San Diego is defining “legal insurrection”, as lawsuits abound that address various aspects of the city’s attempts to remove Mayor Bob Filner.
As an eighth woman now accuses the former congressman of sexual harassment, the City Council has voted to sue Filner for the cost of defending him against these charges….which is in response to Filner saying the taxpayers need to pick up his legal tab.
San Diego is suing its mayor for the costs incurred as a result of the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by his former communications director Irene McCormack Jackson, according to the Los Angeles Times. On Tuesday, the San Diego City Council decided unanimously to file the lawsuit during a closed-door session….
This is part of due process,” City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said of the city’s lawsuit. “If Bob Filner engaged in unlawful conduct and the city is held liable, he will have to reimburse us every penny the city pays and its attorney fees.”
Goldsmith’s office is not representing Filner, having promised after McCormack Jackson filed her lawsuit to “not, under any circumstance, represent Bob Filner.”
Instead, Filner hired a private attorney, Harvey Berger.
Interestingly, Filner has so disgusted the population, he has generated two separate recall efforts. However, as one is being spearheaded by a solid Filner supporter who has apparently made a statement about stalling for time with his petition (which is consistent with his lack of hiring petition-signing staff), the other petition initiator is considering filing felony charges.
The organizer behind one of the recall efforts tells 10News he is now considering whether to stop his bid and a coffee meeting could bring clarity.
“Will you consider stopping your recall effort?” asked 10News reporter Michael Chen.
“I will consider anything that the two of us can work out,” said Stampp Corbin, the publisher of LGBT Weekly, late Tuesday morning.
He was talking about himself and Michael Pallamary, the man heading the other Filner recall effort.
On Monday, Pallamary held a news conference, claiming he intended to go to prosecutors alleging Corbin has filed a phony petition.
At that news conference was Susan Jester, the head of a gay Republican group. She told 10News that in a phone conversation with Corbin, he said he would begin a recall to “sit on it and stall time,” which would help Filner.
Corbin claims he was joking. On Tuesday he pressed on with his recall effort, serving notice to the mayor, which is the second step in the process.
It remains unclear if two recall efforts can legally go on at the same time.
Between the paperwork and wait periods associated with serving notices, collecting signatures, counting names, and setting up a recall election, it will be at least 7 or 8 months before Filner is legally given the boot (assuming further pressure doesn’t force him to resign with any remaining vestiges of dignity he possesses.) It is important to note that San Diego rules say that if a recall effort fails, six months must pass before a new one begins.
Our local press is just beginning to feel a bit guilty for the lack of investigation conducted on Filner’s Washington antics.
Regardless of how the Bob Filner mess eventually ends—and it will end, somehow—there are questions that need to be asked and answered.
They are questions that should have been asked long ago, and should have been asked by those whose job it is to ask such questions: us.
Who are “us”?
“Us” are the San Diego news media reporters, editors, producers and writers who pretty much knew who and what Bob Filner is and has been.
Yes, I’m including myself in that group. I’ve covered Bob Filner off and on since he was elected to the San Diego Unified School District Board in 1979. From the beginning, most of us saw how arrogant Filner was and is, how abusive he could be to his own staff members, how he felt elective office entitled him to be all those things and more.
We all saw that in Filner, and yet we did nothing about it.
I may need a vacation in Israel to recover from the chaos in my city.
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Bob Fulner is writting a book out his attempts to get the city of San Diego to pay his legal bills. He calls it:
The Audacity of Grope.
And this reporter probably wonders why professional journalism is dying as an industry. Why bother buying a newspaper when it wouldn’t tell you what the professional newspapers already knew, that this man was a dangerous lecherous foul individual?
Gloria Steinem says we’re all entitled to one free grope … Filner’s problem is he couldn’t just stop at one. Liberalism is a barrel of laughs:).
How times have changed. There was once a time the guy would have been sent screaming out of town. Followed by a posse.
Other than screwing women, what else did he do in San Diego while he was mayor?
And, if he had a habit of going “all the way” was he sterile? Has a doctor come along to test him for a variety of venereal diseases? If he has a wife, does she write a book about her happy marriage?
What do you think they make of this in France?
My aunt, who was born in 1908 didn’t want to go into retail. So she went to secretarial school where she learned shorthand. And, she typed like a bandit. Oddly enough, while I knew she was a top secretary, working for a manufacturer of women’s underpants, she never sported a wedding band. Then, when she started to go grey, she became a blonde. I don’t think my aunt would have been shocked.
I guess after sexual harassment laws got passed, women who co-operated with the “exploitation,” sued. But as far as I know women loved the attention. Especially if it came with raises other ladies didn’t get.
Gosh, it sure made for interesting back office gossip.
But I don’t think you’ve reduced the amount of sex that occurs in offices around the world by one iota.
And, guess what? I think by and large republicans get distressed. Even though sane people know if someone makes a pass at ya, and you don’t want it, you don’t have to call your lawyer.
But sex scandals that are a little “off” sure get lots of attention. While the politics that are needed are never discussed. You know the GOP doesn’t pick up votes for following these stories.
Reagan told of a time he was on a factory floor, signing autographs, and a woman pulled her blouse open and asked him to autograph her breast. He did. People laughed. And, he told Nancy. Who took it in stride.
Yeah, Filner’s a jerk, and probably mentally ill.
So what has happened to all the money that has washed through his hands and those of so many other California state employees and politicians?
Filner got away with it all this time because there is no functional press in California.
Recall him, vote him out, do whatever makes you feel good.
If California’s politics are anything like New York’s, he’ll disappear for a while, then come back to run for governor or some other higher office.
We could start calling that particular career move “pulling a Weiner.” Or, depending on your “tastes,” you could call it “pulling a Spitzer.” (I swear, the jokes write themselves! 😉 )
Archer, you owe me a keyboard!
I’m surprised it still works.
The press knew about John Edwards too.
Sadly this is not really new. Back in the 70’s Portland,Or had a mayor by the name of Neil Goldschmidt who would later become Secretary of Transportation under Jimmy Carter and governor of Oregon. During his first term as mayor of Portland he started a sexual relationship with a 14 year old girl. This was covered up by the press for 30 years before it was finally reported and even then the major local paper the Oregonian called it an affair not the child rape it was. It was also revealed that many local politicians knew of the rape but said nothing
If Doug Curlee truly understands the problem with San Diego’s news media and changes his actions, I’ll say “better late than never”. For now, I’m withholding judgment. I had never heard of Mr. Curlee until today, so I have no prejudices in this matter. It certainly would be nice to read more pieces like this from the news media, though, and not just from the folks in San Diego.