We stopped off at the mayor’s office before today’s CODEFOR meeting and were delighted to see Mayor Rybak’s bodyguard, Officer Mike Kirchen. We chatted for a few minutes about our shared rotator cuff problems (he’s having surgery next year; we’re not), and as we ambled down the hall toward the council chambers for the weekly police meeting, I asked him where the mayor was.

“Oh, he’s out at lunch, I think,” he replied, acknowledging that the mayor often escapes his bodyguard’s attention. “He told me the other day, ‘I’m not always going to tell you when I’m going to lunch,’” and shrugged his injured shoulder.

We reached the chambers to find a tour group departing but no police presence in the darkened room. Officer Kirchen flipped open his cell phone and rang the police chief’s office to investigate. Chief McManus was meeting with some people from Washington, D.C., he reported, and Deputy Chief Tim Dolan, who usually runs the CODEFOR gatherings, is in San Diego. Finally, he was able to reach a police administrator who informed him that the weekly meetings have now been rescheduled at a biweekly interval.

We gathered ourselves up and departed the room, slightly concerned by the lack of police presence in City Hall. But Officer Kirchen betrayed no anxiety as he turned off the lights. “I love how these dim automatically,” he said.