The special election to replace Mayor Dick Murphy is only weeks away. So far, former San Diego police chief Jerry Sanders, San Diego City Councilmember Donna Frye and businessman Steve Francis have distanced themselves from the rest of the mayoral candidates as the frontrunners in the race for City Hall.

The special election on July 26 will be held to replace Murphy, who announced his resignation five months into his second term this past April. His last day in office was July 15. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote during this election, a special runoff election will take place between the top two candidates. The San Diego City Council unanimously agreed on June 21 to consolidate the potential runoff election with the statewide special election on Nov. 8.

Frye is expected to make it through to the runoff. She has been a San Diego City Council member since 2001, representing Council District 6 when she replaced Valerie Stallings, who had resigned pending two misdemeanors for accepting gifts from Padres president John Moores.

Frye also co-owns a surf shop with her husband, surfing legend Skip Frye. Before she was elected into City Council, Frye was a well-known community activist who fought to protect San Diego’s environment and quality of life. She believes in keeping water clean as well as preserving parks, canyons and open spaces. Frye has also successfully led a movement to require the city to install solar panels and increase energy efficiency on all new city buildings. This week, state Senator Christine Kehoe endorsed Frye for mayor in this election.

Francis is executive chair of AMN Healthcare, the largest nationwide provider of travel nurse staffing services. He cites his leadership qualities in building a 7,000-employee enterprise as one of his strongest assets, along with his prior political experience. Before moving to San Diego in 1987 from Nevada, he served in the state Assembly in the 1980s and was elected majority leader at the age of 30 in 1985. Francis says he has extensive experience in financial matters and has grown ANN Healthcare during unstable economic times.

Sanders served as chief of police for the San Diego Police Department from 1993 to 1999, and has served a total of 26 years with the department. Sanders left the police department to become president and CEO of United Way of San Diego County in April of 1999. According to Sanders, United Way dramatically increased fund-raising and decreased overhead costs when he was CEO. In 2002 Sanders was appointed to the board of the American Red Cross San Diego and Imperial Counties, where he helped turn the organization around following a staff reorganization that substantially reduced costs for the non-profit. Currently Sanders chairs the board of the San Diego Police Department.

The Gay & Lesbian Times recently spoke with Frye, Sanders and Francis about several of the complex issues facing San Diego going into this mayoral election.

All of the candidates agreed that, if elected mayor, fixing the pension system mess will be one of their top priorities.

One of Frye’s other dominant platforms has been keeping city government honest, open and accountable. Her remedy to solve our current financial mess is to go into a receivership, where a judge would appoint a professional who will oversee the pension system, rather than the current pension board consisting of volunteers. She believes this approach separates her from the other candidates.

“You can actually get in there, get the documents, get a decent audit and hopefully that would allow the investigations to wrap up more quickly, which would allow our audit and financial reports to get out, which would allow us to be able to go back to the bond market and get the city’s credit rating restored,” she said.

Francis said to help alleviate San Diego’s financial problems, job cuts across the board need to be made, and he estimates about 8-10 percent of all city employees should be eliminated in order to produce $100 million of revenue. He wants to structurally change the way city government operates, eliminating inefficiencies and making city workers more productive overall.

“First of all it’s the right thing to do, and second it has to be done in order to help solve the pension problems and help restore basic services to the city … I’m going to do it by setting a tone at the top, setting goals and objectives for the employees, giving the employees the tools to reach those goals and objectives,” Francis said.

He advocates for using zero-based budgeting, in which the city departments come to the budget meetings with no funds and they have to justify every position and every program beneath them. He would also freeze spending for the next three years with all additional funds generated from his plan going directly toward the underfunded pension and liability system.

“This is stuff that just happens to be done in order to get the city out of this financial mess. I’m the one who has the business experience and the stamina, and who’s willing to take political risk in order to get the job done. And I will do it,” he said.

Some critics have said Francis is taking too much of a corporate approach to running a complex city like San Diego.

“I think that is the fear of the bureaucracy that I might take a business approach because that would require productivity to increase, and accountability, to be at the forefront of city government, which it is not right now,” he said.

Francis added public safety and housing as two other priorities he wants to address as mayor.

