SAN DIEGO - The San Diego Business Leadership Alliance unanimously voted to call on Mayor Bob Filner to resign at an emergency meeting Thursday afternoon.
The group included former mayor Jerry Sanders, who said in six months Filner has managed to bring shame to the city after years of others working to rebuild its reputation.
"To see - in six months - one individual tear down the reputation of the city and make us the laughing stock of the U.S. it's just really tragic," Sanders said.
"These women are very courageous," he said. "We're going to have to stand behind them and make sure they are not victimized again."
The website for the San Diego Business Leadership Alliance states part of its mission is to "collaborate on ideas and identify and advocate for or against public policies that will affect business and jobs."
In a statement published on Voice of San Diego, Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and member of the Business Leadership Alliance, laid out his reasons for why he believes Filner should leave office.
We have had conversations with businesses contemplating moving and expanding to San Diego that have been dominated, jeopardized and derailed by questions, concerns and jokes about our mayor. Our collaborative projects involving the mayor’s office are paralyzed with uncertainty and confusion. Business leaders have threatened to back out of meetings critical to cross-border initiatives if the mayor attends. And with each passing day, we have had an increasing number of calls from business representatives – women and men – who want to make clear that they will not be in the same room with him.
In addition, I cannot allow any women on the team at the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. to engage with the mayor – a serious problem, since nearly 70 percent of our team is female. It is clear that we can no longer work with the mayor to fulfill our obligations to our region.
