The Newsroom

The Kiwanis Club invited me to speak today at the San Bernardino Golf Club, and a temperature check showed about a 50-50 split between supporters and skeptics/critics of Operation Phoenix.
One particularly interesting question centered around the posting on our sbnow blog of a breakfast meeting yesterday between Mayor Pat Morris, Chief of Staff Jim Morris and former Phoenix chief Glenn Baude, now on administrative leave. The questioner wanted to know why that was news. Shouldn't a supervisor, he reasoned, be able to meet with an employee without the eyes of the world on them?
On a certain level, I get his point, and yet, this is different, given the extraordinary nature of the Phoenix story, as well as the community/taxpayer expectation that public officials be held to the highest level of accountability. Maybe the real answer is, if you're going to have a meeting like this, don't do it at Coco's.