All nine San Diego City Council members are current on their sexual harassment training – save Myrtle Cole, who was elected in May and still has until December to complete the training.

California law requires all new managers to receive sexual harassment training within six months of being hired and every two years thereafter.

The six Council members elected before last fall all received training in November 2011. Councilmen Scott Sherman and Mark Kersey, who were elected in June 2012 and took office at the same time as Mayor Bob Filner, completed their training in March.

Filner didn’t do his training until earlier this month, missing the six-month deadline. His lawyer, Harvey Berger, contends in a letter to City Attorney Jan Goldsmith that the city’s failure to provide training to the mayor makes the city liable for the mayor’s legal bills in his sexual harassment lawsuit. Berger says that training for the mayor was scheduled but then “unilaterally cancelled” by the city’s trainer and never rescheduled.

Goldsmith last received the training in October 2011.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated Mark Kersey and Scott Sherman’s election date.

Voice of San Diego is a nonprofit that depends on you, our readers. Please donate to keep the service strong. Click here to find out more about our supporters and how we operate independently.

Liam Dillon was formerly a senior reporter and assistant editor for Voice of San Diego. He led VOSD’s investigations and wrote about how regular people...

Leave a comment

We expect all commenters to be constructive and civil. We reserve the right to delete comments without explanation. You are welcome to flag comments to us. You are welcome to submit an opinion piece for our editors to review.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.