Story #2—Winners and Losers: the San Diego Edition

Introduction

Stories #1 and #2 are connected by a common thread: the selective system that elevates, protects, and rewards San Diego's compliant players while throwing principled nonconformers to the wolves...

Story #1 revisited the 1984 San Ysidro massacre.  The loss and horror of that event are incalculable.  Yet those who were  responsible--directly (the shooter) or indirectly (certain city officials)--either cannot (the shooter is dead) or will never (the code of silence) answer for the depth of harm inflicted on the victims.  

Not many people think about this story anymore.


Story #2 revisits the Bob Filner story.  It's a third-rate operetta compared to the San Ysidro tragedy.   But sex sells and the Filner story has morphed into a national hit.  The secret of its success is that can serve a wide audience across the political spectrum—left, right, and center.  Like the proverbial gift, it keeps on giving.  

Given its popularity, the time seems right for an updated review of this story.  It needs a thorough airing, even though the dust it raises may irritate some readers.  It’s a small price to pay when good government, transparency, and--above all--accountability are the objectives.

Part I: The Official Story

Chapter 1

The latest resurrection of the Filner story was aimed at Senator Kamala Harris, a presidential candidate from California.  It's an attempt to discredit her for her 2013 failure to throw the accused mayor Bob Filner into prison when she was state Attorney General.  It’s an ironic twist, since Senator Harris had opportunistically jumped the gun and eagerly mounted the anti-Filner bandwagon, even though she had never laid eyes on the man or exchanged a single word with him.  

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t....
  

But Harris shouldn’t take the attack personally.  The Filter trope is an equal opportunity weapon across many battle arenas.   Check out how it's used against Nancy Pelosi and her "perv problem."  Or against gay rights activists and the Sex-Creep Club.  Or by trendy authors to advance their sociopath theories.  Or by #MeToo victims as grist for a movie plot or memoir.  

And see for yourself how effective the Filner trope is here at home with men like: 

* Labor Council’s Mickey Kasparian 

* County Supervisor Dave Roberts 

* Former councilmember Carl DeMaio

* School Board trustee Kevin Beiser, and recently

* Six male members of the District Attorney's office

Chapter 2

The official storyline goes something like this: Bob Filner, a transplant from the East Coast, spent a couple of decades at SDSU as a professor of history, having made his way to San Diego many years earlier.  He was elected to the board of the San Diego Unified School District.  

In 1987 he was elected and re-elected as a San Diego city council member.  In 1992 Filner won a seat in the United States Congress to represent the San Diego/Imperial County region adjacent to the Mexican border, one of the country's most ethnically diverse districts.

The official story continues: The liberal Democrat Bob Filner was among four main candidates running in the 2012 primary election for San Diego mayor.  The others were conservative Republican Carl DeMaio, moderate Republican Bonnie Dumanis, and Republican (almost-but-not-yet Independent) Nathan Fletcher.

Filner and DeMaio advanced to the November election.  Filner was elected mayor by a margin of 52.5% to 47.5%.  He was the first Democratic mayor to hold office since Maureen O'Connor.  (The city had elected a Democratic mayor in 1899, 1905, 1911, 1913, 1915, 1955, 1963, and 1985.)

Chapter 3

The official story goes on: Within weeks in office, what started as unofficial complaints from three women against the mayor rapidly snowballed into claims from over a dozen women of crude come-ons, intimidating sexual comments, and imprisoning headlocks. 

The official story takes a pivotal turn with an account of the

July 11, 2013 afternoon press conference, organized by three former supporters of the newly-elected mayor, to call for Filner’s immediate resignation.  Two accusers (Donna Frye and Marco Gonzalez) denounced the mayor for sexual abuses.  The third (Cory Briggs) denounced him with charges of corruption.

Chapter 4
The official story tells us that City Attorney Jan Goldsmith boasted about his decisive role in getting rid of the mayor.  

When Filner took office, Goldsmith hired private detectives to trail him and sniff out improprieties.  He deceived Filner with false information and threats of financial ruin, claiming that the city was not obligated to pay for his legal defense.  He had the locks changed to the mayor's office. Did he bug Filner’s office, as some staff members claimed?   

Chapter 5

The story progresses with a steady stream of graphic accounts of Filner's crude behavior. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office launched a hotline so women could register sexual harassment allegations against the mayor.  

The local public news station assembled a phalanx of aggrieved women for explicit interviews.  The services of national celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred were employed.  A news agency on the political right ran this catchy headline: Mayor Filner Grabbed Breasts, A$$, "Shoved Tongue Down Her Throat."

Chapter 6

The official story relates that, effective August 30, 2013, Filner resigned.  On cue, city council president Todd Gloria took over the coveted mayor’s suite to assume the role of acting mayor.  Gloria retained a few of Filner's staffers (e.g., Irene McCormack--the first woman to file a sexual harassment lawsuit), terminated others, and set about reversing a slew of Filner’s executive decisions and policies. 

The official storyline climaxes a few months later when councilmember Kevin Faulconer (formerly a Democrat who turned Republican as an undergraduate at SDSU—any chance he sat in on one of Filner’s history classes??) was elected as San Diego’s new mayor.

