UC Berkeley adviser fired after affair

A former UC Berkeley assistant vice chancellor who doubled the salary of a male subordinate during a 15-month affair has been fired from the university.

Diane Leite, 47, who had already been bumped from her assistant vice chancellor's job, was dismissed from the six-figure-salary adviser's job where she had landed, UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof confirmed Friday.

Leite's relationship with purchasing manager Jonathan Caniezo, who is 17 years her junior, was detailed in a whistle-blower letter to her boss back in August. Records show that Caniezo's pay grew from $57,864 in late 2008 to $120,000 in 2010.

When the scandal went public in March, the university came under sharp attack, both on campus and in the state capital, for its decision not to fire the administrator.

An investigation concluded that Leite, who oversaw Caniezo's campus research department, had broken the school's sexual harassment policies. She was subsequently reassigned from her $188,000-a-year job as head of the research office to an adviser's role that paid $175,000.

Amid the subsequent public furor, sources familiar with the case tell us, Leite was asked to resign. Instead, she hired attorney and Oakland City Councilwoman Jane Brunner to fight her case. Her dismissal was recently upheld at an internal hearing.

"Everything was done by the book," said Mogulof, declining further to comment further.

Brunner did not return our calls.

With 30 years at the university, Leite is vested and will keep her pension, though she may fall short of the benchmark for receiving health benefits for life.

Incidentally, from what we hear, Caniezo is also facing serious disciplinary action from the university - with a big rollback of his salary.

Rally time: The home crowd is definitely turning up the heat on Oakland A's owners Lew Wolff and John Fisher to keep the team in town - or sell to someone who will.

There are deep-pocketed investors who are interested. None is willing to be publicly identified just yet, but we're told one group is based in Oakland, one in the South Bay and the third is from Southern California.

While possible suitors stay in the shadows, the Save the A's boosters trotted out one of the biggest guns in their arsenal Thursday - Clorox CEO Don Knauss, who is leading a pack of local businesses fighting to keep the team in town.

As former chief executive of Minute Maid, Knauss helped with the effort to build the Houston Astros' downtown ballpark that subsequently bore the company's name.

Knauss said he hasn't had any conversations with Wolff, but that his group's "first preference" is to work with the team's ownership if they're willing to "recommit to Oakland."

If not, he said, "we are confident we've identified people who have the financial wherewithal to buy the team ... and to get a new stadium built."

Wolff, however, tells us that "nobody has contacted me about buying the team," and anyway, "we have no interest in selling it - we have an interest in getting a new ballpark."

Just not in Oakland.

Bank shot: It had all the makings of a great press moment - crusading state Attorney General Kamala Harris, all dressed up for the cameras and ready to testify for bills implementing housing-loan reforms she just won in a big federal settlement.

But Harris had barely begun to speak when Assemblyman Mike Eng, chairman of the Assembly Banking Committee, informed her that it really wasn't necessary because he was pulling the bills. The unstated reason: They didn't have the votes.

"Welcome to Sacramento? To be honest, it didn't come as a surprise," Harris said.

Instead, the bills were sent behind closed doors to an Assembly-Senate conference committee, where legislative leaders John Pérez and Darrell Steinberg hope to bypass bank-friendly Republicans and moderate Democrats who have killed similar bills in the past.

"It was a chess move," Harris said. "It's not necessarily going to win the game, but it will keep the fight alive."

The bills would end such practices as "dual tracking," where homeowners get foreclosed on even if they have worked out a restructuring plan.

"We'll be fighting for the strongest consumer protections possible, well aware of the power of the banking lobby," said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

And he should know - the banking lobby has defeated Leno's two previous dual-tracking bills.

EXTRA! Catch our blog at www.sfgate.com/matierandross.