Councilmember Toni Atkins faced off with Gay & Lesbian Times publisher Michael Portantino and GLT reporters during a public forum held in The Center’s auditorium.

As part of its Special Speakers Series, The Center’s Men’s Coming Out Group and the GLT sponsored a community forum with Atkins as its guest speaker. The special event, which was open to the public, was advertised as a forum in which Atkins would discuss how her sexual orientation has affected her career as a former deputy mayor and local politician and “address key issues of which the community should be aware,” among other topics.

After the GLT’s requests were denied for an interview with Atkins regarding her involvement in the pension-fund crisis as implicated in the recently released Kroll report, Atkins’ press secretary, Dale Kelly Bankhead, notified the paper that Atkins would be speaking and answering questions at a number of community forums. Portantino and GLT reporters then attended the forum to ask Atkins questions regarding her involvement in the city’s financial troubles.

The crowd of about 40 people listened to Atkins talk about her coming-out process and how she got involved in local politics, and then the forum was opened up to questions. At that point, a GLT reporter asked, “What is your response to the Kroll report’s findings that you and other council members violated the California Constitution, the City Charter and the Municipal Code?”

Upon hearing this question, Atkins said, “I find it interesting that this is the GLT’s strategy to come to a coming-out group meeting.” She then said that she has a responsibility to review a lot of items, and that the City Council relies upon the city’s staff of experts to provide them with the best analysis possible.

The Kroll report has listed Atkins as being negligent in some matters, and the council member remarked that a number of people have been indicted by the U.S. attorney. She added that the S.E.C. is still investigating the matter and noted that the S.E.C. should have a resolution within a month.

“I could talk for two hours on this, and I think the GLT would like me to tell you that I did something wrong. But I have to accept responsibility to fix the problems for the future of our city,” Atkins said.

After Atkins responded to this question, a member of the audience said, “I think this is an inappropriate forum for coming out with [these questions].”

Atkins continued to answer general questions and entertain comments from the group. People asked questions about Atkins’ coming out and told stories of their own coming-out processes.

Another GLT reporter then asked, “How did the Kroll report, that was originally estimated to cost $800,000, end up costing the city $20.3 million?” The crowd and moderators expressed vocal discontent with the question, and Atkins was visibly agitated.

Portantino accused Atkins of being “disingenuous” in her remarks and pressed her to answer the paper’s questions. The moderators of the group tried to restrain Portantino and attempted to escort him out of the building, but he refused to leave.

After sitting back down, Portantino raised his hand, requesting to ask a question, and though he was not called upon, his hand remained up through the questions that followed and during Atkins’ responses.

A third reporter from the GLT was called upon and asked Atkins if she would consider answering the paper’s questions about the Kroll report and other issues at the end of the forum. Atkins responded that she would consider it if time permitted.

“I think you guys are being really offensive. I was invited by [the Men’s Coming Out] group. I think the GLT is being absolutely offensive to an organization that is here for a particular reason.”

“They intentionally would not call on me to ask a question even though I had my hand up the entire meeting,” Portantino said. “When I stood up and started to respond to Toni’s attack on the Gay & Lesbian Times, two of the monitors physically tried to push me back and restrain me, which is a violation of the United States Constitution and the freedom of speech amendment. They even threatened to call the police. All I was doing was showing them the written invitation we were e-mailed by Toni’s press secretary [Bankhead] and a copy of the ad they ran stating that Toni would address our concerns.”

Jim Burke, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists at Loyola University in Chicago who provides journalists with advice on ethical issues in journalism, said journalists must be “vigilant and courageous about holding public officials accountable. She [Atkins] is a public official, and she has no right not to answer questions of this kind.”

Burke commended the GLT for appearing at the forum to demand that these types of questions be answered in an effort to get information to the public. This is exactly what journalists do, he said.

