About a hundred supporters of besieged Mayor Filner held a brief rally and march in the Civic Center Plaza today, and then sponsored a press conference.
Most of the speakers were women or were people of color – and most criticized the trial in the press of the mayor that is going on in San Diego’s mainstream media.
Other speakers talked of Filner’s history and record in the civil rights movement, that this was a time of healing and patience.
Civil rights activist Kathleen Harmon
Organized by immigration activist Enrique Morones and others to demonstrate their push-back against the calls for recall and resign that Filner has had over the last month, Morones introduced each speaker, carefully spelling their names for the press.
Activist Anita Wucinic-Turner
A dozen TV cameras had been set up – as this was “news” – Filner supporters showing their faces. Unfortunately, the presser organizers did not organize their own microphone or speaker system, so much of was said was not well heard by people surrounding the gaggle of cameras and reporters and supporters.
One anti-Filner man with two signs loudly protested the event. His signs demeaning Filner because he was a progressive and “Marxist” hinted at the guy’s own agenda.
Today’s rally and presser had been quickly thrown together to show support for Filner. A good number of organizers of the event were from Ocean Beach and Point Loma – the organizing meeting had been held in OB in a private residence.
Some of the notable speakers were Kathy Harmon, a long-time civil rights activist in San Diego, and Floyd Morrow, the longest-serving city councilmember of San Diego.
Bank of press.
Linda Legretti.
Unidentified speaker
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Saw at least half a dozen OBceans at the rally.
Nice to see Bob supporters and that not everyone listening to the UTs BS.
I know Bob can be less than nice in fact down right rude. But I suspect some think there may be gold in his harassment. The whole thing is pretty bizarre.
How come no one in DC came forward with accusations or maybe they did but no press to make them public? Did this same behavior take place in the early 90’s when he was on council?
Maybe some sort of dementia is starting to kick in that is causing this behavior? Many questions remain to be answered.
Well no one I knew had heard about this rally until late yesterday or this morning, so it was kind of rough and we knew the numbers would be moderate, but it was important to make the presence of Filner supporters known. And considering that their first rally had about 30 people, and the second roughly a hundred, I think we are equal on that count. Still, this isn’t a numbers game. If it were, Bob Filner would have never gotten on that bus with the whole South opposed to civil rights. One has to be morally right and certain of that right, and then you won’t be swayed by fear or shame. This is the first of many events to begin to show support for a man whose whole life has been about supporting us.
Hoping to spark a discussion of the actual issues in the “Recall Bob” movement, I wonder which of these statements is closest to the views of Obecians and other Progressive San Diegans:
A. Leave Filner alone, for while he did commit these reputed acts of sexual harassment, they are not all that serious or important, it’s just what powerful men do.
B. Leave Filner alone, these 16 women are all liars or at least exaggerating, and they don’t deserve DUE PROCESS. They should just shut up.
C. Whether Filner did these things or not is irrelevant, as he is a great Progressive mayor and we need him. Leave him alone.
D. While Filner does have some personal problems he should be left alone to get therapy and learn to do better. He’s basically a good man who has made a few mistakes.
E. I don’t know, while this issue has been around for months, I really haven’t paid that much attention. I’m more interested in “local chatter.”
F. Hey, there’s nothing to it, it’s all the fault of the “media” and right-wing Republicans.
G. Though I’ve studied this problem seriously, I really don’t know, as it is such a complex issue- we need more info. I’d like to see a better, more balanced discussion.
H. 81% of San Diegans and a Dem. Senator can’t be wrong, the evidence of disgusting sexism is overwhelming, it’s time for Bob to go. I’ll sign the petition.
========
So which position to you most agree– and disagree– with?
False choices.
