San Diego Mayor Responds to Recall Effort

Wants to move forward, not backward. No mention of whether residents should be twirling toward freedom.

Mayor Bob Filner said now is not the time to go backward and that he is committed to moving San Diego forward in his official response to the campaign to circulate a recall petition.

"Now is not the time to go backwards — back to the time when middle-class jobs and neighborhood infrastructure were sacrificed to Downtown special interests. We need to continue to move forward!" the mayor wrote.

Through his attorneys, Filner issued the statement late Monday to the recall committee set to begin Sunday gathering signatures to force an election. By city law, the committee must publish his statement in a local newspaper.