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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