There is a system in place to deal with what is essentially a personnel matter. The conspirators instead chose to try and force the mayor out of office. Imagine a different scenario, where Jackson quietly goes to HR and says here’s my story, check it out. Or even isn’t quiet and hires Allred and says here’s my story. The result is the mayor has to negotiate a settlement with her, and let’s say that as part of that settlement he agrees to get help and therapy. Then, my friend, the business of the city could go on, and there would be none of this silly recall business, and the legal process would take its course and neither the pro nor anti Filner forces would have a word to say about it because everything would have gone as it should have. Now let’s say the Mayor is forced out, either by recall or resignation due to the way this situation is being handled. Do you imagine that the people on both sides will really feel that justice had been done? I’m not ready to believe that badly of the pro recall people, but if you insist, I may have to face reality and believe that such evil walks the earth.
For me, the false choice is in portraying our Mayoral options as being either this guy or a far right developer shill. His actions are completely incongruous with notions of equality, and while I understand it, I think progressives supporting him is completely detrimental to their own cause. Not just in an ideological way, but in a political way. This guy is a boat anchor that is sinking fast right now. Further, I don’t agree at all that this is a “personnel matter”, unless you consider every City worker, business or community leader and constituent to be part of his office.
This entire conspiracy was pot in the pot and on the burner almost literally the day he was elected. Google “recall, Filner” and see how early it rose up. And, now, we have Prince De Maio in front of the mics and cameras, hoping to work the peasants into a sweat even though, in that place where his heart once beat, he holds them in contempt. De Maio! Imagine him as a San Diegan.
Some Lame Blonde at the scene yesterday actually intoned into the camera that Filner “allegedly” had been seen, thinking that when Filner’s name comes up a good journalist has to play it safe and use a negative. KPBS? Send ’em your blank check.
we need mr filner s stong mayoral leadership now more than ever.. the city has major economic challenges decreased tourism.. sequestering from mr obamas failed economic policies and his continuation of the racist war on drugs and marijuana prohibition thus financing the traffickers and local black markets throughout the usa.. mr obamas policies of inaction re children being trafficked for sex… our scarce tax dollars being spent on prisons instead of education for our children to combat poverty.. we need mayor filner to continue to outline the inequalities in the workplace as he did by underlining mr turzis salary of 435,000 while hospitality workers earn 11.20 an hour
Hey Filner is lucky he is just at the level of Mayor, unlike presidents who mess with the BIG guys and they have to KILL him.
Hi Frank, everyone,
I am in India again and noticed on a local news station Bob Filner. I asked to have translated what was going on and was told something about “just some politician in trouble”
Got home and looked it up. Jeez. What is it with San Diego. With Power. Reminds me of a South Park episode. Good to be away from all this riffraff. Oh Well, Back to work now. Have to go see the police today and pay our 1,000,000 rupee bribe to get this brewery open.
Thank god for some public faces for Filner. I think everyone should sign the petition as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. I would be willing to be a petition passer if they paid a shit load of money for phoney signatures. Did I say that? Someone must have hacked my Twitter.
Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act AB-5 Homelessness (2013-2014)
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml
(a) In the State of California, there has been a long history of discriminatory laws and ordinances that have disproportionately affected people with low incomes and who are without homes, including, but not limited to, all of the following:
Look what snuck through the California Legislature in June. This is freaking news if you have no roof in your life.
(c) Today, in the state, many people are denied the following:
(1) Housing due to their status of being homeless, living in a shelter, a vehicle, the street, or the public domain.
(2) Employment due to their current status of being homeless or living in a shelter or a vehicle on the street.
(3) Housing and employment as a result of not having a fixed or residential mailing address or having a post office box as a mailing address.
(4) Equal protection of the laws and due process by law enforcement and prosecuting agencies.
(5) The ability to make certain purchases or enter certain contests as a result of not having a fixed or residential mailing address or having a post office box as a mailing address.
(6) Access to safe, clean restrooms, water, and hygienic supplies necessary to maintain health, safety, and dignity, especially with the proliferation of closures of public restrooms.
