s affinity for wine was particularly a problem after hours, when he went out socially or attended evening events.

After Newsom admitted to his affair, his spokesman Peter Ragone was hounded by the media with questions about the mayor’s drinking. Ragone said Newsom’s drinking was in no way related to the affair.

In his statement Monday, Newsom said he accepts full responsibility for his personal mistakes and that his problems with alcohol are not an excuse for his errors.

Earlier in the day, Newsom made a round of public appearances, including a visit to the Queen Mary 2 docked at the city’s waterfront. He refused to answer questions from the media about the affair.

After his announcement to department heads, Newsom attended the regular monthly meeting of SF Stat, a program he created to track a variety of city statistics.

As the public meeting progressed, a few members of the media entered, prompting the mayor to shake his head and look down. A Chronicle photographer took pictures of Newsom, who soon exploded.

“Should I just pose for you so you can get your shot?” Newsom asked the photographer, interrupting the meeting. Turning to a Chronicle reporter, he said, “What do you want? What’s the headline in tomorrow’s paper?”

He then lectured the two about the importance of the meeting. “At a point, this becomes almost farcical,” he said. “I know why you’re here — I know what you’re writing about.”

Though the disclosure of Newsom’s affair has not provoked a huge public outcry, it remains to be seen what the new revelations about his problem with alcohol will have on either his chances for higher office or his re-election campaign. He is up for re-election in November.

“I don’t think it bothers him one way or the other if there are political consequences,” Jaye said of the drinking announcement. “He leaves that up to the judgment of the people of San Francisco.”

While Jaye referred to Newsom’s treatment for alcohol dependency as counseling, Silbert disagreed with the characterization.

“I don’t know if I would use the word ‘counseling,’ but I will be helping the mayor,” she said.

Silbert said Newsom had contacted her Saturday about getting help.

“No one comes to me or Delancey Street for any kind of help unless they are deadly serious,” Silbert said. “We are no lightweight or B.S. program.”

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