Part II: The Unofficial Story

Chapter 7

The unofficial storyline of the rise and fall of Bob Filner reads like plagiarized lift from the movie Chinatown.

By recruiting Bob Filner to run for mayor in 2012, San Diego's Democratic establishment was able to kill two birds with one stone:  

1. Filner was a safe bet to defeat Carl DeMaio, the candidate Democrats (as well as the city's moderate Republicans) were most worried about; and 
2. A mayoral win by Filner would initiate a longed-for game of political dominoes.  South Bay politics would be secured as a Latino stronghold when Filner’s seat in the US Congress was freed up for Juan Vargas.  Then Vargas’s State Senate seat would become available for Ben Hueso.  Then Hueso’s State Assembly seat would fall into the lap of Lorena Gonzalez.  

And so it came to pass.

Chapter 8
The unofficial story is a reminder that plenty of people wanted Filner out--ASAP.  Too progressive and brash for Democratic operatives and too threatening for San Diego's Republicans and other business elites, Filner never stood a chance.

Once DeMaio was defeated and the Vargas/Hueso/Gonzalez deal was duly consummated, Filner's usefulness was gone.  Before long, a Recall Filner website was set up and ready to go.   He was a dead man walking.    

Filner had crossed swords with too many of the city's heavyweights.  For starters: the San Diego Chargers; downtown hoteliers; Lorena Gonzalez; Irwin Jacobs (in a harakiri moment, Filner dissed him in public); Todd Gloria; City Attorney Jan Goldsmith; Carl DeMaio; U-T's Doug Manchester...

The story says that interim mayor Todd Gloria played a key role in the Filner ouster, working hand-in-glove with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith.  Other schemers included Tom Story of Sunroad Enterprises, who hatched a plot with then-councilmember Faulconer to initiate bogus kickback accusations against him.  Yelling corruption! Cory Briggs hurled this fictitious bombshell at mayor Filner.
  

Chapter 9

The story plods on: Filner made himself an easy target.

While the personal pursuits of numerous city officials and bigwigs have always been discreetly tolerated, Filner’s pursuit of female company was fair game for exploitation.  The gentleman’s agreement in San Diego was selective.  Its rules would never apply to him.

The unofficial story does not minimize Filner's role in his brutal ouster.  He kidded around too much.  He flirted incessantly.  He lost his temper and berated city personnel.  He was demanding and insensitive to his office staff.  He was bad at delegating authority.  He ignored the warnings of friends and allies.  For an unusually smart man, Filner could be socially inept, retarded, and obtuse.

It wouldn't matter that he was getting good things done for his constituents; that he was a reformer and advocate for the environment, workers, neighborhoods, and cross-border cooperation; that he was making sound decisions on behalf of the public.  His record could not save him.

Chapter 10

The unofficial story gets a boost when foes came up with a surefire formula to get rid of Filner: a massive dose of unrelenting, no holds barred, prurient accusations.  The more bizarre, the more implausible the better.  As predicted, it proved as effective as a sledgehammer.

The unofficial story takes note that Nathan Fletcher—cognizant of the plan and fully confident that the mayor's seat was soon be vacated and could be his--switched his party affiliation for a second time in one year to prepare for another run for mayor, this time as a Democrat.  His political conversion was announced in May, 2013, three months before Filner stepped down.  

Denouement

Chapter 11

The unofficial story continues as Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, impatiently chafing at the bit,  organized a private meeting of a dozen Democratic politicians to speed up the process of a) getting rid of Filner and b) choosing his successor.

By July, a letter was circulated from a generous Democratic fundraiser (Christine Forester) that read "...we would like to be prepared to immediately call for Nathan Fletcher to run for the office ... to have a letter ready to send to Nathan... (It) would allow him to say that he has received a letter from a bi-partisan group of highly respected leaders in the community (including his current employer QUALCOMM) calling on him to declare as a candidate.” 

Filner resigned a month later.  

But it didn’t work out as planned for Fletcher (much less for the Democrats).  He came in third in the subsequent mayoral primary, behind Democrat David Alvarez.  Then Alvarez lost in the November election to Republican Kevin Faulconer.  And that is how San Diego got from there to here. 

Epilogue

Such is the story of a duly-elected mayor who was taken out—NOT because he was a monster, NOT because he was a fake, NOT because he failed to act in good faith on behalf of his constituents—but because he was not (and would never be) a member of San Diego’s selective gentleman’s club.  

Filner is gone but the game goes on.  With Nathan Fletcher ensconced as a County Supervisor, the city's anointed mayoral contender is now Todd Gloria.  He’s in the bag as San Diego’s latest go-along guy and dependable team player.

But let's step away from politics for a moment and do some soul-searching:

• Once, we tarred and feathered a mayor for his reprehensible, unacceptable, and obnoxious behavior toward a number of women. 
• Once, we elected and rewarded a mayor whose incompetence and hubris may well have contributed to the preventable deaths of many innocent San Diegans in San Ysidro. 
• Once, we elected and reelected a mayor whose incompetence and neglect may have precipitated the deaths of many homeless people on the streets of San Diego. 

The question is: why weren’t they ALL run out of town?

