Last month I wrote about San Diego’s current mayor, Bob Filner. He was elected last November and has been in office since December. Previous to that he served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Beginning last month a cascade of women have accused him of sexual harassment and abuse. One of them, Irene McCormack Jackson filed a civil suit against the mayor.

On July 26th he called a news conference; many of us expected he would resign. Instead he admitted that some of his actions were “wrong” but denied charges of sexual harassment. He also said he was going to seek treatment for this, while maintaining his role as mayor. On July 30th the city council voted a resolution that the city would not cover his legal bills; Filner responded by saying it was the city’s fault because he had not received training in sexual harassment (oddly he appeared to know enough about it to deny guilt).

The beginning of this month he left his office, purportedly for treatment; he returned after one week, and then took some vacation time. He has not acted in his official capacity since the July 26th news conference.

Shortly after that conference a recall campaign was started. It requires over 100,000 signatures to be gathered in 39 days, the San Diego city clerk estimates that a recall election would cost the city between $3 million and $6 million.

In the last few days word has come out there Bob is looking for a deal. Most of us assume he will resign in return for a negotiated settlement of any lawsuits that the city would pay for. Most of us find that pretty distasteful, but it may be cheaper than the cost of a recall.

Bob should man up and do the right thing: admit what he did, resign, and suffer the consequences. Of course, if he were a real man, he wouldn’t have abused the women around him.