According to a top city official, the Mayor’s office canceled “multiple” new employee training sessions at the beginning of Mayor Filner’s term. Such training would have included instructions on how to complete the City’s required sexual harassment training sessions.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s office canceled multiple new employee and management training sessions in the first months of his term, a former top city official said late Wednesday. The sessions included direction to complete legally required sexual harassment training, two City Hall sources with knowledge of the situation said.
In a letter to the City Attorney Jan Goldmsith, Filner’s lawyer argued that the city ought to pick up Filner’s legal fees because it failed to provide sexual harassment training to the Mayor. “Had the city provided mandatory sexual harassment training to Mayor Filner, McCormack Jackson may never have brought her lawsuit.”
Former Chief Operating Officer Jay Goldstone said it was Filner’s office who canceled the new employee training sessions because the Mayor’s office claimed they didn’t have time for them.
Goldstone disputed Berger’s assertion that city staff canceled the training sessions.
“Absolutely not. I am 100 percent certain that they did not cancel it,” Goldstone said.
Goldstone said the mayor’s office eventually relented and held a training session that covered benefits only, because officials were told they wouldn’t receive their benefits without one.
Two sources in City Hall with knowledge of the situation confirmed that the sexual harassment training would have been covered in those training sessions. The sessions are mandated by law to take place within six months of a new Mayor taking office. “It’s employee benefits, it’s new employee orientation, it’s sexual harassment training, it’s all of these things,” one source said.