So are they all… all honorable men

 San Diegans are no dummies.  We know what happens to politically independent, outspoken, public-minded individuals who are brash enough to shake things up.  They get maligned, noogied, humiliated, sent packing.  Open your mouth too wide in this city and... you’re dead meat.  

So we're polite and genteel.  Why look for trouble?  Yes, the public gets screwed over and over again but we've learned to turn the other cheek.  Forgive and forget -- that’s our MO.

We swoon over the nice guys, especially the ones with agreeable manners.  Like our avuncular ex-mayor Jerry Sanders, our puckish council president Todd Gloria, our sunkissed mayor Kevin Faulconer -- honorable men beyond public reproach.  Even when they're plotting to pull the rug out from under us.  

I’ll say this as politely and genteelly as I can.  These three guys should be lined up along the wall of our downtown superior courthouse -- TV cameras running at point-blank range -- and publicly charged with inflicting past, present, and future financial, political, and civic harm on the ordinary citizens of San Diego. 

Jerry Sanders, Todd Gloria, Kevin Faulconer, those nice guys handed over exclusive control of the historic, multi-million dollar civic project commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the 1915 Balboa Park Panama-California Exposition to a private corporation stacked with political cronies.

They created a homemade Frankenstein named "Balboa Park Celebrations, Inc."   For over three years Gloria and Faulconer (with Sanders lurking in the Chamber of Commerce back boardroom) abused the public trust and looked the other way as their well-connected cronies sucked million-dollar transfers out of public funds and into this exclusive private enterprise.   

I didn't know what to do, saysTodd Gloria 

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith also averted his eyes from the spurious stunts of this corporate entity, downplaying its specious accounting and yet-to-be-determined legal and financial trespasses. 

But whoops -- the reportedly secretive, arrogant, and incompetent Centennial committee suddenly informs us that they're dropping the ball.  The only grandiose plan they managed to come up with is to leave the city in a royal lurch.  They figure we'll forgive and forget.

Apparently so do Sanders, Gloria, and Faulconer.  Do you remember when these same honorable men tried to push down our throats an unsound and costly private plan to eliminate a few dozen parking spots from in front of Balboa Park art museums by engineering an intrusive bypass-bridge structure and erecting a privately-run parking structure in our world-famous publicly-owned Park?  It took a lawsuit to put a halt to this fiasco.  Didn't we forgive? Haven't we forgotten?

What about when the same official troika spearheaded the creation of a private corporation called the "Balboa Park Conservancy" to privatize Balboa Park management and governance?  Have we forgotten that they transferred control of Park infrastructure, projects, and programs out of public oversight and into the exclusive hands of a stand-alone private corporation?  

"Ironically, no bankruptcy judge would ever force the city of San Diego to transfer control of city assets and public property into private hands.  Yet that is what the Mayor and City Council are doing -- of their own free will.  It's a trickster's story."

But wait!  Jerry Sanders, Todd Gloria, and Kevin Faulconer -- the honorable trio tasked with privatizing basic city functions -- has another notch in its belt.

Maybe you thought that when California governor Jerry Brown ended the decades-old mechanism known as REDEVELOPMENT our city would develop a new approach to planning for urban growth and implementing urban revitalization.  Not so.  Yet again, our nice guys pulled a fast one with another private corporation charged with doing public business. 

Instead of dismantling the city’s preexisting redevelopment mechanisms, our honorable leaders simply melded the powerful downtown redevelopment arm (CCDC) with the city’s southeast redevelopment arm (SEDC) and gave it a new name.   

They call it "Civic San Diego."  This city-owned private corporation wears more than one hat.  It has the responsibility of masterminding the disposition of a $1.7 billion debt and obligation residue left over from CCDC and SEDC.  And it has control over neighborhood and community development in former redevelopment areas.  Moreover, it also has a strong intention to cement and expand its sphere of influence and dominion.   

The city subsidizes the Civic San Diego corporation with millions of dollars from the general fund, yet there is puny public oversight and limited public accountability.  It's the nice guys' version of how to run the city like a private business -- where the public has no voice but foots the bill.

Late breaking news: the honorable mayor Kevin Faulconer and council president Todd Gloria have announced that they’re replacing Frankenstein senior (the discredited "Balboa Park Celebrations" corporation) with Frankenstein junior (the "Balboa Park Conservancy") to  oversee the city’s centennial festivities.  

You may notice that the "Balboa Park Conservancy" -- aside from having rubber-stamped the Laurel Street bypass bridge fiasco -- has a stunningly vacant track record.  Does it feel like a new slap in the public face, bringing onboard another set of unproductive underperformers?   

Will we turn the other cheek?  Will we give another pass to our nice guys?  After all, they are -- aren’t they? -- all honorable men?

Too many years of inbreeding

To misquote Shakespeare: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark ...our city.  Most likely it’s the result of too many years of inbreeding.

