In what may be the most visible departure from his predecessors, San Francisco's newly installed top cop, Greg Suhr, is giving up the big sport utility vehicle that past chiefs used and the driver as well.

"I don't need a driver. I know my way around town," said Suhr, who used to be seen tooling around on a department Harley-Davidson.

Suhr is opting to drive a Ford Fusion hybrid. That's the same model being used by Mayor Ed Lee, who also went the mini route after parking former Mayor Gavin Newsom'sbig Chevy Tahoe hybrid.

In another downsizing move, Suhr has eliminated the department's three assistant chief posts and returned the former occupants to the position of deputy chief, at $20,000 apiece less a year.

Suhr has also skipped his own $20,000 cost-of-living raise - although at $292,630, he's still making a good buck.

If all these cost cuts sound like public relations moves, you're right.

The mayor's office is expecting Suhr's help in persuading the rank and file to forgo once again their promised raises and kick in more for their pensions - which would amount to a 10 percent pay cut.

Deadly moves: Turns out the drunken-driving suspect in that hit-and-run that claimed the life of a 61-year-old man in San Francisco early Friday is a sheriff's cadet.

San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey confirmed that Jose Jimenez, 23, has been employed as a swing-shift security guard at the San Francisco's 911 emergency call center since September 2008.

Jimenez allegedly ran down James Hudson at Masonic Avenue and Turk Boulevard early Friday, then hit several parked cars before smashing into concrete planter boxes outside St. Mary's Medical Center and being arrested.

"He was on his day off," Hennessey said. "It's a tragic situation."

Treasure chest: The pilots who steer the big ships in and out of the bay have been green-lighted for a rate hike that could have them making upward of $432,000 a year by 2015.

The new rates, which are paid by the 9,000 commercial ships that come into the bay each year, were overwhelmingly approved by the State Board of Pilot Commissioners. The deal now goes to the Legislature for its OK.

There are 60 pilots working the bay. On average, they each earned $393,207 last year. The year before, when business was up, they earned an average of $427, 153.

Nice work if you can get it. But then, it's a high-pressure job, and the price of a single screw-up can be enormous - just ask John Cota, who ran the Cosco Busan container ship into the Bay Bridge in 2007, spilling more than 53,000 gallons of oil.

He became the only pilot ever sent to prison for an accident when he got 10 months in 2009 for polluting bay waters and killing migratory seabirds.

It's academic: Orinda Vice Mayor Steve Glazer, who worked as Gov. Jerry Brown's campaign manager, has been named by his old client to the California State University Board of Trustees.

Glazer, who has continued to work with Brown as an unpaid but top adviser, is himself a graduate of San Diego State University.

The pay: $100 per meeting, which Glazer plans to decline.

Hot property: It may not look like much, but Oakland's abandoned Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center is one of the hottest pieces of real estate in the Bay Area.

Why, just last year, the city was talking about selling the old auditorium to the Peralta Community College District for $19 million to help make up for the city's deficit.

No deal.

Now, Mayor Jean Quan is proposing selling the same building to the city's own redevelopment agency for $29 million - a $10 million increase in just a year.

Not bad.

Flashback: For University of California spokeswoman Lynn Tierney, news of Osama bin Laden's death bought "a jumble of emotion" - and a flood of text messages from old friends and colleagues in New York.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Tierney was a New York City deputy fire commissioner who raced to the World Trade Center's north tower after it was hit by a hijacked plane.

Just after she was called away from the building's lobby to attend a mayoral briefing, the tower collapsed. Tierney saved herself by diving into the loading dock area of a neighboring high-rise.

In the months that followed, Tierney escorted scores of grieving firefighters' families to ground zero, and she wrote and delivered 100 eulogies.

"I can't find it in myself to be happy that someone was killed," Tierney said of bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs. "But at the same time, I feel a measure of justice.

"I know that our guys who were killed would be thrilled."

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

This article has been corrected since it appeared in print editions.