San Diego’s GLBT community and all of District 3 scored a victory on Super Tuesday, Mar. 2, with the reelection of Deputy Mayor Toni Atkins to the San Diego City Council. Atkins first took office in 2000 and, in 2004, became the first openly gay or lesbian councilmember to be appointed to the position of deputy mayor. During her first term on the council, Atkins has worked tirelessly on important city-wide issues such as the medical use of marijuana and the clean needle exchange program, as well as undertaking improvements in the 3rd District.

In the race for District 3 Atkins faced former Councilmember John Hartley and community member Gonzalo Garcia. Atkins needed to emerge from the three-way race with 50 percent of the vote to be reelected; otherwise, the top two finishers in the primary would have faced one another in a runoff in November’s general election. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Atkins pulled over 60 percent of the vote to win the primary outright and avoided a costly runoff. Hartley received just 32 percent of the vote and Garcia emerged with 7 percent.

“You know, I think there is so much that we need to be focused on at the city and in my district. I’m thrilled not to have a runoff,” Atkins said from the floor of Golden Hall’s election central. “We need to be focusing on more serious races, and now we will have the time to do that. I won’t have to raise money and we can get back to doing the job.”

“It is very good news that Toni Atkins won in the 3rd City Council District,” said San Diego Democratic Club President Stephen Whitburn. “Because with her victory now, that enables the San Diego Democratic Club to devote its resources to ensuring that the Democratic [76th Assembly] nominee, Lori Saldaña, wins in November.”

Councilmembers Brian Maienschein and Jim Madaffer also won their primary races outright. District 1 Councilmember Scott Peters missed the mark with only 49 percent of the vote and will face a November runoff with Phil Thalheimer. For Atkins, the win means that she can get back to the work at hand and pay attention to the financial crisis that the city is facing.

“I think we’re going to have to focus on the budgets and the pension plan problem that is causing us to have the bond rating problem, which hurts us,” Atkins said. “It means we can’t do large scale projects because the bonding will be so expensive. I think we’ve got a full plate, but I’m certain that if we work hard we can get through this, and we have to.”

Atkins’ primary contender, John Hartley, throughout the race accused Atkins of pursuing special interests and catering to the GLBT community while ignoring other groups such as seniors and minorities. Atkins stayed out of the fray, sticking to her campaign mantra –“Real Commitment. Real Results” – which proved to be the successful strategy.

“I think what that means, I really and truly believe that citizens do not like negative campaigns,” Atkins said about the race. “They want to know what you’re going to do, what you have done, and how you’re going to work with them. The voters and citizens are not fooled by negativity and I am just pleased to see that they weren’t in this case and that the voters of District 3 would return me for another four years. It means a lot to me and I look forward to working with them through the good times and the difficult ones.”