For the first time since its inception in 1998, the board of Equality California (EQCA), the organization formerly known as the California Alliance for Pride and Equality, will operate without representation from California’s second largest city, San Diego. EQCA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots-based, statewide advocacy organization whose mission is to lobby for the safety, equality and civil rights of all GLBT Californians.

For the past five years, local attorney Paula Rosenstein has represented San Diego on the board of EQCA, along with founding board member Jess Durfee, former statewide co-chair Nicole Murray Ramirez and former board members Brian Polejes, Tom Felkner and Bruce Abrams. Earlier this month Rosenstein resigned from the board, and recently told the Gay & Lesbian Times that she simply felt it was time to move on. EQCA Executive Director Geoffrey Kors said that the board hopes to fill Rosenstein’s place on the board as early as September, with two San Diego representatives.

“The board’s going through a lot of changes and I’ve been on it for about five years, and it was just time for me to move on to something else,” Rosenstein said of her resignation. “I think that I’m proud of the fact that San Diego had representation on the board, not just through me.”

Rosenstein’s resignation from the board comes just months before the end of her second term on the EQCA board; board members are only allowed to serve two consecutives terms.

In a recent phone interview, Kors said, “Paula has contributed a great deal to Equality California and the LGBT community and her service to the organization is greatly appreciated and we will miss having her on the board.”

Kors said the board has already begun interviewing candidates to fill two new positions on the board for more representatives from San Diego, and an additional candidate to fill the void left behind by Rosenstein is expected to come from that same pool of candidates.

“We are in the process of interviewing several candidates from San Diego for the board and we anticipate there will be several San Diego members voted on the board at either our September or November board meetings,” Kors said, pointing out that the September meeting is scheduled to take place in San Diego, Sept. 11-12. “This process started six months ago for positions that were going to come open.”

While the majority of national media coverage of GLBT issues in California has focused on activities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Kors noted that EQCA does not intend to leave San Diego out of the political process as the 2004 election approaches.

“I think there is a perception that there is more going on in San Francisco and Los Angeles and somehow they’re more important,” Kors said. “I don’t think it’s accurate and that’s not the belief of Equality California; in fact, our Southern California office is based in San Diego where we have full time staff, because we think San Diego is the most critical place in the state right now for LGBT civil rights. The ability of Equality California to pass our Marriage License Nondiscrimination bill very well may hinge on the two Assembly races and Senate race in San Diego. For us, we see San Diego as the focus of our records right now.”

EQCA has also dedicated a second full-time staff person to work in San Diego starting in September, to prepare for the November elections.

“I think that having representation from San Diego on the board is really important,” Rosenstein said. “I think that in a statewide organization it’s important to have representation from a lot of different areas in the state.

“We have to get the hearts and minds of the non-LGBT community and those people are largely outside of the more liberal areas of the state, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In order to win among the voters, if you are talking about an initiative, you need a sizeable percentage of the vote from San Diego; you need a reasonable percentage of the vote in Riverside, the Central Valley and Central Coast.”