A Broken Friendship Is Breaking National City Hall

Last month, the executive assistant to the mayor of National City filed a claim against the city where she has worked for nearly two decades. 

The 73-page claim, filed Aug. 26 by Josie Flores Clark, tells a sprawling and at times lurid story of harassment, retaliation and defamation by a wide range of city employees, elected officials and local businesspeople. 

It wasn’t the first time this year someone prominent in National City politics took legal action against the small, industrial, portside city. 

Judging by recent events, it probably won’t be the last. 

For the past year, National City Hall has been consumed by a bitter feud between some of the city’s most powerful elected officials and businesspeople. 

The feud began as a run-of-the-mill land-use dispute and has since spiraled into a seemingly endless saga involving multiple lawsuits, shouting matches at City Council meetings, allegations of mishandled human remains, a sexual harassment investigation and an effort to recall one councilmember. 

City business has slowed as public records requests bombard City Hall, city employees have sat for depositions and combatants brandish accusatory poster boards at City Council meetings. 

The cast of characters in the dispute includes the mayor, his assistant, the owners of a local mortuary, a private investigator, the city attorney, the city manager and Michael Aguirre, the former city attorney of the city of San Diego, who represents the mortuary owners and has become a fixture at City Council meetings, where he lambastes councilmembers for alleged misconduct and tells anyone who will listen that the mayor is at the dark heart of it all. 

Everyone in National City political circles seems to have taken sides. For those few left without a direct stake, the public spectacle has become an embarrassing stain on a city they love. 

Liliana Armenta, a National City planning commissioner, spoke for many in the city when she addressed city leaders at a recent City Council meeting. 

Watching the City Hall feud unfold “has been emotional havoc for me,” she said. “Not just politics suffers but all of us in the community…It’s time for our city to stop feeling the pain.” 

A Controversial Proposal 

Like many California stories, this one starts with a development dispute. 

On Dec. 2 last year, the National City Planning Commission voted down an unusual project proposed for a small, rock-strewn vacant lot near the city’s southeastern border. 

After hearing from nearly three dozen neighboring residents opposed to the proposed gas station, car wash, liquor store, drive-through restaurant and five-unit apartment complex on .68 acres at the corner of Sweetwater Road and Orange Street, commissioners voted 4-2 to declare the unwieldy assemblage of businesses a public nuisance that would generate too much traffic and pollution in the surrounding residential neighborhood. 

Under ordinary circumstances, neighbors opposed to such a project might have celebrated their victory at the Planning Commission and gone home to fight another day. 

For two neighbors who attended the commission meeting, the dispute was just getting started. 

Micaela Polanco and Luisa McCarthy, a married couple who own 157-year-old La Vista Memorial Park and Mortuary a few blocks from Sweetwater Road, began attending City Council meetings and demanding to know how such an obviously unsuitable project had made it onto the Planning Commission agenda in the first place. 

The mortuary owners began asking whether corruption was involved. Perhaps someone at City Hall had been “offered something of value in exchange to push the [Sweetwater Road] project forward,” Polanco hinted during public comments at a December City Council meeting. 

“I didn’t know any of this until this week,” she said. “I thought I was a friend of Ron [Morrison] and a friend of Josie [Flores Clark].” 

Within weeks, Polanco and McCarthy hired Aguirre, filed a slew of public records requests and sued the city, alleging that officials were withholding documents that, according to the suit, would show the Sweetwater Road developer had “provided personal financial favors to a staff member of the Mayor of National City” in exchange for help navigating the city’s planning process. 

The flurry of accusations seemed to take city leaders by surprise. 

“This thing has turned out to be the biggest soap opera I have ever seen in my life,” Morrison said not long after the La Vista owners filed their lawsuit. “No one can understand it fully.” 

Both Morrison and Flores Clark denied that they had given any special consideration to the Sweetwater Road developer or received financial favors. They pointed out that the Planning Commission rejected the project and the City Council did not reverse the decision. 

Widening Accusations 

Such assurances did not seem to mollify Polanco and McCarthy. 

They accused Morrison and Flores Clark of receiving bagfuls of cash. They blamed the city manager for failing to investigate the issue and hinted that the city attorney was in on it too, covering everything up. 

They went to court again in July, appealing to a judge to force the city to turn over additional records that they said Morrison and his allies in City Hall had concealed. 