“I find it interesting that Bankhead, Toni’s press secretary, is also vice chair of The Center’s board,” Portantino said. “That I was physically restrained for questioning her boss while at a public forum at which she was the highest-ranking Center official present doesn’t seem right. The moderators unwittingly became pawns in Bankhead’s PR plan, and that’s a shame for the group and the attendees.”

“Center board members like me are volunteers and we all have day jobs,” Bankhead said. “That night, I was serving in my role as Councilmember Atkins’ communications director and was not directing the volunteer leaders of the coming out group. These volunteers clearly felt that their meeting was being hijacked and took steps to restore order. The only direction I gave to them, when I was asked, was to suggest that it was not necessary to get the police involved since I was sure Mr. Portantino would respect the wishes of the group to focus on questions related to the coming out experience.”

The group meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m., and the GLT was given an opportunity to talk to Atkins for about 10 minutes following the forum.

In response to the Kroll report’s $20.3 million price tag, Atkins said: “Nobody is happy about a $20 million figure. When we started the process we were told it would cost $250,000.”

She said as Kroll reviewed the city’s files, it became clear that there were hundreds of thousands of documents that needed to be looked at. The enormous task required hiring a team of paralegals to process the documents and the hiring of a law firm to do legal work for the Kroll firm, Atkins said, adding that the city’s data processing system was found to be unable to retrieve many of the documents and e-mails that needed to be reviewed for the investigation. Therefore, much of the money spent on this report was used for technology-related costs, she said.

“I don’t know why that should cost $20 million, and I don’t think anybody estimated it would be $20 million” she said.

In reference to the state-awarded grants the city received for wastewater treatment, which were referenced in the Kroll report and may have to be repaid in the millions of dollars, Atkins said no system has ever been in place for repaying these grants. “There was no evidence that the state or water quality control board would ever require [repayment],” she said.

Atkins said the city is under mandate to fix the city’s aging pipe system. “It became a formula of how you raise rates [to fix the pipes]. We were told as a council there were certain formulas that we could follow,” she said. “I believed we followed the formula that was presented to us.”

The GLT further pressed the council member to find out if the city’s water rate hikes cheated residents based on the Kroll report finding that the mayor and City Council deliberately concealed from its citizens “both the City’s knowing violation of law and the fact that the violation resulted in San Diego’s residents largely footing the sewage bill for the industrial class.”

Atkins said there is a rate-payers’ litigation case against the city regarding the issue and referred further questions about it to City Attorney Michael Aguirre. But when asked if the Consumer Protection Act was violated, she said: “I wouldn’t knowingly agree to violate the law. We had advice from scores of people who told us, ‘Here’s what we have to do.’ I never remember hearing anything that indicated we would be putting anyone in jeopardy.” This issue might be one the U.S. attorney investigates, she added.

As the interview continued, the GLT asked Atkins her reasons for using $507,000 of taxpayer money on private legal council, even though she hasn’t been accused of any crime. Atkins said that she was advised by Aguirre to obtain representation. The council asked Aguirre to represent them, but he declined to do so, she said.

“I don’t like spending taxpayer dollars on this either,” Atkins said. “But when you’re in the position that I’m in, where you acted in what you believed was in the best interest of the citizens and with the information I had, I’m not walking into the U.S. Attorney’s Office or the S.E.C. without some type of representation.”

Atkins was asked if she thinks she’ll be indicted, and, if so, if she will resign.

“I’m not going to comment on that,” she said. “This is an ongoing investigation, and I would say that I have absolutely cooperated with the U.S. attorney and the S.E.C., and I will continue to do so.

“Some of the practices of the city have been going on for decades,” she continued. “We have to correct it for the future, otherwise regular people won’t be able to run for office, unless they’re like a CPA or an attorney.”

Atkins expressed her desire to fix things for the future so future city officials don’t have to go through the ordeal she has been through.

“I’d hate to see someone else end up in the position I was in, which is trusting people who have more expertise and experience and degrees to advise you and [then] realize you were not advised well,” she said.