Take a look at appointees to San Diego boards, commissions, committees, and organizations like United Way, the Chamber of Commerce, and Red Cross.  You’ll discover that San Diego is an epicenter of incestuous comings and goings.  (Incestuous:  repetitive, indiscriminate, unwholesome, unnatural,  intimately intertwined, endogamous co-mingling of self-serving individuals)

Look at the staffers roaming City Hall.  They occupy a hermetically-sealed world -- punctuated by narrow loyalties, a tendency toward inflated egos, frequent dalliances, and more revolving doors than in an Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein movie.  Individuals who recently worked for (we assume it was for) former-mayor Bob Filner are now lodged in the office of Filner's nemesis, councilman Todd Gloria.  Some have leapfrogged to other council offices or elsewhere in the bureaucracy… marbles in a game of Chinese Checkers.

Check out the inbred monopoly of San Diego's top political consultants.  First they get their candidates elected.  Then they linger a while as "advisors" to ensure that their grateful clientele don't rattle the status quo or stray far from the fold.  

In the same vein, have you looked closely at the “transition team” of our newly-elected mayor Kevin Faulconer?   It's like a B-movie rerun stacked with stock characters from the city’s big business, municipal union, real estate, Navy, and LGBT establishments.  They're has-been players who've been around the block too many times -- jaded and devoid of inspiration, imagination, vitality, or public-mindedness. 

Now take notice of the mayor's “leadership team.”  At his right hand are political operatives previously aligned with Carl deMaio and Jerry Sanders.  Joining him is a new press secretary, a U-T reporter who traded his professional commitment to objective political reporting for admittance to the inner sanctum where ex-journalists earn their keep by crafting weasel words and snow jobs. (Names can be furnished upon request.)

This tradition of incestuous activity is no joke -- it has consequences in the real world.  Did you notice last week's headlines about how the citizens of San Diego were jilted and left standing at the altar by cronies from ex-mayor Jerry Sanders' “leadership team”?  These high-flying but incompetent operatives were handsomely paid to orchestrate next year’s Balboa Park Centennial and they dropped the ball without so much as a public apology… not even a whispered sorry for royally screwing the city out of critical preparation time, not to mention $2.8M of public funds.  

Likewise, no apology yet from ex-mayor Sanders for his cynical appointment of unqualified insiders and for giving them unprecedented control over Centennial planning.  And no whispered sorry from him for his own arrogance in setting up a sham Centennial committee.  As for San Diego's inbred good-old-boy’s network (which continues to coddle and protect our man Sanders as he sits pretty in his downtown Chamber of Commerce echo room) don't hold your breath... 

Of course there’s been no apology from our recent interim mayor Todd Gloria.  A self-proclaimed "can-do" man, he hid the Balboa Park Centennial fiasco from the public for more than six months.  In the face of mounting city harm, financial mismanagement, and loss of precious time he chose not to level with the public.  Instead, he passed the buck (alongside mayor Faulconer) with ludicrous attempts to lay blame on former-mayor Filner.  

On the other hand, Todd Gloria made good use of his six month stopover in the mayor's office to have a ball.  Like in a Cinderella story, he seized this window of opportunity to wield a borrowed magic wand.  With feet propped up on the desk of the defenestrated former mayor he hired, fired, appointed, reorganized, and issued executive orders with impunity, ignoring City Charter limitations on the powers granted to a short-term stand-in.  The City Attorney played the role of permissive fairy godmother, winking and nodding at blatant political improprieties.

Maybe the magic wand went to his head.  Councilman Gloria's last act as temporary big boss was to order the destruction of city email files older than a year (with the City Attorney still winking, still nodding).  What in the world were they thinking?  What's been going on behind closed doors at City Hall to precipitate this over-the-top attempt at a cover-up?  

While it may be true that our new mayor Kevin Faulconer agreed to a temporary hold on deleting city emails, his remarks are alarming: “I am going to ensure that there is a balance between transparency and cost. We will see what makes sense from a cost standpoint.”  

A COST standpoint?  Arbitrary destruction of city records is a profound assault on the democratic process and on citizens of San Diego.  Surely our new mayor was just kidding.    

The city is stuck in mediocrity, captive to the agendas of self-serving interests and incompetent “leadership.” 

It's a mindset that pervades all levels of civic and political life -- north of I-8 and south of I-8, within young leadership groups and in VIP conclaves, in boardrooms and labor halls, among the haves and have-nots, Democrats and Republicans, alike.

This small-minded compulsion toward political incestuousness and routine inbreeding is taking us downhill -- fast.  

Here's our choice: a) we can stay complacent and allow inbred malformations to become the norm; or b) we can demand more public truth-telling and evolve into a healthy, public-minded, ethically-motivated 21st-century city.  I'd say b) is worth a try.

All the world's a stage

Act I:  the State of the City Address
San Diegans are about to witness a full-dress reenactment of our town’s annual civic ritual known as the State of the City Address.   

Article XV of the City Charter lays it out: On or before the 15th day of January of each year, the Mayor shall communicate by message to the City Council a statement of the conditions and affairs of the City, and make recommendations on such matters as he or she may deem expedient and proper.

You can catch a live performance at 6pm this Wednesday, January 15^th at downtown’s historic Balboa Theatre.  Alternatively, you can kick back in the comfort of your own living room and watch it on City-TV. 