In a single meeting on Aug. 19, Polanco accused Morrison of shielding Flores Clark from consequences because the two were “lover[s],” urged the mayor to “grow some balls” and come clean about his misdeeds, accused City Councilmember Marcus Bush of attending Council meetings high on marijuana and added Councilmember Luz Molina to her list of city officials complicit in corruption. 

“The fish stinks from the head down,” she said. “There will be consequences.” 

City Hall Paralyzed 

City Councilmembers tried to intervene. Their efforts only seemed to create more conflict.  

Councilmember Jose Rodriguez, who recently filed paperwork to run for mayor in 2026, proposed forming a special Council committee to investigate Morrison’s role in the Sweetwater Road development. 

“There is a perception that the mayor and the mayor’s assistant strongly influenced the [Sweetwater Road] project,” Rodriguez said at a Council meeting in March. “It is alarming to continue to hear this in the community.” 

After heated debate, Councilmembers nixed the investigative committee, saying they lacked authority to investigate themselves. 

Councilmember Marcus Bush, who represents the district where the Sweetwater Road proposal was located, said at a June Council meeting that initially he was open to hearing Polanco’s and McCarthy’s concerns. Now, he said, it was time for them to drop their crusade because “the project is dead.” 

“I don’t know why you continue,” Bush said. “There’s no evidence.” 

Eight days later, McCarthy filed paperwork initiating a recall effort against Bush. 

Morrison concluded one meeting with an impassioned defense of his own integrity. 

“All I can tell you is it’s a bunch of lies,” he said of Polanco’s and McCarthy’s manifold accusations. “I’ve been in this office for too long. [This is] my 33rd year. And my integrity and my honesty and that of my office are way too important to me.” 

“This is not a game, mayor,” Polanco shot back at the following meeting. “I’m really appalled at how disrespectful you’ve been.” 

Last month, the city published a statement on its website: “Setting the Record Straight on the Sweetwater Project: A Commitment to Transparency and Good Governance.” 

The unsigned statement outlined the permitting process for the Sweetwater Road project, said “there was no undue influence, corruption or misconduct” in city officials’ actions and accused Polanco and McCarthy of refusing to drop the matter after filing 27 public records requests and receiving more than 1,000 pages of city records. 

“The project is over. Time to move on,” the statement said.  

‘Best Friends’ 

Voice of San Diego reviewed dozens of emails, text messages, internal city documents and other materials related to the Sweetwater Road dispute. 

As Councilmember Bush said in June, the documents do not contain evidence showing that Morrison, Flores Clark or any other City Hall employee received financial favors in exchange for supporting the Sweetwater Road development. 

The paper trail does, however, tell a more complicated – and stranger – story than any of the participants have disclosed in public.  

For starters, outside observers might not be aware that, not long ago, Morrison, Flores Clark, Polanco and McCarthy were what Morrison described as “best friends.” 

Morrison has served in elected office in National City for most of the past 33 years. He said he first met McCarthy in the 1990s, when she owned a postal services business near City Hall. 

Morrison and Flores Clark, who has worked as Morrison’s executive assistant since 2007 and frequently appears at his side at both official and nonofficial city events, attended Polanco and McCarthy’s wedding. Morrison said he contributed what he called “western gear” for the event from his collection of western Americana. 

Polanco and McCarthy agreed they had been friends with Morrison and Flores Clark for years.  

The friendship, though, McCarthy said, was mostly with Morrison. 

Flores Clark “kept telling everyone we were besties,” McCarthy said. “I had a problem with that because we’re not. You can’t have Ron without Josie. My friendship was with Ron. She is the hangnail.” 

A Death in the Family 

Morrison, Flores Clark, Polanco and McCarthy don’t agree about much these days. One view they do share: The origin of the dispute now consuming National City Hall lies in part in the unraveling of the four friends’ onetime close relationship. 

The unraveling of that friendship began with a tragic event. 

Flores Clark said on Nov. 13 she reached out to Polanco to tell her that, two days earlier, a sheriff’s deputy had found Flores Clark’s 43-year-old nephew, Javier Escarsega, dead of a heart attack at his home in eastern San Diego. 

Flores Clark said Escarsega had been like a son. She said she had taken him in years earlier after a rough stretch in his life. The two were so close, she said, she often referred to him as her son when telling others about him. 

“It’s an indescribable pain,” she said of Escarsega’s death in a text message to Polanco. 

Polanco responded to the news with sympathy. “I am here for you,” she texted to Flores Clark. “Don’t worry about anything, we have your back.” 

