Following a judge’s ruling last week that SDOG has standing to challenge the San Diego Tourism Marketing District tax’s illegality in court, several people observed that the years-long strategy of the hoteliers’ lawyer, Mike Colantuono, in making personal attacks against SDOG and our attorney, Cory Briggs, appeared to be even worse than what people see in the movies. Those people asked SDOG whether we have any idea why Mr. Colantuono would behave in such a way.
As SDOG argued to the judge before he made his ruling, the hoteliers have more than one billion reasons to fight dirty and lie (the TMD tax will generate well over $1 billion over 39.5 years) and Mr. Colantuono has had more than two million reasons to be dirty and dishonest (his firm has been paid more than $2 million so far by the taxpayers). The top hotelier represented by Mr. Colantuono essentially confirmed this when he said that they “have pursued every legal avenue available to keep this case from going to trial.”
What many people do not realize is that, at the exact same time Mr. Colantuono was developing his scorched-earth strategy to go after SDOG and its attorney in a court of law and in the court of public opinion with lies and personal attacks, he was representing another San Diego client and writing nice things about SDOG.
In 2013 and 2014, Mr. Colantuono was representing the Downtown San Diego Partnership in a lawsuit filed by SDOG to challenge the legality of what is known as the Downtown Property and Business Improvement District. That lawsuit was settled in October 2014 with the help of a mediator. The settlement included a joint public statement in which DSDP was very complimentary of the work that SDOG does in the community. DSDP wrote: “We saw this as an opportunity to take advantage of San Diegans for Open Government’s expertise and its years of experience in advocating for San Diego residents on good-governance and public-finance issues.”
Guess who signed off on that statement? Mr. Colantuono did. You can see his signature and read the full statement here: SDOG-DSDP_Statement.
SDOG has no idea why Mr. Colantuono would be praising SDOG at the same time he was in the middle of an ad hominem attack campaign against SDOG and our attorney. It should make one wonder whether he told the hoteliers that he was taking a contrary position for another client right here in San Diego. Did the hoteliers know their lawyer would waste more than three years and over $2 million from taxpayers to tell a story he didn’t even believe?
sandiegans4opengov 