Like most political rituals it’s an occasion for platitudes and cheerleading.  San Diego mayors traditionally use the opportunity to bring in the color guard… special lighting… ministers… pomp and circumstance… to showcase their recent accomplishments and bright plans for the city’s future.  

It’s a feel-good event -- rarely the time for blunt assessments of the true state of the city’s fiscal, environmental, social, or economic health and well-being.  It's the time for lofty sentiments, optimistic forecasts, and a touch of political preening.  Afterwards, there’s cookies and punch in the lobby.

What sets this State of the City Address apart from all others is that the official master of ceremonies of this year’s event will be a substitute, a stand-in, a person who doesn’t happen to be the mayor. 

At this Wednesday’s big event the role of mayor will be played by the presiding officer of the City Council, Todd Gloria.  He’s been filling in as the designated seat warmer pending next month’s runoff election to replace former mayor Bob Filner, who resigned from office this past summer. 

You will remember that barely a year ago the freshly-elected mayor Bob Filner stepped onto the stage of the Balboa Theatre to deliver his first (and last) State of the City Address.  In an ironic twist to a yet-untold complex and sordid tale, Filner was ruefully introduced as the "real mayor" by his political rival, the inimitable scene stealer Nathan Fletcher.  To refresh your memory of that ill-omened event click here.  

You’ll notice that smiling stonily (ominously? cynically? conspiratorially?) upstaged in the shadows sat Councilman Todd Gloria and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith – practiced political actors already working in tandem alongside other disgruntled bigwig players to ring down the curtain ASAP on this problematic, confrontational, threatening, politically liberal change-agent of a new mayor.  Seven months later, sooner than they could have dreamed, they got their wish.

Act II: Strong Mayor Strikes Home
It’s been almost a decade since the city of San Diego converted from a “city manager” form of government to a “strong mayor” system.   The jury isn’t in yet on whether the switch was overall positive or negative, at least from the public perspective. 

But one thing’s for sure – city government now operates within a denser, darker, sweatier, more testosterone-driven political framework than ever before.  The full story about Bob Filner's demise will one day attest to that.  Meantime, the immediate aftermath of Filner’s rapidly-executed stoning gives us a tantalizing glimpse of what's awaiting us in our adopted "strong mayor" world of cutthroat politics.

For starters, take a look at the City Charter “strong mayor” section regarding how to handle a vacancy in mayor’s seat:

During the period of time when an appointment or election is pending to fill a vacancy in the Office of Mayor, the presiding officer of the Council shall be vested with the authority to supervise the staff remaining employed in the Office of the Mayor, to direct and exercise control over the City Manager in managing the affairs of the City under the purview of the Mayor and to exercise other power and authority vested in the Office of the Mayor when the exercise of such power and authority is required by law. This limited authority would include circumstances where the expeditious approval of a legislative action is necessary to meet a legal requirement imposed by a court or another governmental agency. Such limited authority would not include the exercise of the power of veto or any other discretionary privilege which is enjoyed by a person appointed or elected to the Office of Mayor.

Now consider that over the past five months the presiding officer of the Council – Councilman Todd Gloria – artfully draped himself in the robes of the mayoralty to strut his stuff and mark his territory, ignoring with impunity the intent and  limitations spelled out in the City Charter.  

With a wink and a nod from the City Attorney, the District 3 representative crowned himself mayor and embarked on reorganizing city government in his own image.  He hired, fired, rearranged, proclaimed, undid, reversed, and erased all traces of ex-mayor Filner's popular reforms and political direction in an illegitimate exercise of "discretionary privilege."  

Our soon-to-be-voter-approved-next “strong mayor” will find himself saddled with a slew of officials, appointees, directors, restructured lines of authority, policies, decisions, and hidden alliances that will prove difficult to control, let alone undo. Here's a piece of advice that might prove useful upfront: be sure to check your new office for stray bugs.

Meantime, the Councilman who recently saw fit to tweet to the world “I look amazing in animal prints” will be flashing his dazzling smile onstage this Wednesday and using the State of the City event to cement his credentials as an oh-so-flexible politician destined to go places.  We've had more than our share of quisling political opportunists in San Diego, so here's another piece of advice that might prove useful: Todd Gloria, just fuggedaboudit.

Act III: Our Next Best Chance
In one year from now San Diegans will be watching a duly-elected mayor -- either David Alvarez or Kevin Faulconer -- on the stage of the Balboa Theatre deliver the State of the City Address with a message to the people about what the city's been up to and where we ought to be headed.   Their messages would be vastly different from one another.  

Why? because the masters of political strangleholds who have traditionally straight-jacketed our city are throwing their considerable weight behind Kevin Faulconer.  

And the proponents of good government and progressive change -- having had a taste of what our city could and should be like -- are flexing their newly-developed muscles in support of David Alvarez.  

The political machinations in our city have become murky and devious but the best choice for the majority of San Diego voters is crystal clear: next year it must be David Alvarez on the Balboa Theatre stage in the spotlight delivering his State of the City Address.

The Birds, the Bees, and the Wolfpack, Part III

He was pushed.  And yes, he jumped

Here’s a quick reminder about our former Mayor: there is no dispute that Bob Filner’s interpersonal habits, short fuse, and juvenile impulse control in the presence of women were blatant failings.  The problem is, these failings were embedded in a unique individual whose political agenda was like long-awaited manna to the voters who elected him. 