Flores Clark’s family had a longstanding connection to La Vista Memorial. Flores Clark’s grandfather, father, mother and sister were all buried there. Her sister, Yolanda, was Escarsega’s mother. 

Flores Clark arranged for Escarsega’s body to be delivered to La Vista, where she met with Polanco on Nov. 15 to plan funeral arrangements. 

Contracts signed by both La Vista representatives and Flores Clark indicate the cemetery gave Flores Clark a substantial discount to cremate Escarsega and bury him alongside his mother. A contract signed on Nov. 15 reads “gratis” for burial charges and lists a series of other services Polanco authorized “at no charge.” 

Flores Clark began reaching out to friends and family members to invite them to Escarsega’s funeral. 

Planning Process 

At the same time Flores Clark and Polanco were working out funeral details for Escarsega, National City planning staff employees were wrapping up negotiations with two local developers who had applied to build a multi-use project at the corner of Sweetwater Road and Orange Street. 

The developers were brothers, Joseph and Eddy Brikho, whose San Diego-based business owns gas stations and other retail outlets throughout San Diego County. 

The Brikhos were no strangers to the National City scene. They have sponsored scholarships at Sweetwater High School, donated hams and turkeys for local holiday giveaway events and are on friendly terms with Morrison and Flores Clark. 

Flores Clark said the Brikhos’ children and her children are friends. The Brikhos attended her daughter’s wedding and donated alcohol for guests. Morrison often presided over the turkey and ham giveaways the Brikhos sponsored. 

“When schools need something, when the military needs something, I can call them…and say, ‘Hey, there’s this need. Can you sponsor and I’ll connect you?’” Flores Clark said.  

The Brikhos declined to comment for this story. In brief comments to Voice earlier this year, Eddy Brikho said he and his family had signed a long-term lease for the Sweetwater Road property and had no idea their development proposal would generate so much controversy. 

“We were just trying to make the corner a better corner,” he said. 

Ruptured Friendship 

Events surrounding Escarsega’s funeral arrangements and the Sweetwater Road proposal soon converged. 

Flores Clark said shortly after she signed the funeral contracts for her nephew, an EDCO executive called and told her it was company policy to pay for employees’ funerals. The company asked Flores Clark to send them the La Vista bill so they could pay it. 

John Snyder, vice president of EDCO, confirmed to Voice of San Diego that it is EDCO company policy to pay for employees’ funerals. 

Flores Clark said she called Polanco on Nov. 18 to tell her about EDCO’s offer – and was immediately bombarded by questions about the Brikhos’ development, which was on the cusp of appearing at an upcoming city Planning Commission meeting. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Flores Clark said Polanco asked. “You are our friend. You should have told us about it. And you should have helped us stop it.” 

Flores Clark said she didn’t understand what Polanco was talking about. When she realized Polanco was asking her to use her influence to stop the Brikhos’ project, she said, “I can’t do that.” 

“My own family members wouldn’t ask me to do something against my job,” Flores Clark said. 

Flores Clark said Polanco then demanded to meet with the Brikhos. Flores Clark said she could arrange that. 

As for the funeral costs, Flores Clark said Polanco told her that, if Escarsega’s employer was paying, the discount La Vista had given Flores Clark was off. Flores Clark would have to come to La Vista to sign new, full-priced contracts. 

“The minute I refused to help them stop the project, their whole attitude to me changed,” Flores Clark said. 

Polanco and McCarthy disputed almost every aspect of Flores Clark’s recollection of the Nov. 18 phone call. 

For one thing, Polanco said, she would never discuss funeral arrangements while talking about a development project. Discussions about Sweetwater Road and Escarsega’s funeral took place during two separate phone calls, she said. 

For another, she said, Flores Clark did not say EDCO offered to pay for Escarsega’s funeral. Instead, Polanco said, Flores Clark said she badgered the company into paying as recompense for failing to alert her that Escarsega had not shown up for work before his death. 

Worst of all, Polanco said, Flores Clark proposed a novel arrangement to get some of the funeral money herself. 

Why not draw up full-price contracts, Polanco said Flores Clark suggested, then split the proceeds, giving both La Vista and Flores Clark roughly $7,000? Polanco said Flores Clark told her she needed $7,000 to pay off a car loan owed by Escarsega. 

“I’m sorry, I have to look into this,” Polanco said she immediately replied. “I’ve never done that.” 