(d) Homeless persons are unfairly targeted by law enforcement, often resulting in the violation of homeless persons’ constitutional rights. Lacking the resources necessary to obtain adequate legal representation, homeless persons are often denied relief or damages through the courts.
(e) Homeless persons rarely have access to shelters, and when shelter is available, its conditions can be so poor as to jeopardize their health and physical and mental safety.
(f) Homeless persons are often forced to separate from loved ones, give up their personal property, abandon pets, and make other inhumane choices in order to access even minimal shelter.
(g) Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, and queer individuals often are forced to accept inappropriate or unsafe accommodations to access publicly funded emergency shelters.
(h) Children in homeless families are denied the ability to continue receiving education in their preferred school if their family’s shelter lies outside the boundaries of their former district.
(i) At the present time, many persons have been rendered homeless as a result of a deep and prolonged economic recession, a severe shortage of safe and affordable housing, a failed mental health system, and a shrinking social safety net.
(j) Section 1 of Article I of the California Constitution provides that?“[a]ll people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.”
(k) Subdivision (a) of Section 7 of Article I of the California Constitution provides, in part, that “[a] person may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or denied equal protection of the laws… .”
(l) Concordant with this fundamental belief, a person should not be subject to discrimination based on his or her housing status, income level, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship, or immigration status. Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this act to protect the rights of all Californians, regardless of their housing status, and to ameliorate the adverse effects of homelessness on people who have no home and on our communities.
The homeless have been handed a page explaining their rights under the new law at a feed given by the Catholic Workers at the Presbyterian Church in Pacific Beach. Now somehow we have to get word to the San Diego City Council and the San Diego Police. The City Council has just passed further laws to push the homeless in vehicles farther into the bushes.
53.2.
(a) The existence of homelessness requires that fundamental rights that are amply protected in the home and in private places be extended to the public domain to ensure the equal rights of all Californians, homeless and housed. Every homeless person in the state shall have all of the following basic human rights and legal and civil protections, except when prohibited by federal law:
(1) The right to move freely in the same manner as any other person in public spaces without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents because he or she is homeless.
(2) The right to rest in a public space in the same manner as any other person without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents because he or she is homeless, as long as that rest does not maliciously or substantially obstruct a passageway.
(3) The right to eat, share, accept, or give food or water in public spaces in the same manner as any other person without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents because he or she is homeless.
(4) The right to solicit donations in public spaces in the same manner as any other person without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents because he or she is homeless.
(5) The right to the same protections that law enforcement agencies afford any other person, including, but not limited to, the right to reasonable protection from assault, domestic violence, sexual assault, or robberies.
(6) The right to rest in a public space, without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents, except that law enforcement may enforce existing local laws if all of the following are true: (1) the person’s county of residence maintains 12 months per year of nonmedical assistance provided for in Section 17000 of the Welfare and Institutions Code for employable, able-bodied adults without dependents who are compliant with program rules established by the county, including work requirements; (2) the locality is not a geographical area identified by the United States Department of Labor in accordance with Subpart A of Part 654 of Section 20 of the Code of Federal Regulations as an area of concentrated unemployment or underemployment or an area of labor surplus; and (3) the public housing waiting list maintained by the county contains fewer than 50 persons.
(7) The right to engage in lawful self-employment in the same manner as any other person, including, but not limited to, the right to seek self-employment in junk removal and recycling that requires the collection, possession, redemption, and storage of goods for reuse and recycling, without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents because he or she is homeless.
(8) The right to pray, meditate, or practice religion in public spaces in the same manner as any other person, without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents because he or she is homeless.
(9) The right to decline admittance to a public or private shelter or any other accommodation, including social services programs, for any reason he or she sees fit, without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest from law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents.
(10) The right to occupy a motor vehicle, as defined in Section 415 of the Vehicle Code, or recreational vehicle, as defined in Section 18010 of the Health and Safety Code, either to rest, sleep, or use for the purposes of shelter, provided that the vehicle is legally parked on public property, without being subject to criminal or civil sanctions, harassment, or arrest from law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or BID agents.
