Councilman Looks to The Forum in Pursuit of the Right Stuff

It’s the summer season, and the air is thick with political rumors.

Rumor: You have to be a follower of est to work for San Diego Councilman John Hartley.

Truth: No, but it helps.

Hartley is a believer in the “human potential” training offered by The Forum, the spiritual/corporate successor to est. Est was developed by car salesman-turned-guru Werner Erhard (nee Jack Rosenberg) in the 1970s.

Est (Erhard Seminar Training) was “retired” in 1984 after a bunch of bad publicity about marathon sessions where people weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom, etc.

From his San Francisco headquarters, Erhard then introduced The Forum, which, like est, seeks to sell a gospel of “you-have-greatness-in-you” at ($600 or more) weekend sessions, followed by refresher courses.

Hartley says he enrolled in The Forum after leading the district-elections campaign to victory in November, 1988. He wanted to control his weight and generally pep up his health.

“I’m a glutton for self-improvement courses,” he said. He took a Dale Carnegie course several years ago.

Hartley just hired Mark Reynolds, a management consultant, as his administrative assistant (chief of staff). Reynolds is a longtime Forum devotee and now is a Forum seminar leader, including a seminar this week in Clairemont.

One of Hartley’s council aides and political advisers, John Wainio, just took Forum training.

Some weeks ago, Raquel Beltran, Hartley’s first administrative assistant, declined a suggestion that she take Forum training.

Now she’s leaving Hartley’s staff to become a consultant to the council’s Public Services and Safety Committee, whose chairman is the est-less Wes Pratt. Her last day is next week.

Hartley says he does not make Forum training a job requirement. But he adds that anyone interested in acquiring the communication skills and confidence necessary for City Hall would do well to sign up.

“It works great,” he said.

Something to Chew On

One thing after another.

* James Brosnahan, attorney for Richard Silberman, complained to Judge J. Lawrence Irving on Thursday that termites are chewing on the defense table, making it unstable and leaving sawdust.

Brosnahan called the termites “government bugs” and noted that they are not chewing on the prosecution table.

“That’s so you don’t stand on your table to make one of your points,” Irving said.

* The owner of a new restaurant in downtown San Diego will try today to cook the world’s largest matzo ball: 3 feet in diameter.

It’s a stunt to draw attention to SamSonS Restaurant and Deli in the Koll Center.

And where do you put a 3-foot matzo ball? In a 40-gallon bowl of soup, naturally.

* As a tribute to military veterans, several dozen sky divers will land at the Del Mar Fair on Saturday.

One plans to ride a surfboard down from the DC-3.

He says the trick is to keep the board from being ripped away by the propeller blast. I’ll take his word for it.

Stranger Than Paradise

Sportswriters arise! Seize the means of production.

The National, the new daily based on the thesis that the world needs more sports feature stories and statistics, started newsstand sales this week in San Diego.

Instant analysis: good reporting, good graphics, gossamer prose. Here’s a touch from a long story on Tony Gwynn:

“The sunlight of San Diego has always seemed diffused, filtered--here, through the mists of dawn’s fog in Raymond Chandler’s Del Mar, there through the spray off the beach up in Leucadia and Encinitas, here through the leaves of eucalyptus trees in the staid, moneyed, perfect canyons of Rancho Santa Fe.

“It’s an intoxicating light, and it’s always made everything a little dreamy, a little fantastic. Illusory.”

Raymond Chandler in Del Mar? (Try La Jolla.) Perfect canyons in Rancho Santa Fe? (Try scrubby hills.) Intoxicating light?

Ah, The National perspective.