Polanco said she relented a few days later and arranged for two La Vista employees to meet with Flores Clark to sign new contracts totaling $15,000. But Polanco said she subsequently thought better of the arrangement and didn’t sign the contracts herself, rendering them invalid. 

“I had a gut feeling something was fishy,” she said. 

As for Flores Clark’s claim that Polanco and McCarthy urged her to intervene to stop the Sweetwater Road project, Polanco said that idea actually came from Ron Morrison. 

Polanco said when she called Flores Clark to ask her about the Sweetwater Road project, Flores Clark immediately put Morrison on the phone. 

Polanco said Morrison assured her the Sweetwater Road project was still going through the city’s planning process and had not yet received final approval. 

“But Josie,” Polanco said Morrison said to Flores Clark. “Do me a favor and make a meeting with Mica and Luisa and make sure they don’t oppose the project because the Brikhos want this project done before the end of December.” 

Polanco said she was “dumbfounded” by Morrison’s comment. 

Both Morrison and Flores Clark denied urging Polanco to support the Brikhos’ project. In fact, they said, it was their refusal to stop the project that caused Polanco and McCarthy to turn against them. 

“We just said we can’t take sides on this issue,” Morrison said. “That’s not our place.” 

Brokering a Deal 

Whatever transpired during those phone conversations, Flores Clark did schedule a meeting between Polanco, McCarthy and the Brikhos. The meeting took place Nov. 25 at a local Starbucks. 

Text messages exchanged after the meeting show the Brikhos did, in fact, offer financial rewards in exchange for support for their project. 

But those rewards were not offered to Flores Clark and Morrison. 

They were offered to Polanco and McCarthy. 

On Dec. 1, a few days after the Starbucks meeting, Polanco texted Eddy Brikho. 

“This is my recollection as to what we agreed upon,” she wrote. “1. Signage for La Vista Cemetery. 2. Gas/Diesel Discount for La Vista Cemetery. 3. Liquor at his [Brikho’s] cost for La Vista Cemetery events. 4. Three-way stop sign at corner of Orange and Sweetwater Rd.” 

“I agree with all your request[s],” Brikho replied the following morning. “As long as you are at today’s [Planning Commission] meeting in full support of our project like we talked about.” 

Polanco wrote back with one more request. “I forgot the no-competition clause,” she wrote. 

Brikho’s cousin, Robert Zakar, owned a mortuary in El Cajon that recently had expanded by buying a crematory in National City. Polanco acknowledged in an interview with Voice of San Diego she was concerned about the potential for competition with Zakar when she met with Eddy Brikho at Starbucks. 

But the idea of a quid-pro-quo, she said, came not from her and McCarthy but from Eddy Brikho. 

“What is it going to take to get your support for the project?” Polanco said Brikho asked at the meeting. “We can give you gas discounts, the same discounts I give to Josie [Flores Clark] and the mayor.” 

Polanco said she was startled to hear Morrison and Flores Clark received discounts from a prominent local developer. But she said she went along with the agreement at first because Brikho was so insistent. 

Flores Clark and Morrison denied receiving discounted gasoline or any other product from the Brikhos. “There is absolutely nothing to that,” Morrison said. “They’re just making up anything they want to.” 

A few days after the Starbucks meeting, Polanco said she changed her mind about the arrangement with the Brikhos. “I started thinking, no, this is not good for the citizens and our neighborhood and businesses around there,” she said. 

At the Dec. 2 Planning Commission meeting, Polanco and McCarthy joined the crowd of community members opposed to the project. 

Told of Polanco’s recounting of the Nov. 25 meeting, Flores Clark said it was false. 

“I was there at the meeting when they made their request,” Flores Clark said. “When [Eddy Brikho] got there and they started attacking him, he looked at me and said, ‘I didn’t know I was coming here for this. I feel ambushed.’” 

On Dec. 3, Flores Clark chimed in to the text thread between Polanco, McCarthy and Eddy Brikho about the Nov. 25 meeting. 

“Hi Eddy and Mica,” she wrote, “my apologies for not responding yesterday as I was on a flight. Please know that I facilitated this meeting as a request from Mica. As a City Employee and as a project that is going through the process, I cannot side with one or the other. This is a situation that you both need to either compromise or not. I wish you both nothing but the best.” 

Funeral Complications 

Morrison and Flores Clark said as soon as Polanco and McCarthy realized the mayor and his assistant were not going to help them stop the Brikhos’ project, they launched a wide-ranging campaign of revenge. 

