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?

What would Nancy Drew do?

Calling all sleuths!  There's a murky mystery afoot in the city of San Diego that feels oddly familiar.  In theme… plot… cast of characters… it's nearly a dead ringer for a sordid drama that took center stage in our city a few seasons ago.  

This new case involves an attempt to bump off a local labor leader, someone most San Diegans probably wouldn't recognize if they saw him in a picket line.  

According to a description provided by his associates, the targeted individual is an unshaven, intimidating, middle-aged man with a budding paunch, contentious personality, rough temper, and not-such-great looks.  The perp (aka "dirt bag") is currently in the public square being scourged and pilloried.

His name is Mickey Kasparian.  He's the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 135 and board president of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council. 

This past December two lawsuits were filed against Kasparian, one for sexual harassment that spanned a 15-year period, and the other for gender discrimination.  A third complaint has recently surfaced, this one alleging political retaliation.

The word on the street is that – when confronting a marauding menace – the good citizens of San Diego have the right to settle certain scores with frontier-style justice.  Never mind a person's constitutional right to due process.  Never mind tedious legal procedures.  

Borrowing freely from the Republican playbook (lock her up! lock her up!) some citizens want to see Kasparian lynched.  Other citizens would settle for immediate banishment from his union job.  Others call for excommunication from the ranks of the Democratic Party.   

I've never met the man.  I have no insider information about his behind-the-scenes conduct in the labor union universe, but I do have some questions:

Has Mickey Kasparian been doing a good job as labor leader?  I haven't heard, one way or another.

Does Mickey Kasparian engage in illegal or criminal activity?  He hasn't had his day in court yet so I wouldn't know. 

Is Mickey Kasparian so obnoxious, uncouth, arrogant, and ineffective that union members should vote him out of his top-dog position?  That's up to them, I would think.

Here's what I do know: there are ladders in the backrooms of union halls.  They interconnect with ladders in the backrooms of political parties.  That's where combatants clamber over one another to reach the top.  It's where political ambitions and party politics and personal grudges engage, mano a mano. 

Another thing I know is that Mr. Kasparian is no novice in the political chess game.  Maybe you've seen him at pro-labor events standing in unity alongside state assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez.   


Maybe you've also seen him step down hard on her toes to block Nathan Fletcher's second attempt to replace Bob Filner as San Diego's mayor.

And maybe you noticed that Kasparian put his money on David Alvarez in that mayoral race.  

But did that prevent him from turning his back on councilmember Alvarez in the recent skirmish over who would become this year's city council president?   

One thing you can say about Kasparian– he's got an unusual way of making friends.  And unmaking them.  Do we detect more clues to what has put him center stage in the current well-orchestrated facsimile of a kangaroo court?

So tell me, what would Nancy Drew do with these clues?

• First, she'd probably refrain from premature judgment about whether Mickey Kasparian is a scoundrel and/or a rat and encourage our good San Diego citizens to keep our own incisors in check.
• Second, she might suggest that internecine dogfights within the local Democratic Party and within the local unions threaten to become a self-imposed death sentence.
• Finally, she'd try to convince the good citizens of San Diego to cancel any and all reruns scripted by activist judge/ jury/ executioners.  She'd advise us to settle for the dry drama of lawful procedure, courtroom hearings, and election ballots to vote the bastards in or out.  And she'd plead with us to resist the addictive and very bad habit of frontier-style justice.  Too many wrongs won't make it right.

Mayor Mayor on the Wall

PART I

Blue ties red ties

We'll start with a trick question: Is Mayor Kevin Faulconer the mirror image of President Donald Trump?  No, of course not! you'd probably say.  

Kevin Faulconer is a pleasant, if unremarkable, go-along-to-get-along San Diego city councilman turned mayor: 

"…born and raised in Oxnard California… learned to speak Spanish in grade school…  San Diego State University… member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity… one year as Student Body President of Associated Students. He and his wife Katherine, a small business owner, live in Point Loma with their two children. Before running for office… executive with the public relations firm NCG Porter Novelli and volunteered  on the Mission Bay Park Committee…" (see Wikipedia)

Red ties blue ties

You might say that Kevin Faulconer is a lightweight Republican who goes down nice and easy in a city like San Diego.  He is decorum incarnate – never an unguarded sneer, never an unscripted rant.  

