January 10-2014
. . . out of office
The San Diego City Auditor has completed his review of former Mayor Bob Filner’s June trip to France for the Mojahedin-e Khalq and not found any major discrepancies in what he said the trip cost the city.
The uproar over the trip was the start of a rapid downward slide that led to charges of sexual harrassment and finally forced the mayor to resign over the harrassment issues, not his support for the Mojahedin. But it was the links to the Mojahedin that started the focus on the mayor’s conduct and led to his unraveling.
The initial issue that confounded the mayor was who paid for his trip to Paris, where he attended the Mojahedin’s annual rally. Filner had gone to those rallies in earlier years when he was a member of the House of Representatives and one of its many Mojahedin backers.
San Diego travel policy requires employees to travel coach class when flying on city business, the auditor’s review noted. But Filner’s police security detail ended up having to buy business class tickets to match those purchased for Filner by an Iranian group linked to the Mojahedin. According to the auditor’s report, Filner’s tickets to Paris were being funded by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities. City policy on flying coach class did not apply to Filner, since the outside group was paying for the business class tickets.
According to Luna, the city paid to book business class tickets for the two security officers because city policy requires the bodyguards to “check baggage in and request an aisle seat assignment within view of the mayor’s seat assignment.”
But there was a mechanical issue and Filner was switched to another flight with no seats available for the bodyguards. The police officers rebooked their flights, this time in coach seats.
The bodyguards arrived in Paris four hours after Filner. And the city was reimbursed $5,050 for the difference between the business class seats that were booked and the coach seats that were actually used.
A major issue at the time was how much the trip actually cost, with critics questioning the mayor’s figures.
Airfare for the bodyguards came to $16,549, the auditor found, marginally more than the $16,462 that the Mayor’s Office had previously disclosed. The auditor reported lodging costs of $3,232, about $40 more than the Mayor’s Office previously reported.
Adding in meals and overtime costs for the officers, Luna pegged the taxpayer cost for the trip at $24,641. The Mayor’s Office in July had totaled a taxpayer cost of $21,244.
Filner resigned August 30 and pleaded guilty to three crimes related to the sexual harassment allegations. He begins three months of home confinement next month, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
Filner first justified his acceptance of travel from the Iranian group by saying it was a nonprofit organization, a gift allowed under state law. After a local watchdog organization reported that the group lacked nonprofit status, the mayor said he reimbursed the group.
“It was initially believed that the city would pay for Filner and his companion [his then fiancee], and that the city was to be reimbursed later for the airfare,” the report says. “However, it turned out that the host organization paid these expenses directly and no city funds were spent on Filner or his companion for any travel-related expense to Paris.”
That gave Filner a clean slate legally for the trip and ended all the speculation about peculation. But the auditor’s report came too late to save Filner.
Questions over Filner’s June trip to Paris were followed by sexual-harassment charges leveled in July that lead to his resignation.
For starters, the mayor’s office did not disclose the Paris trip until after Filner returned, which raised a lot of eyebrows. San Diegans first learned their mayor was in France from a press release issued by the Mojahedin.
On his return, Filner was vague about the purpose of the journey and who funded it, feeding more questions.
On June 26, Filner said it was a “business trip, which is to get jobs to San Diego” but refused to respond to follow-up questions.
At a news conference the next day, Filner said the trip was paid for by a nonprofit group tied to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Mojahedin front group, although he declined to name the group at that time.
“There’s no cost to the city for my trip,” he said. But many San Diegans weren’t sure they could believe the mayor—and then they learned about the cost of the bodyguards, which was borne by the city.
In early July, former Councilwoman Donna Frye and two San Diego attorneys publicly denounced Filner as a sexual harasser and demanded he resign.
In the middle of the month, the local watchdog group reported that credit card limits had been increased to accommodate spending on the Paris trip, which raised yet more questions. The auditor found no fault with raising the limit.
All the while, Filner refused to disclose the name of the nonprofit that had paid his travel expenses.
On July 22, in a nationally televised news conference, former mayoral communications director Irene McCormack Jackson became the first woman to publicly accuse Filner of sexual harassment. Within days, more than a dozen additional women leveled similar allegations.
Amid the lurid accusations, the Paris trip remained an issue. In late July, Filner finally identified his benefactors as the Organization of Iranian-American Communities.
On July 31, the watchdog group reported there was no such nonprofit certified by the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Filner then announced he would pay the cost for the trip out of his own pocket.
The San Diego Union-Tribune said that gesture by Filner at that point “was not enough to avoid tough questions by other city officials.”
“The incomplete information from Mayor Filner’s office continues to raise more questions than it answers,” Councilman Kevin Faulconer said that day.
Faulconer is now facing council colleague David Alvarez in a February 11 mayoral run-off election to replace Filner.
