By Kate Callen
When a news story contains inaccurate information, the reporter is obliged to correct it. When a news commentary offers views based on mistaken judgment, the writer should admit it.
That’s why I want to retract my argument, expressed in a November 4 OB Rag post, that we should let Mayor Todd Gloria languish through the rest of his lame duck term instead of recalling him.
I still think a Gloria recall effort would be a very heavy and expensive lift. The 2028 mayoral election is less than two years away, and contenders are already circling.
But after working with Paul Krueger on a November 9 Rag story on an audit of the City Transportation Department, and after connecting the dots about the Mayor’s decisions around that audit, I now see clearly that Gloria has to go.
Paul and I began collaborating on a straightforward account of City Auditor Andy Hanau’s blistering report that the Streetlight Repair program was bilking the taxpayers. City electricians were submitting fraudulent timecards, collecting for unearned overtime, and loitering for hours in parked trucks.
As we drilled down into the specifics of the report, we found the fingerprints of San Diego’s newly-appointed Chief Operating Officer Bethany Bezak all over it.
In the years leading up to the audit, Bezak was Director of the Transportation Department who oversaw the Streets Division. And she was the “Chief Performance and Logistics Officer” who signed off on the City’s defiant response to Hanau.
Here’s the kicker: When Gloria named Bezak as COO, he was already familiar with the audit and its findings.
He knew it would present evidence that Bezak is not executive material – not capable of managing a city department much less the entire city bureaucracy. He chose her anyway.
In fact, knowing that the audit report was nearing publication, Gloria announced Bezak’s hire on October 15, just 10 days before Hanau released his findings.
Who does that? Well, Donald Trump, for one.
Like Trump’s shocking decision to name Stephen Miller his chief of staff, Gloria’s selection of Bezak, with his knowledge of the audit, was a middle finger to the people he was elected to govern.
It was his way of saying: I know I’m unpopular, but I have little to lose, so piss on you all – I might just drive this car into a ditch.
I had thought that Gloria has been so chastened by his fall from grace that he would quietly bide his time. Fat chance. Like Trump, he is the demonic 5-year-old who keeps breaking things because it’s fun and no one ever stops him.
I still feel compassion for him. He has plummeted from the heights of his 2020 election to the depths of public ridicule. You can see pain in his face. This is a human tragedy.
Where does he go from here? His vaunted presidency of the U.S. Conference of Mayors ends when he stops being San Diego Mayor. If he runs for public office again, reporters covering the race will dig out his ignoble record with a few keystrokes.
But compassion has its limits. It ends when power madness enters the frame.
I want to close by thanking Genevieve Jones-Wright for her thoughtful counterpoint essay (and our mutual friend Coleen Cusack for forwarding my invite to Genevieve).
The recall effort is a long shot, but I support it. If for no other reason, a Gloria recall campaign will show mayoral hopefuls known for sheer arrogance (I can think of one in particular) that they will pay a price for reckless overreach.
