Councilman Ben Hueso Tells The Truth About Aguirre - Video Spot Clip TV Reportage

On June 19, 2008, San Diego City Councilman Ben Hueso talks about abuses committed by City Attorney Michael Aguirre. More interesting than the formal press conference, was Ben Hueso's response to a question by a KPBS reporter while waiting in vein for TV reporters to appear. He was asked why he, as a Democrat, would support a person who is ostensibly identified as a Republican. Note that local races are by law intended to be non-partisan. Mr. Hueso stated on the record that: "As a council member, as a person who makes policy for the City of San Diego, I want to make sure that we have the best legal advice that we can get in making policy, and that we are led in the right direction in terms of making the decisions that are going to keep the city on a sound financial footing." "We have not had that under our current City Attorney [Aguirre]. He has not been giving us sound legal advice. He's been exchanging legal opinions for political favors, and that's not something that the City Attorney's office should be doing." "He has politicized the City Attorney's office. He's made the City Attorney's office a lightening rod for policy issues. That's not the City Attorney's job." "He's been forcibly recused, uh, removed, from doing his job by judges in numerous actions because he's made himself unobjective in various matters by pursuing his - by using his office to pursue his enemies, above really representing the interests of our city government." "He's losing all the lawsuits that he's filed without council direction. It's costing us millions and millions of dollars. We're having to subsidize his forty million dollar annual budget - this past year was twenty million dollars in outside counsel. That's just a blatantly poor use of taxpayer funds when we could be funding our pension, when we could be building parks, libraries, when we could be paving our streets. We're funding outside counsel to fix his [Aguirre's] mistakes - that he has done without [city] council direction." In response to another question, Hueso said Aguirre "has asked me to vote on matters that are important to him. He has asked me to cast my vote in a certain way, which I think is highly unethical, and because I haven't he has sought to punish me.."
Michael Aguirre Ben Hueso

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