Help Wanted: A City Attorney Not Dedicated to Preserving the Old Order
Terrible things involving our city government continue to be revealed.
Aside from the ethics/legality involved, we’re paying out (or about to pay out) many millions of dollars because of poor decision-making amplified by questionable actions by the city agency and an elected official who should be looking out for the best interests of the people who pay their salaries.
I’m talking about the San Diego City Attorney’s office. I’ll dive into some details further on in this column, but since glazed over eyes seems to be a common response to what should be considered an egregious situation, I’ll take the time to provide some context.
Some of the bad stuff involves botched attempts to fix past mistakes, like the multi-million dollar settlement a jury awarded a former city employee recently.
Some of the bad stuff is ongoing, like the muddled response to the disastrous attempt to acquire the property at 101 Ash Street for use as a centralized location for many city agencies,
This is why we can’t have nice things, San Diego.
The glue that should hold it all together at the city level is the legal advice coming from the City Attorney’s office. That agency is supposed to be headed by an elected official with enough independence from the City Council and the Mayor to ensure clear-headed guidance on matters concerning governance.
In San Diego, this agency is also responsible for prosecuting misdemeanor offenses, a role that seems to detract from their duties concerning advising decision-making.
After years of having its purpose usurped in favor of protecting downtown and business interests, many voters thought we were past that era when Mara Elliott was elected to run the agency in 2016.
She was re-elected in 2020, with many voters assuming things were running okay, even though there were plenty of indications that they weren’t. Her main opposition in that campaign was Cory Briggs, an activist attorney (and who is certainly not perfect) whose brand has been damaged by the institutions and politicians he’s sued for violations of policies and practices.
Former City Attorney Jan Goldsmith ran a crusade to bring down Briggs, focusing on the fact that he got paid by the losers (as stipulated by law) and the fact that some of the non-profits involved as plaintiffs were mostly paper organizations.
Whether or not you “like” Briggs, his method of going after entities running roughshod over the public interest has served as an effective check against powerful groups seeking to game the system for profit
And he’s now entitled to a big moment of “I told you so”.
A recent trial leading to a verdict stemming from a wrongful-termination lawsuit brought by a former Assistant City Attorney Marlea Dell’Anno has unearthed a multitude of dubious activities.
Although the jury’s $3.9 million award involved actions taken by former City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, the conduct of the present day occupant of that office suggests that business as usual hasn’t changed over the years.
First of all, this trial was clearly a grudge match.
The case dragged on for six years. No offer to settle was ever made. Outside lawyers were hired to make the city’s case.
The city's first bunch of outside lawyers were fired after it was revealed they’d promised witnesses with favorable testimony for the city they would be rewarded. Witnesses set to testify for Marlea Dell’Anno were reportedly threatened.
(The fired firm, by the way, was also hired by Mara Elliott to conduct an "independent review" of her office's actions in Ash Street. Despite her failure to speak to investigators, Elliott was given a MSword version of the draft report to edit before it was released.*)
During Goldsmith’s reign, he was described as Bob Filner without the wandering hands, by staff due to his propensity to lose his temper.
One of the now-victorious former Asst City Attorney’s offenses involved refusing to file criminal charges against a homeless man because body-cam evidence didn’t support the arresting officer’s claim.
Only because former Chief of Police Shelley Zimmerman refused to sign off on the case was a trial–which Goldsmith, who’d never actually tried a criminal case, said he would personally run– averted.
Dell’Anno was asked by Goldsmith to pursue criminal charges against Cory Briggs, who’d handed the city some embarrassing losses in court. Knowing that such a case would be seen as a conflict of interest, she said, at the very least, the DAs office should review it.
This triggered Goldsmith, who blew up. What good was all his political power if he couldn't prosecute his rivals and help out his police buddies, irrespective of what the law provided?
I should also point out that during this time period numerous stories in the local media appeared casting Briggs as a grifter. It was obvious to me this information was being spoon fed to the press by the City Attorney’s office, and I said so in the San Diego Free Press at the time.
She was then sent to purgatory, which consisted of a being reassigned from prosecuting domestic violence cases to the Community and Homeless Court projects, which were run out of a fifth floor office with a “Do Not Enter” sign on the door.
There’s more.
The City’s second legal team decided that slut shaming Dell’Anno because of a consensual affair she’d had was a good idea. This had no connection to and was never mentioned as a cause for dismissal. They just thought they'd put it out there. The jury wasn’t impressed.
The bulk of the city’s evidence against Dell’Anno was centered around accusations that she was responsible for mistreating lawyers working under her, using unfavorable reviews as proof. Unfortunately for the city, the complainants called to the stand either admitted to unprofessional behavior or were not believed by the jury.
When Dell’Anno was originally fired, the Union-Tribune and other media outlets were spoon fed a story about domestic violence cases being mishandled that eventually was proven to be in error.
The week before the jury’s verdict came in (years later) the paper ran another story highlighting the testimony concerning her professional behavior based on city witnesses that the jury obviously found less than convincing.
(You can trust me on this one when I say the City Attorney’s office knows how to play local media like a violin virtuoso. As much as the local paper has improved, the coverage on this case proves there’s more work to be done).
In addition to the $3.9 million awarded to Dell’Anno, the city of San Diego is on the hook for attorney and expert witness fees. One local observer guessed that the final bill will end up near $10 million.
There’s even more, but I’ll keep it short here.
Writing about the goings on around the disaster known as the 101 Ash Street deal is probably best left for another day. Suffice it to say that even though the City Attorney’s office has on occasion suggested illegal goings on, things are clearly being negotiated behind closed doors.
One proposed settlement back in February allegedly contained provisions exempting the players from criminal prosecution. Thank goodness that info was “leaked” via LaPrensaSD.
Now there’s back and forth over whether I’m-not-a-lobbyist Chris Wahl will allow himself to be deposed in a lawsuit concerning the case. It’s this lawsuit, brought by taxpayer John Gordon, that is likely gumming up the works toward the city reaching a settlement with the various real estate and financial entities involved in the case.
A settlement would include some stipulations as the facts of the case, which can’t happen if they’re likely to be contradicted by a separate trial.
My sense of this is that a bunch (if not all) the big players are looking for a face-saving way out. The city can say they did the best they could in recovering tens of thousands of dollars on a poorly negotiated deal and the various other interests will be allowed to get away with a seemingly minimal amount of plundering.
At the heart of this is our City Attorney, who tried to blame the deal on her predecessor, except that he was already out of office when she signed off on it. Were it not for the various contested versions of the MS Word document (*see above) we might not have any insight on just how bad this mess is.
Mara Elliott is termed out in 2024. up for reelection in 2024. There should be a political consensus among the City’s so-called progressive elected officials that it’s time for her to be retired. And an effort should be made to find a candidate with higher standards of integrity than we’ve had in recent years.
(Hat tip to @Objkshn, who kept her eyes open)
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com