I am Retired – Municipal Dysfunction Meter

In a Los Angeles Times article by Robin Abcarian, she muses that “someone should invent a municipal dysfunction meter. Measurement units could be ‘Filners.’ Maybe one Filner would be composed of two Weiners.” More negative publicity for our city, but we are helping the late night comedians.

The Mayor’s defense is that he never received training in what behavior is considered sexual harassment under California statutes. This is where common sense is blurred by legal jargon. Do not laugh; San Diego might be on the hook for partial damages since the Mayor can claim he did not known what constitutes sexual harassment.

Before I ran for City Council, I was required to attend an Ethics course. Again, common sense may not be the law. Case in point, Election form 700 requires you to disclose some of your assets. This is to avoid any conflict of interest you might have in approving a project. I called the Ethics Commission about my very small ownership of some common stock in a Mongolian copper mine. I was told that “yes,” I needed to list my shares (now get this) because I might vote on a project/building that had copper wire in the walls. I explained that the company only produced raw copper ore, not a finished product and San Diego did not have a contract with the mine. This did not matter as some of the copper wire in a building might have come from the Mongolian ore. Fuzzy logic!

California sexual harassment rules are codified in Assembly Bill 1825. There is an entire industry devoted to training seminars to explain do’s and don’ts. Did you know that “leering” is sexual harassment?

More to the point, our Mayor does deserve due process but will this very slow and painful process of litigation and recall impede the work of the people, for the people? Is this what you envisioned when you voted for the “Strong Mayor form of government?”

Dennis Ridz