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Health & Fitness

I Am Laura Lothian (And So Can You)!

We don't shed free-speech rights "to comment on matters of widespread public interest" just because our opinions offend sensibilities with scary new ideas that might upset designs.

2012 is a year of celebrations and remembrance in La Mesa. From the Centennial to the 2nd Annual St. Piran’s Day Pasty Toss at All Things Bright and British in March to the 50th Anniversary of Grossmont College (yes, technically in El Cajon, but close enough for sarcastic purposes), parties and events are going on all year!

The guest lists are practically a Who's Who of our fair town and it feels like there’s a never-ending stream of local politicos eager to bask in reflected glory for a turn at the mike.

That’s why it heartening to see some of our local leaders devoting time to the less well-remembered moments of history that make La Mesa what it is today. Next Tuesday’s council meeting marks six years to the day of one such incident that you’d almost think people want to forget: City Hall's furious backpedaling after Art Madrid put the spotlight on La Mesa by instructing the city attorney to threaten legal action against a critic unless he publicly and formally apologized for exercising his 1st Amendment rights to comment on matters of widespread public interest.

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To properly honor the Sexennial of the Great Chris Tanner Climbdown (as it’s not called), the Parking Commission hosted a politically themed kabuki last night.

James Wieboldt, the chair, signaled for proceedings to begin by temporarilly handing over duties to fellow Commissioner Lynn McRea, whose husband was also a featured actor in the drama, all recorded for posterity. But it wasn’t until Commissioner Wieboldt took to the lectern during public comment that the fun really started.

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For the audience, which enters in media res, Commissioner Wieboldt declaims the prologue. He explains that yet another commissioner, Laura Lothian, on November 14, 2011, in which she decried what she saw as a conflict of interest besetting two members of the Parking Commission who also serve on the PBINKY Committee.

Commissioner Wieboldt, who has previously called Ms. Lothian a liar and dragged her daughter into his petty political squabbles (http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/4650), so objects to Ms. Lothian’s views on the propriety of commissioners taking decisions about the use of public monies when they also sit on the board of a committee that some (including this writer, whom Commissioner Wieboldt has also not been shy about calling a liar) see as potentially either benefiting or having its rationale undermined by those decisions that the commissioner offers the commissioner a choice: The commissioner threatens legal action against his critic unless the commissioner publicly and formally apologizes for exercising her 1st Amendment rights to comment on matters of widespread public interest.

Now enters commissioner spouse Dave Woodson (who has previously and publicly referred to this reporter as a nut case and a liar from his seat on the PBID board while his wife, Parking Commisioner Lynn McRea, the chair of that committee r, or see the email posted above from Ed Henning, the project engineer hired with our parking meter money, asking a city staffer if there has been any fallout at City Council over the comment), also urging Commissioner Lothian to publicly and formally apologize for exercising her 1st Amendment rights to comment on matters of widespread public interest or face the ruinous expenses of a lawsuit.

Mr. Woodson offers up his public apology to this reporter for his slanderous remarks as a template for the commissioner to emulate.

The performance almost done, Commissioner Lothian asks if she may respond, but is brusquely cut off by Commissioner Wieboldt, who has retaken the chair from Commissioner McRea.

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Here's the uniquely American twist to this bit of theater: It’s time for audience participation!

Not only does Laura Lothian have every right to comment on matters of widespread public interest, to coin a phrase, but I believe she is correct in the thrust of her article that caused such consternation.

It is a conflict of interest for Jim Wieboldt and Lynn McRea to sit on the Parking Commission advising the use of public monies to hire Ed Henning, California's own Johnny PBIDseed, and then also sit on the so-called Formation Committee. However, the problem goes far beyond the competing tensions of the two organizations that Laura focused on.

The term “conflict of interest” describes an objective state of affairs that exists outside the actors. A conflict exists or it doesn’t. The fact that Commissioner McRea voted with Commissioner Lothian last night to recommend finally disgorging the paltry sums needed to beautify the Village for the Centennial is to her credit, but her vote doesn’t do anything to undermine Laura’s (and my) thesis. Nor would a “NO” vote have made our case.

The issue is not whether motivations are corrupt or whether our representatives financially benefit from their actions, but the potential for abuse and whether and to what degree we, as citizens, can or should give reliance to those decisions.

Our entire system is built on the consent of the governed. We grant that consent because we expect government officials to honor the “rule of law,” but we necessarily operate with imperfect information.

It is imperative, then, that we can be confident that “Caesar's wife is above reproach,” which requires that even the appearance of impropriety be avoided. I don’t care what the Fair Political Practices Commission has to say—my opinion is that Jim and Lynn have no business sitting on both the Parking Commission and the PBID Formation Committee.

