San Bernardino City Attorney Jim Penman is calling for his opponent Marianne Milligan to sign a waiver so that the public can essentially have access to her personnel file.

Predictably, Milligan has told Penman to go pound sand.

The Penman camp has recently attacked Milligan's previous activities in Costa Mesa where she has purported to have been a whistle blower of sorts.  As I understand it, she claimed someone in the City Attorney's office in Costa Mesa was engaging in some sort of activity that was forbidden.  After a legal battle, in which the charges were dismissed and after Costa Mesa shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars, the department was disbanded and the work outsourced.

To be clear, I think that this episode is fair game and that it is perfectly appropriate for Penman to raise these issues. 

From a political calculus perspective, I am not quite sure if or how this tactic will benefit Penman.  Ultimately, as I see it, Penman is caught in a rough place.  Afterall, this is a woman he hired and promoted inside of two months on the job, before there was a falling out.

It seems rather disingenuous to hire and promote rapidly and then later attack the qualifications of that person...or, it suggests shoddy due diligence/background checking in the original hiring process.

However, most troubling about Milligan is the fact that although she claims to be a "whistle blower", her complaints against her boss were dismissed.  Obviously, I don't have the facts nor am I privy to the details of this episode.  But on its face, it is a weakness that Penman should and will do his best to exploit.