MAYOR ART MADRID, THE SAGA CONTINUES

Last week's incident involving La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid has opened a can of worms that threatens to permeate not only the inside environment but also the outside and disturbe the Cty of la Mesa residents.
Yesterday's meeting to discuss whether a third-party investigation should enter the scene, set the mood for a new chapter of this soap-opera that began last week when the mayor was found in an inconvenient state a block from his home and LMPD officers decided to take him home, exercising a leeway that apparently police officers across the county are allow to use at their own discretion.
Didn't take long for the whole roles to be assembled for this story. Supporters and foes of the main character entered the city hall last night to outline a story that now might even distract La Mesa residents from other suspense stories out there, such as the primaries across the nation, or as Councilmember Dave Allan said, from bigger problems such as the nation's trillion deficit, or the state's 20 billion deficit.
Mayor Art Madrid characterized the events last night as a "The eruption of a volcano that just as Mountain Helen, where nothing in its path was unscathed, the damage was 360 degrees and everything was either scorched or destroyed."
The police department was one of the injured, along with city manager Cindy Kerl and city attorney Glenn Sabine, all of them critiziced in their integrity and commitment to fairness and justice.
The torch was pass to Vice-mayor Ernest Ewin to preside the event.
Councilmember Dave Allan called on all the bad things not the city, but the state and even the nation are facing, as to waste time with this event.
Finally the motion for the night came "to direct the city manager to bring in a third party to conduct an investigation."
City Manager Cindy Kerl proposed to bring a third party from a pool of investigators from the State Bar, and chose one that has had no previous relationships with the City of La Mesa, to which councilmember Ruth Sterling adamantly opposed, since "that would cost the city money." Instead, she proposed to bring in an attorney from the county or the state. A non-bias third-party investigation.
Before agreeing that was why they were there tonight Ruth Sterling insisted on an investigation by S.D. County District Attorney. However, the investigation she wants is not about the LMPD behavior that night, but to investigate the Mayor's actions. Such motion was denied since the meeting was set to decide whether the police department should be investigated.
For some the whole story is a personal vendetta stemmed from long time Mayor's opponent Craig Maxwell, who last night defended himself as not being the one leaking the story to the media. And insisted the Mayor should come forward and let people know what else he's hiding. He took the opportunity to shed light on an alleged hit-and-run incident where the mayor was involved too. He closed his statements by asking the mayor to open up and let people know what else might crawl from under the rock of his past, what other misadventures has he had.
Mayor Art Madrid also had plenty of supporters to advocate for him, but no one as passionate as Anna San Fillipo, San Fillipo's Pizza owner, who asked the audience how come the mayor has been re-elected so many times if the people of La Mesa don't want him? She agreed the mayor made a bad judgment but blamed the restaurant he was at the night of the incident for not providing him with a taxi-cab and allowed him to go home on his own. She asked the audience to look back at all the goodness he's done for the city. Her comments made the mayor shed some tears and the audience roar, screaming and clapping in approval.
TO BE CONTINUED...