Civility, transparency, or hypocrisy?

August 9, 2019

OPINION by T. KEITH GURNEE

San Luis Obispo’s city government has to feel that it’s under siege these days. Recent revelations by CCN about the city’s police chief losing her firearm, her day-long scramble to find it, breaking into a house where it wasn’t, tearing that family that lived in the house apart, and the apparent ongoing cover-up of this matter is a flat-out public embarrassment.

Add to that the as yet unresolved scandal over a city building inspector who was filmed in a bar cold-cocking a woman, only to be placed on paid administrative leave back in May is yet another embarrassment. Does paying someone who would do that to a woman his full salary not to work for the last four months make any sense? It looks like the city is buying time, hoping that the controversy will die down enough for him to come back to his job. What’s that about?

Mind you that this mayor and City Council have claimed to be the champions of “civility” and “transparency”, but how do these two episodes equate with those principles?

Civility

Remember when the City Council adopted the highly touted “Civility Resolution” with great fanfare? The mayor brings it up at the beginning of every City Council meeting in her plea to people to be civil with each other.

Is it “civil” not to act to discipline if not terminate a city employee who would do that to a woman? Is it “civil” to keep paying him not to work indefinitely? After all, it’s doubtful that the film clip of that city employee knocking out that young lady for no apparent reason will win the city any awards as its “civility” training film.

Transparency

As CCN continues to peel back the layers of the onion in the police chief controversy, the city seems blithely ignorant of the old adage “if you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.” Every day the obfuscation and the cover-up seem to get worse.

I’ve met Police Chief Deanna Cantrell and she impressed me. Unfortunately, she made a bad mistake. Had she have been completely truthful in her apology will, all could have been forgiven. But the conflicting timelines, the mistaken raid on the wrong house without a search warrant, and doubling down on prosecuting its occupants while tearing their family apart has gone way too far.

With City Attorney Christine Dietrick stonewalling CCN’s Public Records Act requests, the cover-up appears to be in full bloom.

That the four women on our City Council, some of whom marched to protest taking children away from their parents at the border, would tolerate this defies understanding.

Meanwhile, this does not come at a good time for the rank and file of law enforcement personnel who protect and serve us. Across our nation, our police are under fire, and the disrespect being shown to police officers is off the charts. Just look at New York City where officers are being doused with water while their mayor does nothing about it.

Our police deserve our respect and support. But episodes like San Luis Obispo is experiencing right now only serve to erode that much-needed support when they needed the most

We need to know the truth

Were it not for CCN, we wouldn’t know what we know now. We deserve the truth and the whole truth about these troubling issues, but we’re just not getting it from City Hall. It’s time that the city come clean.

The public responses to CCN’s articles on the police chief controversy reveal a deep resentment and distrust of how the city is handling this issue. In fact, some commenters were proposing to attend the next City Council meetings to demand answers. And what does the city do? Cancel the first City Council meeting and most other public meetings for the first two weeks of August. Is that just a coincidence or more stonewalling?

There is ample evidence that “civility” and “transparency” are now missing in action in today’s City Hall. There is another term that is far more accurate to describe the situation. It’s called hypocrisy and it’s becoming the tragic legacy of today’s city government.

Just nine short years ago, San Luis Obispo was named “The happiest city in North America.” Who would dare call our city that today?