You might even say that he mirrors Melania Trump more than the Donald.  Melania's insouciant aura serves as a glamorous distraction from her husband's crude and reckless nature.  Likewise, Faulconer's low-keyed persona serves as a disarming distraction from the leadership vacuum on the 11^th floor of City Hall.

Kevin Faulconer's problem is that he's an embarrassment to his constituents.  For how many years did the Spanos syndicate manipulate and extort this mayor?  How many times did they slap him silly while he kept coming back for more?  

But Faulconer's problems go far deeper than being dumped by the Chargers. We've got a mayor who is incapable of taking clear, decisive stands on big civic issues, whether it's a sports stadium, or Convention Center, or racial profiling by city police officers, or actualizing strong environmental programs.  He walks on eggshells, even over keeping our police force out of the immigration enforcement business.  He shuns the stage at city demonstrations and marches.  Ribbon cutting events, that's where you'll usually find him.  (So who can explain why he ignored public outcry and readily mounted the stage to meet and greet at the super-conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference held in San Diego a couple of years ago?)  

We've got a mayor who, since the day he stepped into office, has neglected the city's festering problems of relentlessly worsening homelessness; rising poverty levels; looming budget cuts; a housing crisis that turns rent and mortgage payments into a monthly scramble… 

We've got a mayor who issues limp declarations of Action! Accountability! A New Day in San Diego! in response to the ballooning backlog of street and road repairs, or spiking pension obligations and chronic threat of municipal bankruptcy, or burst water mains and standstill traffic in already overburdened neighborhoods (laughably slated for increased density and development).

In his latest State of the City address the mayor's to-do list is a hodgepodge of sound-bites.  But where are the concrete remedies?  For him, Action means making the city an Official, Regional Autonomous Vehicle Pilot Location.  For him, Accountability means installing jagged rocks under freeway overpasses to get rid of homeless sleepers.  

For him, A New Day in San Diego! might mean the Camp Hope approach of clearing the homeless off the streets and stowing them in a tarted-up tent city at the Mexican border, out of sight and out of mind.  Will this mayor really give his blessings to our very own Hooverville? 

We've got a mayor who has not delivered the goods.  Pleasant though he may be, he lacks the independence, imagination, backbone, and political moxie to do right by our city.

PART II

Once upon a time when I was an active player with the League of Women Voters, the powers-that-be convinced the San Diego public that it was time to become a dynamic metropolis like Los Angeles or Chicago or even New York City.  So voters agreed to replace our purportedly provincial city manager form of government with a strong mayor system.  

Back then the big worry for the LWV was that – in a politically low-energy city like ours – concentrated power in the hands of a strong mayor would decrease public accountability and invite corruption. 

Back then we also worried about how trading in an independent, professional city manager for a political appointee to run city departments, operations, contracts, budgets, and workers would work out.  Turns out we were right to worry. 

Our first "strong mayor" was Jerry Sanders.  He never succeeded in being his own man.  During his two terms in office he dutifully kept the city exactly where it had always been: in the hands of an ossified downtown fraternity of hoteliers, developers, bankers, and assorted business interests.  He persists to this day as a well-compensated mouthpiece for the Chamber of Commerce. 

Our second "strong mayor" was Bob Filner.  He was willing and able to express his independence, imagination, backbone, and political moxie to promote a politically liberal agenda for the city.  But he proved too undisciplined for his own good.  And too threatening to old-guard Republicans.  

As it turns out, he was also too threatening to self-professed progressive Democrats like then-councilman (and current California state assemblymember) Todd Gloria and then-San Diego/Imperial Counties Labor Council secretary-treasurer (and current California state assemblymember) Lorena Gonzalez and her clandestine mayoral ambitions for then-close companion (and current husband) Nathan Fletcher.  In an unprecedented palace coup, the city's first bona fide strong mayor was unceremoniously drummed out of office.

