June 25, 1999
After one year of issuing Grand Jury Reports, mostly all critical of Mayor Susan Golding with little apparent effect, the County Grand Jury filed its last report, before its term is over, charging professional misconduct i.e. Civil Misconduct against the Mayor.
The Grand Jury filed a document known as an Accusation. They alleged that she committed willful misconduct by offering to support a $4 million city appropriation to promote tourism in exchange for the Hotel-Motel Associations support for PROPOSITION C, the hotly debated proposition to build a new PADRE baseball park, across from the San Diego Convention Center. Additionally, the Grand Jury accused Mayor Susan Golding of harming the city's economic interests by failing to fill vacancies in the city's watch dog Public Utility Advisory Commission.
Prior Grand Jury Reports concerned the following issues:
Sept. 21, 1998: Criticized the City for withholding information on Proposition C, the $411 million ballpark and redevelopment measure.
Nov, 2 1998: Grand Jury stated the measure allowed for massive public subsidies of private business.
May 18, 1999: Jurors charged City showed improper favoritism in awarding a toilet-rebate contract to a local marketing company.
June 4, 1999: Grand Jury finds city officials wrongly tried to influence the outcome of the November election (PROP C).
June 14, 1999: Jurors blame city officials —Especially Mayor Susan Golding— for failing to require San Diego Gas & Electric to bury more power lines, even though $330 million was collected for that purpose from customers.
June 23, 1999: Citing an ongoing pattern of professional misconduct, the Grand Jury accuses Mayor Susan Golding of misconduct in a civil accusation that could lead to her removal from office.
Once again the "Good-OLE Boys" circled the wagons and bad-mouthed the Grand Jury in defense of their aging leader. In a strange twist, City Attorney Casey Gwinn said he would ask the City Council to hire counsel, perhaps Attorney John Wertz of Sullivan, Wartz, McDade, and Wallace to represent Golding on the charges. Quinn wants the taxpayers to foot the bill for the defense of conduct, that if proven, means that Susan Golding acted outside the scope and course of her duties as mayor.
La Prensa would ask the city council: Is Wertz being selected from an appropriate list of professionals? Does Attorney Wertz's firm currently represent or have they represented clients with economic interests adverse to the City of San Diego? In particular those involved in the PADRE development project project i.e. John Moore and others? Attorney Wertz has a ethical duty to disclose such adverse interests to the City that pose a conflict of interest. In particular his share of contributions to the Park PROPOSITION C.
We question the ethics of City Attorney Casey Quinn, an elected official supposable to represent the interests if the city i.e. the citizens of this city, but who in fact acts as a hired gun for the mayor.
(The filling of an Accusation infers that the Mayor may be dismissed from office if found guilty. On July 8, 1999 the Mayor is to be arraigned in San Diego Superior Court).
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