San Diego’s four mayoral candidates deliver a mixed bag of goals and promises encompassing their individual visions for the city. The three mayoral candidates running against incumbent Dick Murphy are San Diego Board of Port Commissioners Chairman Peter Davis, County Supervisor Ron Roberts and the “Ralph Nader of San Diego”, Jim Bell.

In 2002, Mayor Murphy and the San Diego City Council appointed Davis, a local businessman, to the San Diego Board of Port Commissioners, where he now serves as chairman. Davis, who is also a director of Torrey Pines Bank, is now running against Murphy because of what he calls a “leadership gap” in the mayor’s office.

“The essential, baseline services that the city government must provide to protect us – police, fire protection, public safety – are either inadequate to the task or being threatened by a complacent city government that has spent us into debt,” Davis said, in a Nov. 16 speech held in Balboa Park. “The financial mismanagement of our city has the same terrible consequences as the financial mismanagement of your business or family… Run properly, San Diego can well afford to provide fire and police protection and keep the libraries and parks open for our children. That’s the San Diego way, and that’s why I’m running for mayor.”

A banker for 36 years, Davis is the former president and CEO of the State-Chartered Bank of Commerce, which specializes in small-business loans. He has been involved in the redevelopment of San Diego since 1976, when he was appointed to the Centre City Development Corporation. Since then, he has been involved in the downtown redevelopment of Horton Plaza, the convention center and the Gaslamp district. He returned to the CCDC in 1993 and again in 2000 to assist with the city’s urban development, helping to create a financial plan for the downtown ballpark.

Davis’ campaign focuses on increased police and fire protection, improved public safety, the public housing crisis and greater accountability in economic management, including pension funds. He is dissatisfied with the way the City of San Diego handled the wildfire crisis, and disappointed with the way the City handled negotiations with the Chargers.

“Too much of this city’s business, such as the Chargers’ negotiations, is discussed in secret with too little in the way of results,” he said. “And our firefighters will tell you about using garden hoses to put out catastrophic fires or taking city buses to fight raging blazes.”

Davis did not respond to several requests for an interview with the Gay & Lesbian Times.

Roberts, who has served on the County Board of Supervisors for more than seven years, has focused throughout his career on San Diego’s air quality, budget, waterfront development, public housing and education – including building new youth facilities throughout the county, developing after-school programs and establishing an academic residential campus for foster youth. Roberts ran a close race against Mayor Murphy in the 2000 mayoral election, and is considered by many to be supportive of the GLBT community, riding in the annual Pride parade and supporting the city’s challenge to the Boy Scouts lease in Balboa Park. Roberts could not be reached for comment for this article.

Jim Bell is an ecological designer, author and lecturer who has been dubbed the “Ralph Nader of San Diego” by Brad Buffet, a former board member and Webmaster of the San Diego chapter of the Sierra Club. Bell has built a career as a consultant for development projects, emphasizing sustainable development. His vision as mayor is to make San Diego self-sufficient in energy, water and food.

“The reason that’s my big issue is because if we have any serious problem in those essential areas, pretty much everything else that is going along in our economy and way of life would be trashed,” Bell said. “We saw that with the last energy crisis. Even though it was completely contrived, we saw how much effect it had on our lives…. If we develop our own renewable resources, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Bell said making San Diego self-sufficient in energy, water and food would bring $20 billion back to the regional economy. His plan sees energy self-sufficiency by 2020, and water and food self-sufficiency by 2025. To improve the City’s cost efficiency, Bell wants to sell public land at a one-time price, then lease it out, generating continuous public income in the process. His goals for city improvement include constructing affordable housing, improving roads, sewers, storm drains and trash, reducing crime and halting development of San Diego’s flood plains.

Bell supports GLBT marriage and civil rights, and would insist on better tolerance and diversity training for San Diego police officers if elected. “I am a hundred percent for every person’s right.” Bell said. “With regard to gay marriages, I’m one hundred percent for it. If we have more stable relationships in our society – whether it’s heterosexual or homosexual – the better off we’re going to be in terms of controlling AIDS and other sexually transmittable diseases…. I have an utter abhorrence of any kind of prejudice.”

Mayoral incumbent Murphy has weathered September 11 safety concerns, an economic recession, the San Diego fires, a U.S. Attorney’s investigation and development of the downtown ballpark during his first three years as mayor. He established the Mayor’s LGBT Advisory Board to provide outreach to the GLBT community, rides in the annual Pride parade and announced his intention to appoint Assemblymember Toni Atkins as Deputy Mayor at the 2003 Stonewall Rally in Balboa Park.

When local resident Don Stillwell appeared at a Dec. 1 City Council meeting to protest Atkins’ appointment as Deputy Mayor because she is openly gay, Murphy responded: “I nominated Toni Atkins because she is the best qualified person to be deputy mayor of this city. Toni Atkins is one of the hardest working, one of the most intelligent persons we have on this council.”

Representatives of the mayor’s office report that this year Murphy is focusing on issues such as public safety, improved fire protection, the opening of the ballpark, the establishment of a business ethics commission, the selection of a proposed regional airport site, reduction of traffic congestion, housing and public education, sewage-spill prevention and beach cleanup, and implementation of renewable energy resources in San Diego.