Official Quits Over Secret Stress Award

The head of the San Diego planning department has been forced to resign after a female employee with whom he is alleged to have had a “liaison” received $100,000 from the city in a stress-related disability payment never reported to the mayor or City Council.

The payment was authorized earlier this year after the woman filed a complaint against her boss, City Planning Director Robert Spaulding. The arrangement was kept secret by City Atty. John Witt, then-City Manager John Lockwood and other officials.

Spaulding resigned under pressure Friday after word of the settlement reached Mayor Maureen O’Connor and other city officials, who expressed anger at being excluded.

Spaulding could not be reached for comment Saturday. The identity of the woman was not released.

Lockwood, who approved the payment days before he left office last March, said he excluded the council and his assistants because he feared that “innocent people” could be harmed if word of the matter became public.

The payment amounted to less than $20,000 in cash, with the remainder paid in deferred disability payments. Legally, the council need not be informed of lump-sum cash expenditures of under $20,000.

Lockwood maintained the action was legal. Yet he said Saturday he understood why the council and mayor were angered by the revelation.

“I tend to agree with her,” Lockwood said of the mayor’s insistence that the council should have been informed. “At the same time, I’m a little reluctant to destroy families and kids.”

Asked if the complaint had merit, Lockwood said: “If I didn’t think it had some merit, we wouldn’t have paid a dime.”

Details of the relationship were unclear Saturday.

Although mayoral spokesman Paul Downey acknowledged that the woman had a “liaison” with Spaulding, he refused to disclose the nature of her complaint, which was filed in 1990. She is now on a stress disability, officials said.