Tension, arguments, and righteous proclamations have erupted during these past months among San Diegans (mostly Democrats) genuinely torn between condemning a “progressive” political leader for his personal defects and giving up their hopes for a new, more enlightened social and economic agenda for San Diego -- a no-win dilemma. 

But there’s much more to the story.  Last week, in an effort to shed light on likely suspects in the political defenestration of just-elected and swiftly-deposed Bob Filner, we herded the San Diego “wolfpack” into one side of a large meeting room for some mug shots.

Members of the wolfpack (aka growth machine) are recognizable by their unique coziness with and influence over elected and unelected city officials and their uncanny ability to access public subsidies for their own (or their clients’) private projects. 

As you noticed, the room overflowed with bankers, big business owners, consultants, convention center purveyors, developers, financiers, hoteliers, law firms, lobbyists, newspaper owners, Port of San Diego interests, and the real estate establishment, in addition to sports team owners. 

It’s a formidable crew, never loathe to do whatever it takes to retain control over what they consider their turf.  For a personalized look at some of the alpha dogs in this pack you might take a look at this informative story recently posted by the Voice of San Diego. 

Today we’ll get a look at the insiders from Bob Filner’s office.  They’re a clue to the mystery of how Bob Filner was pushed and why I also say he jumped.

While it’s common knowledge that the ex-Mayor’s relentless habit of coming onto women provided his political enemies with enough free ammunition to hound him out of office, there’s an irony here: the story that was assembled to bring Bob Filner down had less weight and substance than the seeds of his real undoing – his underestimation of what it would take to successfully run the city as Mayor in the face of fierce resistance by San Diego’s elite power structure, as well as certain members of his own party.

Here’s how I laid it out many months ago: Even a virtuoso player like Mayor Filner can’t do it on his own.   A first-class leader needs first-class backup.  Perhaps more than any leader in our city’s history, this Mayor needs a strong, dedicated, high-quality group of advisors and staff members to back up his proposals, shore up his policies, strengthen his outreach, and advance his goals.

Despite his experience as a city councilman, despite multiple terms in the U.S. Congress, despite his lively mind, sharp wit, ethical agenda, boundless energy, and first-class vision, Bob Filner didn’t do sufficient homework on what it takes to run city business while keeping his political adversaries -- inside and outside the door of his 11^th floor office -- at bay.

You’re invited to join me on another mindful walk through the Mayor’s office.  This time we'll do a closer job of noticing.

Everyone noticed that Bob Filner became Mayor of San Diego with the help of Tom Shepard -- an unlikely campaign advisor best known for bringing to fruition the campaigns of a great number of (predominantly) Republican candidates, including former Mayor Jerry Sanders.  

You might remember that in the Mayoral primary, Shepard was the campaign manager for the unsuccessful Nathan Fletcher.  Not one to spend time licking his wounds, Shepard sent people in a tizzy with an announcement sent to Fletcher supporters: 

"Yesterday, Bob announced I will be running his Mayoral campaign.  Now I’m asking you to take a fresh look at Bob Filner and consider joining me in support of his candidacy. I believe Bob offers the best hope for realizing Nathan’s vision and spirit that inspired us during the primary campaign."  A curious proposition… ominous, in fact.

Bob Filner obliged by offering Fletcher a “high-profile job” once he took office, an opportunity Fletcher rejected for a vastly more attractive alternative -- a $400,000/year position doing odd jobs… this-and-that… at Qualcomm. 

It was hard to have to notice that once Filner became Mayor, Tom Shepard and associates stayed on as friendly advisors -- a function they had performed for previous Mayor Sanders.  In Filner’s defense, his options were limited.  Given the city’s longstanding political history as a conservative business, developer, and tourism town there was a paucity of expert, experienced, and trustworthy advisors and staff readily available to work alongside a new Mayor like Filner.  The leadership of the local Democratic Party bears considerable responsibility for a chronic failure to focus on training, nurturing, and supporting strong new leadership within the party and to develop a smart and forward-looking political and economic agenda for our city and region.

On top of that, Filner was repeatedly undermined by fellow Democrats who identified more closely with the empty mumblings of the con-man Nathan Fletcher than the old-time liberal convictions of the pugnacious Bob Filner.  Democratic Party leader Jess Durphy went AWOL much of the time.  His replacement Francine Busby seemed to be permanently sitting on the fence.  Political powerhouse Lorena Gonzalez predictably chose self-interest over principles.  And Democratic city council president Todd Gloria -- who could have offered the new Democratic Mayor useful know-how, cooperation, and moral support -- chose to publicly screw Filner at every turn (a princeling honing his skills at regicide).  It was and remains an unsavory portrait of the Democratic Party with dismal prospects for the city's Democrats. 

I noticed, and maybe you did too, that Bob Filner compounded his difficult predicament by making  some peculiar... no, bad... no, deadly choices in setting up his office.  Maybe  he was just heeding an ancient military lesson about keeping your friends close but your enemies closer.  If so, Filner misjudged the cunning of his enemies as well as the loyalty of his “friends” -- fatal mistakes, as it turned out.

