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Guess What Bob Filner Spent Money On

by Lane Florsheim

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is presumably one week into his two-week "intensive" program working on his issues with sexual harassment. As he heads into the second of two weeks designed to fix a lifetime of sexist thinking, reports of his credit card statements surfaced Monday: it looks like he may have used taxpayer money to wine and dine multiple women at the Westgate Plaza Hotel in downtown San Diego, with charges from this year totaling $511.06.

The hotel charges aren't Filner's only questionable spending currently being investigated. At lease four agencies (the City Attorney’s Office, the state Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Department) are looking into whether his administration collected money from a contractor before a project was officially approved, and whether the mayor used city-issued credit cards to pay for a trip to France.

Then of course, there are the sexual harassment charges. More than ten women have come forward over the last month to accuse Filner of sexual harassment. The mayor has responded by saying he wouldn't be facing allegations if he had received proper sexual harassment training. It's a pretty ridiculous claim —especially considering a former city employee said Filner's office actually cancelled mandatory sexual harassment training for city employees.