If I could be a bug for one night I’d want to be an earwig.
I could crawl into the ears of attorneys representing resident and Chula Vista Ethics Committee Chairman Chris Shilling in his bid to have the city of Chula Vista release public — and seemingly innocuous — records.
I’d want a glimpse of their brains, how they work. When the city denied Shilling’s request that officials reveal who they nominated for appointment to the council was there a maelstrom of activity? Did synapses spark and electrons zip wildly about as they mentally reviewed case law and precedent to determine the city was wrong in its denial and violated the Brown Act? Or was there a more orderly accessing of information? In the same way a worn librarian confidently retrieves the precise quote from the precise book from its precise place on a shelf amidst tomes of information, do the legal neurons know exactly which case laws need citing to contradict the city’s legal opinion that the public does not have the right to know who their council members nominated?
Or maybe I’d be better off being a silverfish crawling into the ear of City Attorney Glen Googins. What’s going through his mind these days?
In addition to the typical legal maneuvering he must execute as the city’s top legal mind, he now has to face the contention that his department was overreaching in its defense of withholding information. There’s even the suggestion that the entire nominating process be subject to a “do-over” because, as Shilling’s attorneys see it, the votes they cast were in secret and that’s a no-no, even in Chula Vista.
Googins is also facing a fair amount of second-guessing because of his department’s initial assessment that the council’s appointment, Steven Miesen, didn’t pose a conflict of interest even though he’s an executive with the city’s largest contractor.
Do the ghosts in Googins’ mind swat away these notions like Babe Ruth hammering balls at batting practice or do they spend every moment reviewing and refining their research and arguments?
There’s also something to be said for being a tiny spider. I could wander into Mayor Mary Casillas Salas’s ear canal and have a look inside.
Do the thoughts in her head ponder the distraction her election has caused? Had she remained a council person then the Miesen and transparency issue wouldn’t be a kernel stuck in her molar. There would be other problems belonging to another figurehead.
But then she wouldn’t be mayor. And she is the mayor, as she reminded her council colleague Pamela Bensoussan during a tense council meeting not long ago. (Could she have handled that exchange better or does that notion not even creep into her psyche?)
The hamsters in my head wonder these things as they spin frantically on their wheels — how and what are these fascinating people thinking?