His choices were poor, even for his campaign staff.  The crew he brought with him was frustratingly ignorant of city matters.  But Filner was a quick learner with a gift for winging it.  He succeeded in flying solo through much of his campaign.  Once he became Mayor that technique would no longer work. 

The first nail in his coffin was his choice for Chief of Staff.   Vince Hall may have been a known entity to Filner in a sea of unfriendly faces and may have had his strengths, but he was the wrong person for this demanding and complex job.  His volatile temper, inconsistency, cluelessness about municipal processes, and rigid administrative style thwarted the creation of a cohesive, purposeful, and well-functioning office.  

It’s true that stability and smooth functioning take time to achieve (think back to the rapid staff turnover, internal juggling, and development scandals of the early Sanders administration).  But Filner’s Chief of Staff repeatedly turned his back on experienced and knowledgeable true allies.  He seemed indifferent to the complicated staffing needs of the office and the intricacies of city politics. He turned a blind eye to subversive rumblings and monkey wrenches.  He iced-out knowledgeable supporters, shut his door to staff complaints, and stiffed news reporters.  Was it hubris? insecurity? being in over his head?  His departure came too late.

Another nail in the coffin was former councilmember Donna Frye, a shoo-in for the position of Director of Open Government.  Her first-hand experience with city governance, policies, and San Diego politics were invaluable resources, but she was continually blocked by the Chief of Staff and excluded from the Mayor’s inner circle of advisors.  For reasons of her own she chose to remain quiescent rather than fight for the internal changes she believed were necessary and for her place in the sun.  On the heels of an altercation with Vince Hall she abruptly walked out.  She had come into Filner’s office as an asset and departed three months later as a liability, bitter that her dedication and efforts toward increasing transparency in city government were thwarted by an obstructive Chief of Staff and squandered by the Mayor.

This valuable ally was soon to be transformed into a potent opponent.  Working in sync with her longtime friend and legal advisor Marco Gonzalez and their mutual associate attorney Cory Briggs, she called for Filner’s resignation. The anti-Filner forces were already gathering momentum to bring the Mayor down and the action of this trio became the bugle call to all Filner-detractors, antagonists, and opponents that the time was ripe to redouble their efforts to run Filner out of town.  (For a long and detailed account of the Frye/ Gonzalez/ Briggs action I recommend this interview by Citybeat’s David Rolland.) 

As reported, the action of this trio was based on allegations of harassment by a set of women, one of whom was the Mayor’s Director of Communications Irene McCormack.

The appointment of Irene McCormack provided an especially long nail in the Filner coffin.   McCormack(-Jackson) let it be known that she took a significant salary cut when she left her good job at the Port District to go to work for the new Mayor.  Discerning people will notice that she was actually facing termination at the Port and was rescued and hand-delivered to the Mayor’s office (by Port Commissioner Bob Nelson, perhaps, or?).  Soon she became the Mayor’s personal handler and companion at his afternoon and evening appearances at community events and meetings.

The fact that McCormack took frequent detailed notes about her personal interactions with Mayor Filner was revealed at a press conference when she and her attorney Gloria Allred publicly accused the Mayor of sexual harassment.   During the many months that McCormack chronicled her case against the Mayor she had refrained from sharing her discomfort and distress with fellow staffers, although she must have discussed details with other women associates and helped them relive and publicly report their stories from times past.  The question of how many dollars it will take to erase the memories of some uncomfortable encounters is a tantalizing one, indeed.  The city will eventually cough up some generous settlements.

Then there’s Allen Jones.  From the beginning, people noticed that, given his long professional career in private real estate and land development, the appointment of Allen Jones as Deputy Chief of Staff seemed inconsonant with Filner’s preference for development policies that benefit the public over private interests.  Jones, like Chief of Staff Hall, had worked for Filner in the old days.

Before long, Jones had backed the Mayor into a swamp of legal disputes involving Sunroad Enterprises' high-profile development project in Kearny Mesa, ironically the same one that had given Jerry Sanders severe heartburn a few years ago.  Could it be that Jones’s binding ties were not to the Mayor but to the people who dealt in oversized buildings, upzoned land uses, and creative deviations from city code?  From day one, his peremptory attitude alienated ought-to-be Filner supporters.  He was a thorn in the side of Earth Day’s founder and promoter Carolyn Chase.  And he shut the door on the legal perspectives of public interest attorney Cory Briggs, who subsequently joined up with Donna Frye and Marco Gonzalez to force the Mayor's resignation -- he with accusations of development-related corruption and “caving-in” and they with assertions of female harassment.

Lee Burdick also played a complex role in the Bob Filner saga.  Hired as Director of Special Projects and Legal Affairs, her position in the Mayor’s office was ill-defined and second tier.  She had a talent for keeping her head down and, like Donna Frye, was not included in Filner’s inner circle, despite her informal title as the Mayor’s in-house attorney.   Burdick (once partner in an influential San Diego law firm whose clients included the CEO of Sunroad Enterprises) had joined Hall and Jones in rebuffing legal recommendations and advice from Cory Briggs, particularly concerning the Sunroad project.  He was disappointed, he felt betrayed.  These unsatisfactory encounters with the Filner administration were the final straw.  He hardened his heart and finalized his decision to join forces with Gonzalez and Frye to let it all hit the fan.

