After multiple accusations of sexual harrassment, San Diego mayor Bob Filner has resigned, effective August 30th.
Nineteen women have come forward thus far with allegations, which is impressive, considering that Filner has only been in office for 9 months.
Filner is certainly an equal-opportunity kind of guy. His list of accusers includes former staffers, a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, a nearly septuagenarian great-grandmother, former rape victims, and a nurse whom Filner reportedly asked out on a date in return for helping out a wounded Marine Iraq war veteran.
The first of these allegations became public in early July, with former staffers and supporters opening the floodgates. It seemed there were press conferences every other day, with more and more women coming forward about Filner’s behavior. It was almost a shock to go a day and not have any more accusers come forward. Despite the near-daily revelations, Filner refused to resign, despite pressure from Debbie Wasserman-Schulz (his own party’s National Chairwoman), and prominent leaders from both parties.
Then, in late July, Filner decided that it was damage-control time, announcing that he would be entering a counseling program for two weeks of “intensive therapy.” However, he left the program after six days. His lawyer claims that he completed the counseling.
After three days of wrangling over what constitutes an acceptable severance agreement, the San Diego City Council and Filner’s attorney came up with a deal that allowed Filner to resign, effective 5 p.m. on August 30. He will have a taxpayer-provided “defense fund,” effectively limiting his exposure to lawsuits brought against him by city employees that he sexually harassed. The city also agreed to chip in $98,000 for lawsuits covering the period before Filner was mayor of San Diego.
$98,000 would cover one semester’s tuition for about 178 students at Mesa College.
That’s for someone who goes off for “intensive therapy,” comes back six days later, and blames the entire situation on “the hysteria of a lynch mob.” He doubtlessly had some meaningful self-improvement happen in those six days.
The fact that the city of San Diego has to, in essence, enable this behavior by paying into a “defense fund” is ludicrous.
If any private citizen had acted in this manner, even once or twice, they would have been arrested and thrown in jail, facing charges. They would not have had any “special defense fund” to settle lawsuits brought against them by their victims. They would be treated like a criminal.
Bob Filner gets to resign without facing any charges and even gets his legal bills paid by San Diego residents. He gets to live out his days, protected by a taxpayer-funded safety net. He’ll probably even keep his pension.
Bob Filner betrayed the trust placed in him by the public. That much is apparent at this point.
The San Diego City Council betrayed the public trust by agreeing to pay anything towards defending Bob Filner or his behavior.
