Councilwoman’s Closed-Door Aside Opens Door to Police Retaliation

When did you stop beating your wife? Or: the not-so-closed session.

A remark made in a closed session of the San Diego City Council last week by Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer has left the head of the Police Officers Assn. furious and talking to a lawyer.

Assistant City Manager Jack McGrory is now trying to soothe ruffled feathers, and City Atty. John Witt has been called in.

The tempest began as the council was formally voting to name McGrory as the next city manager. One council member mentioned McGrory’s success in dealing with the Police Officers Assn.

Whereupon Wolfsheimer remarked that POA president-general manager Harry Eastus has been investigated for beating his wife, Carole, chief of administrative services for the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego.

For the record: There has been bad blood for some time between Wolfsheimer and the POA.

The association endorsed her opponent, Bob Trettin, in 1989, and paid for a wickedly funny advertisement that threw some of the talkative councilwoman’s own words back at her.

Wolfsheimer’s closed-session remark found its way to Eastus in record time. Outraged, he called POA legal counsel Daniel Krinsky.

Eastus and Krinsky met with McGrory to complain that the comment is false and damaging. Krinsky says he is exploring “what legal options we might have.”

In the 1970s, Krinsky won a $3,000 judgment for a sheriff’s deputy who said he had been slandered by an East County political activist.

“Harry is upset about this, and his wife is upset,” Krinsky said. “Someone can say something like that about you, and you spend the rest of your life denying it, even if there’s no truth behind it.”

To make things even trickier, the POA’s labor contract expires June 30. Negotiations are expected to be tough.

Asked to comment on her comment, Wolfsheimer is not commenting.

Watered Down Politics

Water, war and politics.

* Political candidates used to release their financial disclosure statements to show their purity. That’s changed.

Mike Eckmann, candidate for the San Diego City Council’s 5th District, provided reporters with copies of his water bills, showing a 21% decrease.

* Councilwoman Judy McCarty may run next year for the seat held by Supervisor Susan Golding.

* Standing up for San Diego.

As Defense Secretary Dick Cheney held a press briefing Saturday night in the first tense hours after the start of the ground war, San Diego television channels provided live coverage.

Still, KGTV (Channel 10) made sure to superimpose the California Lottery’s winning Decco hand in the lower-right corner of the screen.

* The San Diego County Water Authority is trying to lead by example.

Signs are now posted in the men’s room at its uptown headquarters suggesting that the urinals be flushed only once a day, at 5 p.m. Yuck.

* The San Diego City Council this week gave authority for vernal pools, those mud puddles with tiny plant life, to the Army Corps of Engineers.

To do so, it had to designate the puddles “waters of the United States.”

A Game of Ouches

First, fantasy baseball; then fantasy basketball. Now, fantasy football.

All-Pro Football Camp Inc. of La Jolla plans its first session May 12-17 at the Oakbridge Athletic Facility near Ramona, complete with a dozen NFL players.

For $2,500, a would-be or used-to-be football player age 30 or over can taste the macho joys of a training camp run by just-retired Buffalo Bills linebacker Sean McNanie.

Two-a-day drills, weight training, team meetings, Jacuzzis, obstacle courses, etc. Says McNanie: It’s got to hurt a little, or it’s not football.

There will be some safeguards, though.

The Pro-Am Super Bowl will be flag, not tackle. And there will be four trainers on duty all week to soothe the charley horses and barking knees.

Fantasy badminton, anyone?