McCarty’s Memo Welcome

Since winning election to the San Diego City Council in November, 1985, Judy McCarty has sometimes seemed to be in over her head. To state it plainly, it has taken her a while to learn how city government works. In an often self-effacing interview in April, McCarty spoke frankly about her problems adjusting to her new role and the difficulty she sometimes has making tough decisions.

But McCarty recently went a long way to alter the view that she is naive by being the only member of the council who apparently did not accept at face value City Manager John Lockwood’s report on recent allegations against Police Chief Bill Kolender. In a personal memo to Lockwood, McCarty made it clear that she believes the city manager’s report “leaves as many questions as it answers.”

“A lot of fine people in San Diego have had their careers ruined for a lot less than I see here,” McCarty wrote to Lockwood. “More importantly, a society which does not or cannot respect its police authority is a society in trouble.”

The four-page memo contains a series of tough questions. For example, why didn’t Lockwood investigate a discrepancy between the statement of a former officer who said Kolender had her deliver a gun to a friend and that of the friend, who said he never received anything from her?

She challenged the credibility of Lockwood’s conclusion that two detectives who went to an address in Riverside to gather information having to do with a domestic situation involving Kolender’s wife were acting on the request of a lieutenant who had overheard “idle conversation” about the matter. “Did the lieutenant also ‘overhear’ the exact address?” McCarty asked.

And she characterized as “a little hard to believe” Kolender’s assertion that the practice of using a sworn officer to run personal errands ended in 1982 when the former officer who made the allegation left the department.

It is not known who in McCarty’s office actually prepared the memo to Lockwood, and it doesn’t matter. She signed it and had the courage to tell the city manager she was unimpressed with his investigation.

She says in her memo, which was not intended for public release, that she did not want to be part of “Get Kolender Week.” But, she said: “I also want a complete report and a report which I feel answers the questions fully.”

That sounds reasonable to us. And we hope this episode is an indication that McCarty is in the process of getting her head above water at City Hall.