When it comes to sex scandals, when rains it usually pours. And in the ongoing, quickly-breaking story of sexual harassment charges being leveled at longtime politician and newly elected Mayor Bob Filner, we’re seeing a monsoon. So far Filner is resisting calls from longtime allies to step down. But the more stories come out, the more you wonder:
Has Bob Filner watched too many episodes of Mad Men?
Just take a look at two of the newest articles to come out. The San Diego Union Tribune (my former employer):
Calling Mayor Bob Filner “tragically unsafe for any woman to approach,” former Councilwoman Donna Frye on Monday renewed her call for his resignation while sharing explicit details about encounters that women had with the mayor.
Frye read from statements from two unnamed women, including one who was a campaign volunteer who said that Filner had kissed her on a public sidewalk, “jamming his tongue down her throat” and later groped her under her bra when she drove him back to his office.
Frye was joined at a news conference by attorneys Marco Gonzalez and Cory Briggs, who also have called for the mayor to step down because they had firsthand accounts that he sexually harassed women. Gonzalez said a client spent six months working in the mayor’s office and complained “he grabbed her ass and touched her chest.”
It goes on:
“There is no circumstance by which it would be appropriate for the mayor to enter into an elevator with my client or any person who he employs and to tell them that they would do a better job on that floor if they worked without their panties on,” Gonzalez said.
“In his office, there are women who call him a dirty old man and push him away, but this is their job. He is their boss,” Gonzalez said. He said the security detail in Filner’s office and others in his office will corroborate the allegations.
And one more chunk:
Frye said Filner has a clear pattern of behavior with women, including staffers, constituents and campaign volunteers.
“It begins with him checking a woman’s availability through asking her about a spouse or a boyfriend, then isolating the women somewhere off where they can talk. He then requests dinner, a later meeting, making unwanted sexual comments or physically imposing himself on her,” she said.
There’s a lot more, so go to the link to read it in its entirey.
And then there’s this new article by KPBS, San Diego’s highly enterprising public broadcasting channel that broke one of the biggest initial stories in this scandal that in the end will likely result in a)Filner resigning (but don’t hold your breath on that since he today said he won’t) or b)a recall (a likely possibility).
The ex-fiancee of beleaguered San Diego Mayor Bob Filner says she ended her relationship with him because he became increasingly abusive toward her and began sending sexually explicit text messages to other women in her presence.
In a statement Sunday, Bronwyn Ingram told KPBS and inewsource she believes recent serious controversies, including the onslaught of sexual harassment allegations, have paralyzed the mayor’s office and Filner should step down.
Ingram said she witnessed what she called a “severe deterioration in Bob’s ability to engage with anyone in a civil manner, myself included.” During a recent trip to Paris, she said, Filner screamed at her in public without provocation, among other “inappropriate and disrespectful acts.”
In the statement, Ingram went on to say that she made the “gut-wrenching decision” to break up with Filner after she said he recently started text messaging other women sexually explicit messages and set up dates in front of her.
She said, “given the circumstances, I obviously had no other choice.”
Filner’s office did not respond Sunday to a request for comment.
Filner, 70, introduced Ingram, 48, as the “First Lady of San Diego” during his first news conference after his election as mayor last November. She made a name for herself by bringing together citizen volunteers called “Team First Lady” to address the needs of San Diego’s 10,000 homeless people.
So Filner has gotten his allies and fiancee and political foes to agree: he needs to resign.
He’a a consensus builder.
UPDATE: Filner faces some powerful anti-Filner social media:
A local man is turning to social media to get San Diego Mayor Bob Filner out of office.
Michael Pallamary is a land use consultant who says he is fed up with the controversy surrounding the mayor. So, he created a Facebook page called “Recall Bob Filner.” The page had more than 500 “likes” as of Saturday evening.
Pallamary says he created the page in late June before allegations of sexual harassment against the mayor surfaced at City Hall.
“This man is reprehensible at all levels,” said Pallamary, who was not shy about his feelings towards the mayor. “He has no diplomatic skills. He has no class. He abuses women. He harasses people. It’s outrageous and it is unacceptable … so that’s what motivates me.”
10News found Pallamary was also motivated to run out another city official in 1991: Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt. Ironically, Pallamary says it was then-Councilman Filner who helped him successfully pass the recall.
In Filner’s case, it would take more than a 100,000 registered voters to call for an official recall petition. Pallamary hopes his Facebook page will help gauge who would be for the recall.
But with fewer than 1,000 “likes” so far, Filner supporters say it is a long shot. Instead, some are calling for more evidence of the mayor’s accused wrongdoings.
“Nowhere in the law does it say that if somebody is accusing you of something, then that’s proof,” explained Jake Fehlman, who said he wants the mayor to stay in office. “That’s not proof … innocent until proven guilty.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.