Free Republic

<p>The high-ranking official at San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission who ordered a $4,000 paint job on his new city-owned SUV because he didn't like the color has had his wheels yanked.</p> <p>Not only that, but an incensed Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered the red-faced official, Harlan Kelly, to repay the city $6,000 spent for the new paint job and other extras that Kelly had tacked onto the ride.</p>

<p>There's an interesting buzz going around the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission over Deputy Director Harlan Kelly's new Ford Explorer -- and the $4,000 paint job he ordered on the vehicle right after its delivery.</p> <p>Kelly was elevated from the Public Works Department by outgoing Mayor Willie Brown to help manage the Hetch Hetchy system's planned $1 billion bond overhaul. In the process, he was handed a sweet, five-year contract that paid him a $185,000 salary and called for him to get a new car.</p>