Though it is often overshadowed by other political races, the San Diego City Attorney race is one of the most important citywide elections and it can have a large impact on the GLBT community. The City Attorney is responsible not only for representing the City of San Diego in legal disputes, but is also responsible for advising the city council on the legal issues surrounding council actions and decisions.

The City Attorney’s office, under the advisement of Casey Gwinn, played a key role in the decision to approve the Boy Scouts’ lease on Balboa Park land in 2001, and has in recent years advised the City against approving medical marijuana guidelines and the clean-needle exchange program. Until January of this year, Gwinn’s office even defended the City’s lease with the Boy Scouts in federal court until a judge ruled that the lease was unconstitutional.

It’s no surprise that reforming the City Attorney’s office is the mantra of all three of the candidates running for the office. With multi-million dollar legal setbacks, a financial crisis, closed-door sessions and botched negotiations like the ones over the Chargers contract, there is a public outcry for order to be restored.

The three candidates in the race are private attorney Mike Aguirre and two current employees of the City Attorney’s office, Deborah Berger, a 17-year veteran with the office, and Leslie Devaney, current City Attorney Casey Gwinn’s second-in-command.

According to recent polls, the front-runner in the race is Aguirre, a long-time activist and friend of the GLBT community. Of the three, he was the only candidate to go before the city council to testify against extending the Boy Scouts’ lease in 2001.

“I feel that the City violated the constitution… that it violated the law and that we need to stop violating the law, and the Boy Scouts are suing us because we decided to stop violating the law,” Aguirre said in a recent Gay & Lesbian Times interview, discussing the City’s current legal predicament with the Boy Scouts of America.

After the council voted to remove the City from the Boy Scouts lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Scouts responded by suing the City, specifically naming the six council members who voted to get out of the lawsuit.

“There is no merit in that litigation,” Aguirre added. “I intend to bring leaders of the gay community, people like Jess Durfee and others, together with some of the more responsible elements in the Boy Scout community to try to work out an ultimate solution that is constitutional.”

A compromise on the Scouts’ lease does not preclude the Scouts from moving off of the land in Balboa Park, but it could mean an end to the subsidized arrangement the Scouts currently have with the city to lease the land for $1 per year for the next 25 years.

“I’m very saddened as well as frustrated that the City decided to enter into a lease with the Boy Scouts at the very beginning,” said Berger, who could not speak out on the issue before the city council because of her position within the City Attorney’s office. “I disagree with the legal opinion that was provided by the City Attorney’s office to the mayor and council. I think that without a doubt it violates the Human Dignity Ordinance. … They have been able to prevail and continue their discriminatory practice by deeming themselves a private organization, and as a private organization, if they’re going to reap the benefits they are going to pay the cost – and the cost is, a public agency should not be doing business with them and giving them special deals.”

Devaney, who is second-in-command in the City Attorney’s office, contends that the advice given to the council on the legal issues surrounding the Boy Scouts lease was sound, but disagrees with how it was delivered to the council.

“I heard the advice given to the council and it was in private,” Devaney said. “It’s my opinion that the advice given to the mayor and council on their options of taking an existing lease and negotiating in the middle of it needed to be told to the mayor and council in public. I heard the advice and I believe it was good advice. It delineated the risks in doing what they did, and the mayor and council chose to move forward in spite of identifying those risks.”

Devaney said that she could not talk about the specifics of the advisement because it was done in closed session, but she did imply that the advice was given based on the belief that the Boy Scouts of America were not a religious organization.

“The higher membership of the Boy Scouts admitted they were a religious organization in the middle of the litigation and did not so admit or say that there was evidence that they were a religious organization when the mayor and council moved forward to negotiate a new lease,” Devaney adds.

It was the Scouts’ admission that they are a religious organization that led a federal judge to rule that the lease did violate the Constitution.

All three candidates – Aguirre, Berger and Devaney – have come out in support of medical marijuana and the clean-needle exchange program, citing medical evidence to support the existence of both programs.

“The impact of the program has been pretty heavy on people living in North Park,” said Aguirre. “The one thing we don’t want to do is create a backlash that results in us losing the program. It’s a controversial program and it’s a very difficult program to implement. … I think what we may have to do is look for a better site or a site that will create a better consensus.”

Berger adds, “If one looks at the science it’s very clear needle exchange is the right thing to do and medical marijuana is absolutely the right thing to do. It’s just like any other drug. We have a lot of prescription drugs that when used appropriately are a benefit and enhance one’s health and when abused they don’t. I don’t see marijuana any different than any other prescription drug.”

On the issue of medical marijuana, all three candidates pointed out that in the medical marijuana debate the city does have to recognize that the police department is facing conflicting state and federal laws on the use of the drug.

“The public vote is paramount,” Devaney said, citing the statewide vote on the compassionate-care, medical-marijuana issue. “But it is inconsistent with federal law, so the mayor and council policy makers need to know, as they move along, that the feds can come along and possibly swoop and close down any efforts that the mayor and council make in that regard. They just need to be warned about that. … But people who truly need marijuana for pain, I don’t see a problem with that.”

One thing that has become clear is that this year the GLBT vote will be split among the City Attorney candidates, with the community holding major fundraisers for both Berger and Aguirre, who both picked up major endorsements. The San Diego Democratic Club rated both candidates acceptable, and while neither candidate received the 60 percent required to gain the Club’s endorsement, Berger did earn more votes. She also has the endorsement of the GLBT Tom Homann Law Association, and the openly gay former president of the San Diego Bar Association, Todd Stevens.

“I think it’s extremely important,” Berger said about her support from the GLBT community. “Any group is important obviously, but certainly the gay community has done a very good job of articulating their viewpoints and being politically active and being a force to reckon with in the political community. I wish there were more groups that were as effective and as diligent in doing that as the gay and lesbian community has been in doing it … and it often so happens that their viewpoints are ones that I share.”

Devaney’s endorsements from GLBT leaders include Andrea Kimball, former president of the Tom Homann Law Association, and Tim Pestotnik, the former chair of the HIV Planning Council.

“I think it’s important for the City Attorney to get as diversified a vote and backing as you possibly can,” Devaney said. “Part of that vote and a significant part of that vote is the gay vote, but the message is not that I need to advance the interests of the gay, lesbian and transsexual community to achieve goals that they might have. My message is that I don’t care who you are … you want the ability to go to your city council, and you need a city attorney who will show you an open process so you can go to the right people to get done what you need to get done. I don’t care whether it’s conservative Republican or liberal Democrat or anyone in between … I have said consistently I’m not going to be pushing anybody’s agenda.”

Aguirre’s list of endorsers reads like a who’s who in the GLBT community, including San Diego Democratic Club President Jess Durfee, Nicole Murray Ramirez, Big Mike, Pat Washington, and Jeri Dilno.

“I’m in simpatico with the gay community,” Aguirre said. “I see the gay community as having an extremely positive impact on our community intellectually, culturally, socially, neighborhood improvement. And I know there are a number of problems within the gay community. I’m very concerned about the amphetamines and the other drug problems that we have but those affect all the communities. But the gay community, in the real estate world, people are looking to be living in and around areas where the gay community is predominant because they know land values will go up because they do such a fabulous job in their communities. And that’s the thing we need to harness in San Diego is those communities that are forward-propelled in bringing our whole community up to a higher standard.”