With all of the talk about the mayoral race, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that San Diego’s openly lesbian city councilmember and deputy mayor is in a race to secure her seat on the council for another four years. Toni Atkins took office in 2000, defeating her opponent John Hartley with 57 percent of the vote. Now, in 2004, Hartley, a 61-year-old real estate agent, is back to challenge Atkins on a platform of “putting our neighborhoods first.”

During her first four years on the city council, Atkins has made infrastructure improvements in District 3 a priority, budgeting millions of dollars to repair cracked sidewalks, add streetlights and underground wires, and to increase the number of parks in the community.

“I think that people are noticing it, but I do think that more needs to be done,” Atkins said of the community improvements. “Even before the election got underway, when I was talking to community groups … I have told them our commitment to this work … needs to be a long-term commitment and focus. It can’t end with me. If I get re-elected for another four-year term, my focus for the next four years is going to continue to be those issues. … The next councilmember that comes along is going to make a renewed commitment to that as well, because it’s going to take a couple of decades to deal with the infrastructure deficit and deferred maintenance in our older urban communities.”

District 3 comprises some of San Diego’s oldest urban neighborhoods, including the communities of Mission Hills, Hillcrest, North Park, University Heights, Normal Heights, Kensington and Golden Hill, to name a few. The public-works projects that Atkins has helped to implement have improved all of these communities, something that critics say Hartley was unable to do during his tenure on the city council in the early 1990s.

After serving one term on the council, Hartley gave up his seat in 1993, opening the door for Christine Kehoe to run for office. Hartley was a supporter of Kehoe in that race, and was considered to be an ally of the GLBT community. Now, as he campaigns door to door for support, residents of District 3 who have been visited by Hartley have reported that his message to some people is that Atkins “only represents the gay community.” A long-time Democrat, Hartley has also begun placing advertisements in Republican mailers in his quest for votes.

“Hartley used to be a supporter and friend of our community,” Atkins said. “It’s really unfortunate that someone who used to be a friend and was considered a friend and [who] the community appreciated would go back on what we thought were his true values in order to win a race. I think that’s just unfortunate.”

When contacted by the Gay & Lesbian Times for an interview, Hartley declined to speak, saying that he did not feel he could trust the paper to give him fair coverage.