Our third "strong mayor" is Kevin Faulconer.  He's a chip off the old Sanders block.  We are back to waiting for the basic benefits promised to us when we gave up the old city manager government and brought in the strong mayor system – things like transparency, accountability, government efficiency, and dynamic governance. 

We were promised we'd know where the buck stops… we'd know who is in charge.  Do you know who's responsible for what goes on in our city?  Do you know who's in charge?  Do you ever think to pick up your phone to call your mayor?

PART III

We'll wrap up with the trick question: Is Kevin Faulconer the mirror image of Donald Trump?  Of course not! you'd probably still say. There's a world of difference between a public relations puppet and a dangerous, unstable, bullying megalomaniac. 

But look again at the uncanny similarities.  You'll see that neither is doing right by our citizens.  You'll see that, so far, neither deserves the public trust.

Here's the big difference: our mayor is within reach, right at our fingertips.  We elected a "strong mayor" to be in charge, to be accountable, and to be responsible for what goes on in our city.   

We voters need to check our own mirrors, if only to remind ourselves that we elected our mayor to do right by our city.  And it's our job to hold his feet to the fire and not let him forget that HE is where the buck stops.

The mystery of why Qualcomm adopted Nathan Fletcher

Did you ever suspect you were being taken for a ride but decide to go along with it anyway?  Did you ever ignore that little voice inside your head warning you to watch out! because the guy conning you was so smooth, so really cute, how could you say no?

You’ve just been introduced to Nathan Fletcher in his rematch race for mayor of San Diego.

Nathan Fletcher is funny, engaging, self-deprecating, and a topnotch storyteller.  He is low-keyed even when boasting, "I interrogated al-Qaeda… I can negotiate a labor deal."  (You might remember that Fletcher was in the Marine Corps Reserves while working in the office of Duke Cunningham, a San Diego congressman who also used his military experience as a political prop to win an election.  Cunningham was recently released from prison after serving a sentence for enriching himself illegally through bribery and fraud while in office.)

Nathan Fletcher is a performer with a special gift for reading the minds of his audience and bouncing back precisely what you want to hear.  He strings his words together in a tightly-drilled speech pattern that convinces you he’s answered your question -- even when he hasn’t. 

Though once excoriated by labor unions for his conservative voting record, now his chief cheerleader is former labor-leader Lorena Gonzalez.  He’s regarded as a good catch on both sides of the fence, or so it would seem from the number of wealthy San Diegans who’ve endorsed him for mayor. 
 
Nathan Fletcher is the Great Gatsby of our time -- a fabricated man filled with longing and wild ambition but not quite who you think he is… was… wants to be...

Which brings us to the mystery of the week: why was Nathan Fletcher plucked from a pool of contenders by Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, judged best in show, and adopted by the Qualcomm family? 

Fletcher is not an engineer, not a businessman, not the holder of specialized academic degrees.  Yet he's got a job at Qualcomm that pays him $400,000/year.  What makes him worth it?

Meanwhile, he’s running an all-out political campaign for mayor of San Diego on company time and the big boss is doing his darndest to catapult him into office.  How come?

When the downtown establishment throws its full faith and credit behind Kevin Faulconer, we know that they know what they expect to get from him.   Same goes for the Labor Council endorsement of David Alvarez.  But what in the world does Irwin Jacobs want and expect to get from San Diego’s next mayor, should it be Nathan Fletcher?  It's a mystery.

I have a hunch part of the answer lies in an arcane section of the San Diego City Charter, specifically Article VI - Board of Education.

Look back to 1931 – that’s when a manager-council form of government was codified in the San Diego City Charter.  Concurrently, the city’s school system (which then included kindergarten, elementary, secondary, evening, technical, and parental schools) was codified as Article VI.  It states: “The government of the San Diego School District shall be vested in a Board of Education, composed of five members who shall be elected at large by the electors of the School District at the same time as the members of the City Council.”