Sanders said San Diego’s financial problems won’t be solved until the city’s audit reports are released, and he hopes releasing them will allow San Diego to get back into the bond market. He said consolidating leased property around the city would generate additional revenue, which could help fund the pension system. He also added that properly administrating business license fees would help, since 40 percent of businesses in San Diego are not paying the proper amount or no fee at all. He also wants to initiate a tax refund intercept program in which the city takes money the state tax returns of people who are delinquent on various fees and tickets owed to San Diego.

“You can actually get the money before they even get their tax checks back. I just think there are lots of things we need to take a fresh look at. I think we can generate quite a bit of revenue just from things that don’t raise fees and don’t raise taxes that we’re just not effectively utilizing right now,” Sanders said.

Frye outlined that over $220 million is owed to San Diego from redevelopment agencies. She said that some of the ways to increase revenue without raising taxes or fees is to implement a repayment plan with those agencies to obtain close to $15 to 20 million a year as a funding source. Frye said she would require the comptroller to provide the City Council and mayor a monthly report of all revenues and expenses for each city department, which she said is currently required under the city charter.

Frye added that reducing the number of outside consultants and attorneys used by the city would add revenue.

“That is costing us tons of money – huge sums of money – and [with] just those couple of things, we’ve probably identified $30-40 million just with those,” said Frye.

Sanders believes one of his strengths is bringing groups of people together and working efficiently with those people, which he cites as a key to overcoming infighting within the city administration and building cohesion.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean consensus, but what it does mean is you respect the positions people have taken and try to find ways to bring them into your position. I really think what the Council is looking for is somebody to take the lead on a lot of these issues; then I think they would happy to be a part of the solution,” said Sanders.

Frye said the key to reduce tension within City Hall is to communicate openly and honestly. She said she has always done that and will continue to do that.

“I think the way you can overcome that is make sure people are treated with courtesy and respect, and actually told the truth. That oftentimes is not what happens. People are placed in situations where they find out information after the decision has been made, and then it becomes kind of a head-butting contest,” she said.

The Gay & Lesbian Times asked each candidate specifically whether same-sex marriages should be legal in California.

Frye has consistently said she is in favor of same-sex marriages becoming legal in California.

Sanders said he supports long-term, committed same-sex couples receiving equal protection through domestic partner legislation, but doesn’t believe the government should be involved in the matter when it comes to same-sex marriage bills.

“The other part of it is I don’t think government belongs in it at all. … I think marriage is an issue that’s up to the churches,” said Sanders.

Responding to the fact that federal marriage rights are not included in state-sanctioned civil unions, Sanders added, “I support all those rights. I think everybody deserves to be treated equally under the law. I just think that’s important.”

Francis said he is against same-sex marriages but supports civil unions.

“I am not for the legalization of same-sex marriage as far as marriage is concerned. I am for civil unions and making sure people of same-sex relationships have the same civil rights as married couples do,” Francis said.

Frye is against the Boy Scouts preferential land lease in Balboa Park. Both Sanders and Francis said the Boy Scouts should be entitled to use Balboa Park at the discounted rate even though the Boy Scouts openly discriminate against homosexuals, which violates the San Diego Human Dignity Ordinance.

“Scouting is an important program for youth. I would also support the gay and lesbian community, and programs that they wanted, that affected either youth or seniors or whoever on city property,” said Sanders.

When asked about the Human Dignity Ordinance, Sanders said, “If there’s a law that specifically prohibits it and it’s very clear, then I have to support that as mayor.”

Francis believes the Boy Scouts program is an important institution, and although he is sympathetic to some of the issues that the GLBT community has with the Boy Scouts, he still believes they should not be barred from using Balboa Park.

He added that the GLBT community shouldn’t fight these types of battles when there are more important issues to consider. He said the gay and lesbian community is “hurting themselves rather than helping themselves,” and made a comparison to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to grant marriage licenses to over 4,000 couples in February of 2004.

“I don’t think he helped the gay and lesbian community at all by issuing marriage licenses up there. In fact, because of his actions, we ended up having state constitutions against same-sex marriage … I think that they [the GLBT community] need to take one step at a time. They don’t need to fight all battles at once,” Francis said.

Although Francis does not agree with the GLBT community on all issues, he stressed he would be a very tolerant mayor.

“I may not agree with you on gay marriage and I may not agree with you on the Boy Scouts, but that does not mean I am not tolerant, that my door’s not open, and that I won’t agree with you on lots of issues that are important to you,” he said.