Wolfsheimer Pushes Recorder’s Panic Button

A day in the life at San Diego City Hall, or: It was only a Panasonic but people reacted like it was a python.

The fun began when Alan F. Dickey, chairman of the Rancho de Los Penasquitos Planning Board, took a tape recorder to last week’s meeting of a citizens committee organized by Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer.

The 1st District Rancho Penasquitos Park Allocation Committee is supposed to recommend how to spend $2.2 million in developer fees for open space. Its previous meeting was taped by the city staff.

This time, Wolfsheimer told Dickey that, if he insisted on taping the meeting, she would shut it down and go home.

The former law professor backed it up with the curious assertion that taping someone without their consent, even if the recorder is in plain sight, is a felony. She threatened twice to call the district attorney.

“I cannot consent to you taping anything that happens in the meeting,” Wolfsheimer said. “I’ll tell you why. We’re having an organizational, structural meeting to plan for a public meeting. This is not public.”

At first, Dickey refused to budge. “When you’re dealing with $2.2 million of the public’s money, the meeting should be open,” he said.

After 10 more minutes of toe-to-toe confrontation, in which other committee members sided with Wolfsheimer, Dickey relented. He turned off his recorder and left, and the meeting continued tape-free.

Dickey, 42, a real estate agent, has now appealed to City Atty. John Witt, saying that Wolfsheimer’s no-taping edict violated the Brown Act.

Chief Deputy City Atty. Ted Bromfield said it depends on whether the committee was formed by an act of the City Council. If so, the Brown Act may apply. He’s researching.

He may want to look at the minutes of Nov. 14, 1988.

That’s when the council approved a developer agreement providing for $2.2 million in fees and specifying that a Rancho Penasquitos committee be formed to recommend how to spend it. Wolfsheimer formed her committee, and invited Dickey, to satisfy that council action.

What about the law that Wolfsheimer cited that makes it a felony to tape someone without their consent?

Other attorneys say they never heard of such a law.

Behind the Cover

More book talk from San Diego:

- San Diego psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Zetumer takes his psychosexual view of mystery writer Dashiell Hammett to Winston School in Del Mar tonight for a lecture titled “Oedipus Meets the Detective.”

Zetumer will speculate on why Hammett dealt in two books with the same bizarre topic: a father murdering his son.

- La Jolla literary agent Margret McBride has signed John Tower to write a tell-all memoir about his days in Washington, to be published by Little-Brown next spring.

And McBride is shopping a witty look at the war between the sexes by Wendy Haig, daughter of Alexander Haig. The manuscript has been submitted to several publishers.

- In honor of “Bloomsday,” a 16-hour continuous reading of Joyce’s “Ulysses,” accompanied by Irish folk music, will be held at UC San Diego next Friday, starting at 8 a.m.

The date is significant: The once-banned novel traces the steps of its beset hero, Leopold Bloom, around Dublin during the 24 hours of June 16, 1904.

The Defensive Line

Still woozy from losing 10 of 16 games last season, the San Diego Chargers might be expected to be in the market for a full-blooded quarterback or a less arthritic defensive secondary.

First things first. The team has just hired a new advertising and public relations firm, San Diego’s Spear/Hall, to jazz up radio, television and newspaper ads.

The first task is to find a new marketing theme, maybe one with literary flair.

A suggestion (with regrets to the Bard): “San Diego Chargers. A poor thing but our own.”

FO