Between then and now there’ve been a number of minor amendments to Article VI -- one that narrowed the scope of the school district to kindergarten through secondary schools and others that adjusted salaries, terms of office, and timetables for electing new Board members.

Today, you'll still find election procedures for the 5-member Board of Education in Article VI of the City Charter and, as always, any changes to the Charter must be approved by San Diego voters.

Now think back three years when an (unsuccessful) attempt was made to amend Article VI.  The purpose was not to adjust salaries, terms of office, or election timetables but to make a significant change -- to increase the size of the School Board from 5 to 9 members by appointing 4 additional people to preside as Board members.  

These 4 would not be publicly elected.  Instead they would be chosen by a committee of Chamber of Commerce/ Economic Development business organizations, some university leaders, and a select group of parents.  We were told this change would "depoliticize" the School Board.

The two big funders of this proposed amendment were charter school proponent and wealthy businessman Rod Dammeyer and Qualcomm's Irwin Jacobs.  Notable boosters included organized advocates of the charter school movement.

What has this got to do with Nathan Fletcher's relationship to Qualcomm?  Might it be that Irwin Jacobs et al. have not given up on their plans to redesign the city school system in their own image?  Is this why Fletcher has been parading his credentials as an educator?  Is Fletcher their political proxy?

Notice Fletcher’s frequent campaign remarks about school district education.  He lifts stock phrases from his Qualcomm-sponsored speeches: best practices… innovation... vocational training... the digital divide… technical curriculum for middle school and high school.  He calls for forming an independent educational foundation to guide public education.

Now notice Fletcher’s trumped-up credentials as an educator.  On January 1, 2013 Nathan Fletcher was appointed “Professor of Practice” in the political science department at UCSD.  Don't laugh.  He is the first-ever appointed practitioner of a newly-invented, no-academic-degree-required, privately-funded position to teach part-time at the university, subject matter to be determined.  

And notice that while others in the academic jungle sweat and toil for years to attain the level of Professor, Fletcher was quietly ushered through a rear door to the top of the ivory tower -- his feet barely alighting on the red carpet linking Qualcomm headquarters to UCSD.  It's handy to have wealthy patrons in high places, even when they use you for their own purposes.

Nobody disputes the desirability of improving public education.  The question to ask ourselves is: Is this a role for the mayor of a city facing unprecedented deficits and debt with no good remedies in sight? In a city that hasn't yet straightened out the kinks from our switch to a 'strong mayor' form of governance why would we want our mayor to take on the complex and challenging world of public education, as well?  Especially one who's so ill-equipped?

Might not San Diego's mayor contribute to the success of our school system through constructive collaboration with school board members, principals, parents, health officials, education experts, business interests, and others in this city who support public education.  Isn't it preferable to discourage private and political incursions into the city schools?  

What do we know about the mysterious Fletcher-Qualcomm connection?  We know that Fletcher’s status as beneficiary of Irwin Jacobs' largesse is a clue to the presumptive power behind the wished-for mayoral throne.  It reminds us that influential private individuals -- no matter how well-intentioned -- tend to feel free (even entitled) to use the democratic process to gain control of the public domain.  That might be okay with Fletcher – it's not with me.

We know that Fletcher’s concocted job in a classroom at UCSD doesn’t give him credibility for spearheading changes in our school system.  He may want you to think it does – it doesn’t. 

We know that Nathan Fletcher’s touted experience as a Marine has nothing to do with his capability or desirability to be San Diego’s new mayor.  He seems to think it does – I don’t.   

We know that we don’t know who Fletcher really is.  Within the span of 500 days he went from calling himself a Republican to an Independent to a Democrat.  He disavows his past voting record.  He says he's seen the light and now he answers to a different drummer.  He wants us to believe that an indeterminate chameleon with identity confusion would be a good choice for our next mayor -- I don't buy it.  

We know that using democratic means to achieve undemocratic ends is never a good idea.  People engaged in political subterfuge are not acting in the best interests of our collective future and should be sent packing -- I think you will agree.

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.