To start, Flores Clark said La Vista began throwing up roadblocks to cremating and burying Escarsega. 

Flores Clark said mortuary employees began emailing her asking for more signatures authorizing Escarsega’s cremation and burial. She said Polanco and McCarthy hired a private investigator to track down Escarsega’s estranged extended family in Sacramento. 

Though Flores Clark said she explained to La Vista employees that she was the closest living relative able to authorize the funeral procedures, the delays and demands for more signatures kept coming. 

“They were stonewalling,” Flores Clark said. “It was purely retaliatory.” 

Fearing La Vista might never cremate and bury her nephew, Flores Clark said she called the Brikhos’ cousin, Robert Zakar. Zakar immediately agreed to pick up Escarsega’s body from La Vista and carry out the cremation at his own facility. 

On Dec. 11, one month after Escarsega was found dead, representatives from Zakar’s funeral business retrieved Escarsega’s body and cremated it. Flores Clark said the urn with Escarsega’s ashes – decorated with an image of an American flag – currently sits atop a mantelpiece in her house in Bonita. 

A copy of a cashed check provided by Flores Clark’s attorney shows that on Jan. 30 of this year, EDCO paid Robert Zakar’s cremation company $1,856 for the cremation of Escarsega’s body. 

“They used Javier’s death against me and refused to bury him with his mother to get me back for what they said was my betrayal,” Flores Clark said of Polanco and McCarthy.  

Polanco and McCarthy vigorously disputed Flores Clark’s claims. 

“I’ve been in this industry for over 35 years, and I would never, ever” mistreat human remains, Polanco said. 

Rather, Polanco said, it was Flores Clark who delayed Escarsega’s funeral by repeatedly lying about who he was. 

McCarthy said Flores Clark at first claimed Escarsega was her son, going so far as to identify herself as “Josie Flores Clark, mother” on the “respondent” line of Escarsega’s death certificate. (The certificate, however, lists Flores Clark’s sister as Escarsega’s biological mother in the appropriate box.) 

McCarthy said Flores Clark lied again when she initially told La Vista staff Escarsega had no living relatives. Then she reversed herself and said Escarsega actually had a son – but the son had been adopted by another family, McCarthy said. 

“We got hesitant,” McCarthy said. Flores Clark had asked for Escarsega to be buried in his mother’s burial plot. That would require permission from the plot’s owner or someone else with legal authority to open the plot and add an urn to it, McCarthy said. 

Escarsega’s father had bought the plot when Escarsega’s mother died, McCarthy said. “[Think of] the liability you could have if you cremate someone without authorization or open a grave that doesn’t belong to you,” McCarthy said. 

Polanco said La Vista hired a private investigator to sort it all out. 

Probate court documents show Flores Clark is now engaged in a legal dispute with Escarsega’s extended family over his $278,000 estate. Flores Clark said she did not contact Escarsega’s relatives after his death because she didn’t know how to reach them. They had kicked Escarsega out of the house after his father died and cut off all contact with him. 

Flores Clark said she intends to give the money from Escarsega’s estate to his son, Daniel Lopez, with whom Flores Clark said Escarsega reunited three months before he died. 

Flores Clark “just lied to us,” McCarthy said. “We are a formal, serious establishment. We are a mortuary, cemetery and crematory. One thing is being a friend. But also being truthful.” 

No End in Sight 

As the one-year anniversary of the Dec. 2 Planning Commission meeting approaches, it has become difficult to discern just what participants in the debate over Sweetwater Road are fighting about. 

The Brikhos withdrew their project from formal consideration eight days after the Planning Commission meeting. In a Dec. 10 email, Joseph Brikho told a city planning employee he and his family had placed the project “on hold for now to revise the project and come back to meet with the city staff to see how we can find a project that will work for that intersection.” 

“If the community doesn’t like the project, we pulled out,” Eddy Brikho said in brief remarks to Voice in January. “At the end of the day, we walked away…We wish everybody the best.” 

To date, the Brikhos have not submitted a new application for the Sweetwater Road property. For nearly a year, National City Hall has been at war over a project that doesn’t officially exist. 

That has not stopped participants from finding fresh reasons to argue. 

Aguirre has taken depositions of Morrison, Flores Clark, City Clerk Shelly Chapel and employees in the city’s planning and information technology departments. 