Let’s reify the problem. Both Parking Commissioners own property inside the proposed PBID. Commissioner Wieboldt also owns rental units on Palm, immediately abutting La Mesa Lumber, a prime redevelopment target.

I know this from his financial disclosures. Mr. Wieboldt also sat on the committees that ostensibly drew the boundary lines for the PBID, which did not require any financials, and when all was said and done, his units lie just outside the district and he is not burdened with an assessment on his apartments even though he stands to benefit if all the basic principles of economics are magically upended and his beloved PBINKY somehow works.

Now is there anything personally corrupt about Mr. Wieboldt’s involvement? I doubt it for many reasons, not the least of which is that I think this whole PBID scheme was cooked up and driven by city staff in the first place and that Big Jim’s involvement is far less meaningful than he would like to believe. Nonetheless, how are we in the public to have confidence in anything about this process?

That’s why I’ve fought so hard to get a fair hearing regarding my Brown Act concerns, and that’s why it is so disconcerting to have the city attorney dismiss them out of hand, forcing this whole mess into court.

Leave aside for the moment that not one factual claim of mine has been disputed, meaning that Glenn [Sabine] relies solely on what I believe to be an erroneous interpretation of the law. I have still spent the better part of a year to, yes, comment on matters of widespread public interest and technically have alleged criminal violations on the part of various actors (refusing to comply with the Act is potentially a misdemeanor).

For example, that the Formation Committee violated the Brown Act to reduce the number of seats specifically to keep me off the board, am I putting myself in legal jeopardy for exercising my 1st Amendment rights?

More specifically, if I base my claim in part on:

1. Mayor Madrid's statements in open session of City Council (, item 6), and/or

2. on an email exchange, uploaded above, between Commissioner McRea and Chris Gonzales—after I announced my intentions but before the hasty vote to downsize at the next meeting—in which Commissioner McRea, having first accused me of defacing a committee document, then states: “[Jaynes] has no ethics and no manners. There is no place for him on this board that he desires to sit on suddenly. The sidelines is all I can handle”—to which Mr. Gonzales replies, in part, “There is no need to fill the vacancy. We should have an odd number and 15 was the intended max limit on the committee in the first place. A committee of 15 is just fine, in my view.”

Will I be sued just because the city attorney thinks this doesn’t rise to the level of a Brown Act violation, perhaps because city staffers purportedly only act as “facilitators” in this process?

3. Would it matter if we consider the video of the vote found in the link above, wherein the vacancy is announced right after roll call and minutes, a vote to downsize occurs so quickly that the chair needs to be reminded to count the "NO" votes, and the vacant seat isn't filled because it technically doesn’t exist anymore—all of which occurs before I can make my case or present the four pages of “stakeholder” signatures supporting me?

4. Or would I still be under threat of legal reprisal even if I could produce an email, uploaded above, antedating that vote but following the exchange between Commissioner McRea and Mr. Gonzales, from PBID project engineer Ed Henning for whom the city waived any requirement to carry E&O (Errors and Omissions) insurance, to the same Chris Gonzales, wherein Mr. Hennng offers the following advice:

"Issue #1: Have you talked to [the current member] directly to see if he is for sure resigning? If so, it should be brought up right after Roll Call and Minutes and have the group set the Committee size at the more desirable number of 15 rather than the 16 with [the current member]. With this, they would also indicate that his seat will not be filled since it really won't exist"?

I'd really like to know if my ability to dissent is contingent on what I believe to be an erroneous legal opinion that means in essence that all similarly constituted steering committees in the city of La Mesa are exempt from fundamental Brown Act protections enshrined in California law for over 50 years, or do I run the risk that each and every time I repeat facts that are not in dispute I might provoke Parking Commissioner James "Nine Mile" Wieboldt to "Bring it on!" in a court of law?

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This is our city, and last time I checked it’s still in the lower left hand corner of America.

We have the right to voice our opinions. We don’t shed those rights “to comment on matters of widespread public interest” just because our opinions offend the sensibilities of our fellow commissioners with scary new ideas that might upset their designs.

We don’t let our mayors turn the machinery of government on us just because, when pressed by council members to offer our thoughts, we do. And from the time of John Peter Zenger down to the present day, we have considered freedom of the press to criticize our elected officials and their minions to be so important that we enshrined the principle in the first, arguably most important and certainly most emblematic amendment in the Bill of Rights.

So whether it’s about vindicating our rights under the Public Records Act, the Brown Act or our Constitutional rights—heck, if what passes for our so-called betters here in La Mesa just want to start a game of SLAPP and Anti-SLAPP, I’ll gladly be their huckleberry.

I am Laura Lothian. I am Chris Tanner. And so are you.

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