At some point -- noticing the handwriting on the wall -- Vince Hall gathered his marbles and left the game, shooting off some disloyal and self-serving parting words on his way out.  Lee Burdick stepped into the position she had been hankering after and assumed the role of Chief of Staff to a beleaguered Mayor and a much-reduced office.   

The nail driven by City Attorney Jan Goldsmith was a doozy.  I’ve noticed all along (haven’t you?) that the City Attorney overplayed his hand from the day Filner took office.  The (quasi-legal) strategy emanating from his office to obstruct, thwart, demean, limit, and ultimately oust the Mayor from office was as vigorous and relentless as Todd Gloria’s or Kevin Faulconer’s, but less visible to the naked eye.  Goldsmith’s efforts to organize a recall-Filner campaign… his deference to the sheriff’s intimidation of the Mayor’s staff (who knocked at their doors in the dead of night to question them about what went on in their workplace)… his role in the bugging of the Mayor’s office… his schemes to lock the Mayor out of City Hall… his unwholesome coupling with Lee Burdick… should make us all tremble for our own safety.  

What’s this about unwholesome coupling?  Let’s take a peek through the keyhole at a startling and hushed-up set of events:

• The Mayor’s office was bugged.  Someone spent time listening in on staff conversations in the Mayor’s conference room and office of the Chief of Staff.  For how long is anyone’s guess.  
• Lee Burdick found out about being bugged when the Mayor was away in therapy.  She went for a chat with the City Attorney.  Seems like Goldsmith already knew about the bugging.  The Chief of Police was called in but he didn’t follow up.  Lee Burdick also decided not to follow up.  Is anyone curious about who was responsible for bugging the Mayor’s office? or why no one wanted to find out?  Shhh, it’s still a secret. 
• Burdick and Goldsmith changed the locks to the Mayor’s office.  To keep out the cleanup crew? the mysterious bugger? the Mayor? 
• Burdick met with the City Attorney to discuss how to really keep the Mayor out.  They agreed that a temporary restraining order could legally bar Filner’s reentry into his office.  If they did it right, he could be kept out of the entire building.
• Burdick solicited signatures from the remaining Mayor's staff claiming that the Mayor’s office had become a hostile work environment for each of them.  Filner got wind of the plan.  He blew up and it fizzled.
• Attorney Gloria Allred put an ageing city volunteer in front of TV cameras to tell the world that the Mayor’s presence in the City Hall lobby created a hostile work environment for her and that the Mayor should be prohibited from returning to City Hall.   Coordination? or just a coincidence.
• Bob Filner scheduled negotiating sessions with the City Attorney (briefly including Gloria Allred) and opted to save himself from a financial wipe-out from the litigation being heaped upon him.  He submitted his resignation as the eight-month-old Mayor of the City of San Diego.

Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction.

………………………………………………

Many questions remain: 

Was there a wizard behind the curtains, coordinating the multi-pronged assault on Mayor Bob Filner?

Was Lorena Gonzalez an early instigator of the Marco Gonzalez /Donna Frye/ Cory Briggs trio that sparked the brutal siege to bring down the Mayor?  Was her friend Nathan Fletcher the intended heir of her largesse?

Was Bob Filner’s fall facilitated by sabotage from within by some of his staff, consultants, and advisors? 

Were there other options for the politically experienced and public-minded Frye/ Gonzalez/ Briggs trio to expose the mayor’s purported failures and transgressions?

Shouldn't there have been a public process through regularly-scheduled  elections to judge the Mayor rather than a public execution via public relations firms, press conferences, and the news media? 

Might the trio have dissociated themselves from the Mayor's perceived “corruption” and made sure the public knew that, in their eyes, Filner was not a true Progressive or even a good Democrat?

Might they have advised the San Diego public to politely but firmly turn down the Mayor's annoying advances, should he ask them for kiss or a date? 

Might they have warned the public to be watchful, to protest, to oppose his initiatives on Sunroad, to sue him if necessary, and then refrain from electing him to a second term? 

Isn't this what we have done in the past when dealing with elected officials we disagreed with or even detested? 

What did these politically sophisticated activists assume was going to happen if/after Bob Filner resigned?  Who did they think would be a suitable replacement?  Did they tally the costs?  Did they even care?  

To give them the benefit of the doubt, is it conceivable that this savvy trio acted on their emotions and impulses and simply forgot to think about the consequences of their actions? 

It’s time to wrap up this tale. One day there’ll be an intrepid investigative reporter who’ll spill the rest of the beans.  As for now Filner is out.  The interim Mayor, with the help of the City Attorney and other good-old-boys, is doing his darndest to wipe away the last trace of Bob Filner and return San Diego to the days of yesteryear.   So hold onto your hats.  We're going to spin the wheel and pick a new Mayor.  Soon we might find out what real rape and pillage is like.

Shut your eyes, Nancy Drew.  You're in an x-rated city.