This week's legislative session (Monday and Tuesday is considered one session), was a wild ride. I sat through most of it, even though I only intended to sit in on the Tom Story item.

The City Council granting itself a 24% pay raise grabbed the media headlines. But, to me the big story was the Mayor asking the City Council to approve $250,000 for a special prosecutor in the matter of the People of the State of California vs. Tom Story. Said "prosecutor" would report exclusively to the Mayor and City Council, in other words to Sanders and Peters.

Here is Jay Goldstone's letter to Scott Peters dated April 11, 2008 (last Friday) requesting him to docket the item for yesterday, April 15, 2008 (the following Tuesday). Try getting your item on the docket that fast. Peters eagerly obliged the Mayor because they both saw an opportunity for a political hit on Aguirre. But it backfired. Here's why.

They have again opened up the sordid Sunroad affair. In their eagerness to score a political hit on Aguirre, the much-flaunted (by themselves) Mayor's team, have shot their boss in the foot.

In the process they have also shot Bonnie Dumannis in her dainty little foot. She is now exposed for prosecuting Chula Vista Councilmember Steve Castanada, as a favor to a mayoral friend, Cheryl Cox, while refusing to prosecute Tom Story as a favor to another mayoral friend, Jerry Sanders. Ms. Dumannis is a totally political DA.

I went to Judge Wellington's court to see for myself how Pat O'Toole was faring in carrying out his boss's instructions to "get" Castanada. Gerry Braun put it better than I ever could in his U-T column today - "Integrity is on Trial" - 'nuff said.

So what happens next? It is not good for Tom Story. His attorney, Pamela Naughton (with the help of Scott Peters cutting off Aguirre's microphone every time he attempted to speak) painted Story as a hard-working former City employee, unfairly charged by an out-of-control City Attorney, has also backfired. Here's why.

The fact remains that Aguirre succeeded in collecting the evidence against Tom Story despite the best efforts of Sanders, Dumannis, Judge Wellington and Police Chief Lansdowne to prevent him. And he still has it! They seem to have forgotten that. Or have they? Is that the reason Judge Wellington barred Aguirre from "any and all involvement in this matter"?

The "brilliant" move by the Mayor's team was brilliant on paper only. The idea was that the Mayor would get the City Council to "authorize" the payment of $250,000 out of the City Attorney's budget. That must have got a big laugh in the Mayor's office. Peters and Sanders would then pick a Pamela Naughton style "special prosecutor", at Aguirre's expense, who would then "find" that there was no evidence against Tom Story. They must have been rolling on the floor laughing over that one.

But the evidence collected by Aguirre (still in his possession) was enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant against Story, the search warrant that Sanders and his Police Chief killed off. Story's attorney, Pamela Naughton, yesterday told the City Council that "every law enforcement officer in the County" determined that there was no evidence against Story. Really?

She forgot to mention that a judge had granted Aguirre's search warrant in the first instance. But whenever Aguirre tried to point that out yesterday, Peters cut off his microphone. Peters continues to run a "Star Chamber".

We clearly have a situation in San Diego where if you are not part of the "in" crowd, you can be prosecuted for whatever they dream up against you. Ask Steve Castanada. And if there is evidence against a member of the "in" crowd like Tom Story, a Judge Wellington will issue a political pronouncement from the bench barring our elected City Attorney (who as we all know is not part of the "in" crowd) from "any and all involvement in this matter".

Now Stacey Fulhorst, Executive Director of the City of San Diego Ethics Commission, will be under pressure from the Mayor's office to exonerate Tom Story. Story's attorney, Pamela Naughton, told City Council yesterday that Fulhorst advised Story at the time he left City employment that he could immediately and legally lobby the City on behalf of Sunroad because he had not been directly involved in the too-tall building, only in the residential portion of Sunroad's Kearny Mesa development. Naughton displayed a series of large maps to demonstarte this point. It is central to her case.

It will be interesting to see if Ms. Fulhorst confirms Naughton's assertion. She declined to do so yesterday when pressed by Aguirre on the matter. Like the Pension Board, the Ethics Commission has its own attorney. Ms. Fulhorst will need all the legal advise she can get on this one. The City Council has dumped a very hot potato in her lap.

That is why I think the Tom Story affair eclipsed a long list of other egregious examples of misgovernment in the interest of "in" groups who use City Hall as their personal welfare office. The others include:

• the MEA's attempt to secure an unlawful pension benefit for its former President, Judie Italiano,
• the creation of an unfunded pension liability of $7.3 million as a bi-product of the police salary raise,
• the selling off of City-owned properties using favored "in" real estate brokers, like Grubb & Ellis, who do not have to share their commission with real estate brokers like me who are not "in",
• the hiring of a flawed pension consultant, Mercer Consulting, for "Additional Services Related to the Proposed Pension Plan",
• Scott Peters' attempt to deliver paid parking in La Jolla for his business friends,
• the approval of a $69 million play money bond issue by CCDC's Nancy Graham and her downtown developer friends.

In a normal city anywhere in the world any one of the above items would be enough to shock the citizenry to revolt in the streets. But in San Diego it was just another business-as-usual "legislative session".