(11) The right to confidentiality of his or her records and information by homeless shelters, medical centers, schools, or any other publicly funded human service provider to law enforcement agencies, employers, or landlords, except that the records or information may be disclosed if the disclosure is based on appropriate legal authority. Disclosure of an individual’s records or information shall not be allowed unless the individual received oral and written notice of the legal authority to disclose this information and the individual’s right to opt out of having the records or information disclosed.
(12) (A) The right to assistance of counsel, if a county chooses to initiate judicial proceedings under any law set forth in Section 53.5. The accused shall be advised of this right to counsel before entering a plea, and any waiver of this right shall be explicit. If the district attorney’s office or its agent is representing the state in any part of an infraction proceeding, the accused shall have the right to assistance of counsel with regard to that infraction.
(B) The county where the citation was issued shall pay the cost of providing counsel under this paragraph.
(C) This paragraph shall not be construed to eliminate any protection or right to representation available under Sections 5365 and 6500 of the Welfare and Institutions Code or any other provision of law.
Well, I couldn’t have said it better myself. While Washington DC can’t get out of its own way, and San Diego can’t get Carl DeMaio and Doug Manchester to let the law be enforced, the California State Legislature has been doing good. Godsmacked.
So I would imagine support for the mayor would remain unchanged amongst his backers had any of his targets been your sister, wife, mother, daughter. Hey, as long as he continues to pursue progressive policy, then everything else be damned, right? The women must all be in concert, a conspiracy to get him out of office.
Would any of his supporters give a Republican who was accused of the same sexual trangressions the benefit of the doubt? No one seems to want to answer that question.
“Would any of his supporters give a Republican who was accused of the same sexual trangressions the benefit of the doubt? No one seems to want to answer that question.”
Because they’re a bunch of hypocrite ideologues. Bob’s long war on women is cool in the gang as long as he toes the progressive line and stands against “Big Business/Developer’s” or something. The Rag won’t even discuss their “character” based endorsement of Filner. Read it and you’ll know why…
http://obrag.org/?p=60000
I think the honest answer is yes. I’d rather have a pervert in office than a crook.
Seriously. I don’t read the U-T and really don’t care about Carl DeMaio or any of his other opponents who are trying to make hay out of this. That doesn’t register with me even a little bit. The only thing that matters here IMO is the Mayor’s actions. I have heard enough, from both the zip code’s worth of women throwing accusations at him and the Mayor himself. This guy is a creepy schmuck. He has almost certainly been habitually harassing every woman within a 100 feet radius of him and attempting to use his power, his office and (likely) City funds for his own sexual gratification. I can respect his politics and his being a Freedom Rider without respecting any part of that – and I don’t. Using an offer of funding to try to leverage dates from that caregiver of the Marine with a brain injury was beyond disturbing.
How much can we trust a UT poll? As much as we can believe a UT editorial?
Thank you Tom. I notice that RVs will soon be outlawed in the city.
I guess you will be seeing much less of me because although I love to visit while in the States I am now classified as homeless trash because I drive my RV down. Camp land and the park on I5 are at $80 a night now so that is a little out of range for me. I hope Falkner’s friends tell their visitors that they are trash now too because their $300,000 RVs are not w3elcome. But wait, I am sure he thought of that and will soon write a caste clause into the law.
What? No pictures of armed “Security”? Where are the cops ready to arrest these folks exercising their right to speak? I see no angry gun toters, and no fights.
What can this mean? No more Freaks, Uppity Women and Politicos?
Frankly, I’m disappointed in my fellow OB citizens. Good news stories usually start in my part of town when someone throws a bottle. That’s why we have a pocket park on Soto Street, for pity’s sake.
(Read the old OB Archives, you young’uns who don’t know your OB History.)