October surprise? Leaked memo adds controversy to San Bernardino mayoral race
Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 10/29/2009 07:56:12 PM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO – A memo written by the police chief to the city manager reports City Attorney James F. Penman lied about a document at the center of a City Hall theft investigation and the city’s latest political blow-up.

Penman replied that the chief’s message is the place to find falsehood. He said the new memo is an 11th hour campaign trick orchestrated by Mayor Pat Morris.

“It reads like a campaign flyer. The timing is obviously intended to coincide with the fact that the election is less than a week away,” Penman said.

Penman is running against Morris in the Nov. 3 election. Contractor Rick Avila is also in the race.

Mayoral chief of staff Jim Morris said the mayor has not read the police chief’s memo and had no comment. Pat Morris has said that he is not involved in the theft investigation.

Police Chief Keith Kilmer writes in the new memo, obtained by The Sun and dated Oct. 26, that a portfolio went missing from a City Hall women’s restroom around Sept. 14. The package was reported stolen.

The portfolio contained an internal document that was leaked Sept. 21. Kilmer writes in the new memo that Penman said at that day’s City Council meeting that he had not previously seen the allegedly stolen document.

“Now we are learning through comments of the City Attorney and his senior staff … the memorandum and other documents from the portfolio were in possession of the City Attorney approximately a week prior to the Sept. 21 meeting,” reads part of Kilmer’s new memo.

Penman responded that he did not say Sept. 21 was the first time he had seen the document that was leaked that day. He had Thursday he saw that memo within 48 hours of its appearance at a council meeting.

He delivered the portfolio and provided a statement to the District Attorney’s Office on Sept. 22. Penman initially refused interviews with what he called “the mayor’s Police Department.”

Penman based his objections on the mayor’s power to fire the police chief and city manager. He said the investigation a Nixonian distraction from the first memo’s revelation that a sex offender worked near a city youth center.

He later said he would respond to follow-up questions and police interviewed Penman earlier this week.

Penman said police have not yet interviewed any of his office’s employees and there’s no way for Kilmer to know how long he had access to the the allegedly stolen document.

He said it has not been revealed how that document found its way to the dais.

City Manager Charles McNeely declined to comment. Kilmer said the document was not political.

“I would make a memo for a purpose. Not a political purpose but a public safety purpose,” Kilmer wrote.

City Councilwoman Wendy McCammack, one of Penman’s allies, also said the new memo is a political ploy.

“There are only three people who could have released this new confidential memo, the mayor, the police chief, or the city manager. No one else had it,” she wrote in an e-mail.

The new memo is the latest chapter in a story that started when the initial memo was leaked Sept. 21.

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