Aguirre said the depositions generated fresh public records requests because they contained so many instances when top-ranking city officials contradicted themselves or outright lied about meetings with the Brikhos, records they had turned over and even when Morrison found out about certain details of the case. 

Asked whether the depositions or any other documents produced so far provide conclusive proof that Morrison and Flores Clark received financial favors in exchange for helping the Brikhos, Aguirre said no. 

But he pointed to the many turkeys and hams the Brikhos have donated for holiday giveaways as evidence that the brothers already had bought the mayor’s good will by helping to burnish his reputation with voters. 

“The turkeys is all I know about so far,” Aguirre said. “The end goal is to find out what happened.” 

In March, a female city employee filed a complaint with the city’s Human Resources Department alleging that, at a birthday celebration for city staff members in February, Flores Clark called the employee “J. Lo” and slapped her on the rear end. 

The city hired an outside investigator, who, in a report filed in May, determined that evidence showed Flores Clark had indeed called the employee “J. Lo” and “patted her on the butt twice.” 

Lydia Flores-Hernandez, the city’s former human resources director, suspended Flores Clark for a week – then abruptly resigned in July, alleging that Morrison and Flores Clark had pressured her to give Flores Clark a raise and a new job title, even though Flores Clark didn’t meet the minimum qualifications for her new role. 

Morrison and Flores Clark denied pressuring Flores-Hernandez and said the sexual harassment allegations against Flores Clark were false and reflected efforts by what Flores Clark called a “clique” of hostile city employees to tarnish her reputation. 

Flores Clark’s lawyer, Dan Gilleon, said the investigation’s conclusions are invalid because the investigator did not consult all the available evidence, including video footage of the interaction with the city employee. 

Voice of San Diego reviewed security camera footage of a city birthday celebration included as supporting evidence in Flores Clark’s claim against National City. The footage shows what appears to be Flores Clark giving a female city employee a brief side hug from a sitting position. 

Word of the harassment investigation soon leaked and Polanco and McCarthy added it to their list of corruption allegations at City Hall. 

Councilmembers promptly accused one another of leaking the investigation and argued over whether some councilmembers were siding with Morrison by refusing to discipline Flores Clark. 

Debate shifted again when Polanco and McCarthy urged the City Council to rezone the Sweetwater Road property for residential use. Under questioning from Councilmember Bush in June, Aguirre acknowledged that, in fact, Polanco and McCarthy had sought to buy the property a few months earlier. 

Real estate documents show that, on Jan. 18, a little more than a month after the Dec. 2 Planning Commission meeting, Polanco offered to buy the Sweetwater Road property from the family that owned it for $2.25 million. The family declined the offer. 

Polanco said she made the offer and sought to rezone the property to protect it from any future development that might “hurt the community and the businesses around there.” 

Flores Clark’s Aug. 26 claim against the city alleges that Polanco and McCarthy’s campaign against her, along with the city’s handling of the sexual harassment allegations, were part of a wider pattern of retaliation and hostile behavior from city employees allied with Polanco and McCarthy that had inflicted ongoing emotional distress. 

Gilleon said Flores Clark plans to sue the city if officials reject her claim. 

“They were good friends, or so I thought,” Flores Clark said of Polanco and McCarthy. “They want that [Sweetwater Road] property at whatever cost. They don’t care who they take down or who they’re hurting…Look at what they have done to me.” 

McCarthy said she feels exactly the same. 

Flores Clark, she said, “puts on an award-winning performance…She really does a number on you. She’s a great actress of being distraught and a victim. But she is calculating and driven. That’s what I’ve uncovered in all of this. She’s a person who wants to profit off of the city.” 

Morrison said he remains baffled why Polanco and McCarthy continue to pursue what he called their vendetta against him and Flores Clark. 

“They just got violently mad” when he and Flores Clark refused to intervene in the Sweetwater Road project, he said. “I’m sorry, a friendship is not worth us selling our souls.” 

Polanco said she just wants the city to clean up its act. 

“We agree that the city has an obligation and a duty to help people process their [development] permits,” she said. “As long as it’s done not at the expense of others and with transparency and with proper procedures and no undue influence…They should not be involved in conflicts of interest.” 

Morrison is up for re-election next year. The dispute between the four onetime friends is sure to feature in what observers expect to be a bruising campaign. 

Flores Clark, in a reflective moment, summed up the situation aptly. 

“Politics,” she said, “is brutal.” 

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