Dateline Carson – No question that Jim Dear is the most colorful city clerk in Southern California. Maybe east or west of Bulgaria.
But in the 6½ months since he stepped aside from an 11-year tenure as mayor to challenge the incumbent city clerk for her much better paying position, his reputation has taken a bloody beating.
How do you say pulp?
Mr. Dear said this morning that his political enemies – not mere rivals – have been busy thinking up ways to drive him from office.
At the City Council meeting two nights ago, following an investigation of a baker’s dozen of supposedly Dear-fearing employees by an outside law firm, it was announced Mr. Dear indefinitely was being suspended from his job.
“There is no suspension,” Mr. Dear said. “That is inaccurate. I am not suspended, and they cannot suspend me. I am an elected official, elected by the voters. They can’t suspend me from my duties.”
He has responded to the intended discipline by coming to work every day and serving a full day.
Sounds like something out of a dime novel? Or late-night television?
The lead prober told the Council members who ordered the investigation that Mr. Dear’s co-workers are frightened of him. They shudder to think that he could “go postal” any hour, any day.
Allegedly terrified, some have plotted secret passages out of City Hall to save their lives.
Typically, Mr. Dear confronts these lurid accusations with calm candor.
“I have my hands full here with politics,” he tells the newspaper, meaning he believes his political enemies – not rivals – are pursuing him double-armed, with hammer and scythe.
His enemies – not rivals – are no secret, Mayor Albert Robles and Councilperson Lula Davis-Holmes. In introducing them, Mr. Dear identifies Mr. Robles as “the crook mayor” and Ms. Davis-Holmes as “my political rival whose mentor is the former mayor Daryl Sweeney who went to prison (in a bribery scandal).” Mr. Dear supported Mr. Robles for mayor two years ago “but he turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Let me just say that Albert Robles has numerous problems,” Mr. Dear said. “So many investigations of him are going on (related to where he lives, alleged conflicts-of-interest on two commissions where he serves and an assault charge).
“What they are trying to do is divert attention off of him with the same false accusations against me – that I am a racist, that I say racist things to employees now.
“They make phony accusations against me and they get the media to write about it. This is like planting a story in a newspaper.
“Looks like the L.A. Times is not taking the bait,” Mr. Dear said. “But the (South Bay) Daily Breeze is such a Mickey Mouse newspaper. They are hot-to-trot to print anything negative about me or about Carson.”
