After several denied requests, Councilmember Toni Atkins agreed to sit for an interview with the Gay & Lesbian Times. The 30-minute window I was allotted before the council member was whisked away to her next meeting left little time for pleasantries, but Atkins was warm and inviting nonetheless, and gave no indication of the strained relationship between the city’s openly lesbian council member and the community’s GLBT newsmagazine.

Seated at a table in her office, Atkins was joined by her press secretary, Dale Kelly Bankhead. Atkins offered me a cup of coffee and then adjusted her suit coat, suggesting she was ready to begin.

I began by asking how the transition from acting mayor back to her seat on the City Council during this financially troubled time has impacted her personal life.

“The job is always hard. It’s always been difficult. And going into the mayor’s office, it’s amazing how intense that situation was with the reduced council,” Atkins said, referring to the vacant seats following the resignations of Deputy Mayor Michael Zucchet and Councilmember Ralph Inzunza. “The transition has been a good one for me. This is where I love to be, and I am happy to be back here.”

When asked if the SEC’s investigation has affected her relationship with her partner, Jennifer LeSar, or her nephew, who she has helped raise, Atkins remained somewhat guarded.

“That has been mostly at work. It isn’t something I discuss at home,” she said. “It is an ongoing investigation, and you’re not supposed to discuss much of this stuff, period. In fact, most of my staff know very little of the SEC investigation.”

At this time last year, Atkins was receiving accolades for her role as the city’s acting mayor following the resignations of former Mayor Dick Murphy, Zucchet and Inzunza. The Gay & Lesbian Times wasn’t the only paper singing her praises. The San Diego Union-Tribune, among others, recognized her efforts for leading the city during a time of unparalleled uncertainty.

But that was last year. Atkins, along with Councilmembers James Madaffer, Brian Maienshein, Scott Peters and, to a lesser degree, Councilmember Donna Frye, among other city officials, is currently embroiled in a financial scandal that has rocked San Diego. In August, a report costing the city $20.3 million by Kroll Inc., the New York-based risk-management firm hired by the City Council to investigate alleged wrongdoings at City Hall, was released and detailed how city officials, including past and present council members, knowingly broke the law, charged homeowners more than their fair share in sewage treatment costs in favor of big business and debilitated the pension system through years of “reckless” and “wrongful” mismanagement.

“I had no inkling what this report would say…,” Atkins said of the day the Kroll report was released to the public and discussed before the council. “There was a sense of relief. Finally, it’s here. This is what we had paid for, what we have been waiting for, what we need….

“And then, of course, it was certainly difficult to sit and hear the result of their investigation that many, many things were not handled properly in the city of San Diego, and that checks and balances all along the way up to even the City Council somehow failed,” she continued. “And that’s a hard thing to hear when you’re part of it. It was a difficult day.”

The Kroll report made national headlines. Just last month, the Wall Street Journal editorialized about San Diego’s tango with the SEC, calling for the commission to send a message to public officials everywhere by holding San Diego’s politicians accountable.

The local press hasn’t been any less to the point, either.

Atkins originally refused to meet the Gay & Lesbian Times following a series of editorials and news stories the GLT wrote on the topic.

“I originally said, ‘I don’t know why you want to have an interview now; you’ve already done two negative pieces against me.’” Atkins explained. “The time to have asked to meet with me to get any kind of clarification or give me a chance to respond was before you did an editorial. I didn’t understand the point of asking me afterwards.

“Why am I doing [an interview] now?” Atkins continued. “Frankly, because I don’t have a problem answering questions.”

Atkins said she answered questions about the SEC’s investigation at a public forum, which was sponsored by The Center’s Men’s Coming Out Group and the Gay & Lesbian Times, at which “six of your reporters showed up at and tried to hijack.”

“I don’t have a problem answering questions,” she added. “I think I just have a concern with the tactics by the newspaper.”

But many members of the GLBT community still have unanswered questions. Even Atkins’ strongest supporters are having trouble reconciling her longstanding reputation for being an honest and trustworthy elected official with the information provided in the Kroll report.

“I never intentionally would misinform the public,” Atkins said in response to the Kroll report’s allegations. “We had a lot of professional people that the city paid very good money to [advise] us, and the advice we got was not good. And, not to push the responsibility a hundred percent on somebody else, [but] the council as a whole and individual council members including myself should have asked more questions. … It all broke down, and we all share some responsibility for that.

“I would say to my supporters: ‘I did my best to serve you,’” she added. “I did my best to serve the city. And mistakes have been made, and I am part of the process that made those mistakes. And the focus has got to be now to fix it, so that people like me can still run for office and do a good job and know they are going to have the right kind of [experts] advising them.”

The Union-Tribune has been critical of several of the council members for refusing to support the mayor’s remediation plan based on recommendations given by Kroll Inc. and recently editorialized on the topic, telling those council members, of which Atkins was named, to support the mayor or step down.

“Well, I have already supported it in concept,” Atkins said. “We voted to support Mayor Sanders’ recommendations…. The U-T seems to think the City Council did not support the mayor.”

According to Atkins, there were very few places where the council had concerns or questions, but the questions they had were mainly focused on the independent monitor.

“The city attorney, members of the council and the mayor all had different opinions on how to handle the issue of the monitor,” she said. “The remediation and all of the recommendations came down to, I think, about two or three that there was real disagreement on. And so the council supported the mayor’s remediation plan [and] recommendations by Kroll.”

I asked Atkins how the recent controversy has affected any political aspirations she may have. She had briefly flirted with the idea of running for District 4 county supervisor before announcing she would not run against incumbent Ron Roberts in the election that took place in June.

Atkins said the SEC’s investigation was not why she chose to sit the race out, but rather because “I would have been making a decision very late for office against an incumbent, and as campaigns go, you have to raise a significant amount of money.”

“At a time when I was just transitioning back into the council office from the mayor’s office, I would have basically needed to spend all my time fund-raising,” she said, “and with the issues at the city, a new mayor, a strong-mayor changed in government – and, frankly, I will say I was just a little tired. I was a little exhausted from that four-and-a half-month stint in the mayor’s office without the kind of resources and support a person in the mayor’s office should have.

“So I couldn’t ask my supporters who were urging me to do this to work 150 percent if I wasn’t able to do that as well,” she said, adding, “Plus, turning my focus from the city at that time just didn’t feel right to me.”

Atkins did say she has not ruled out the possibility of running for the 76th District Assembly seat in 2010, however.

“It’s four years away. I still have two years of my council term remaining,” she said. “It’s not off the table, but I am going to continue to focus on what I am doing here. A lot can happen in four years. But people are asking me to look at it and I am not going to shut the door there….”

As our time ran out, the conversation quickly shifted to the increase in crime in Atkins’ district. In addition to the hate crimes committed against six men in Balboa Park during Pride weekend, the Hillcrest, North Park and Mission Hills areas have seen a dramatic increase in robberies against gay men.

“We’re seeing an increase in crime around Mid-City, including North Park, Hillcrest. I’m very concerned about that,” Atkins said. “I have regular meetings set up at this point with the [police] captains of both of those divisions. I have talked to the chief of police.”

Atkins said she has also noticed a lot of streetlights out in the district, and has sent a memo to the mayor telling him that lighting is critical in deterring criminal activity.

“My thought is it’s going to be a multi-pronged approach: working with the police, the [Stonewall] Citizens Patrol – which I think is a great idea – taking care of the lighting, talking about personal safety….”

As the interview came to a close, I asked Atkins if there was anything else she wanted to tell her constituents who read this interview.

“I love my job. I enjoy public service. I enjoy representing the community. I get a lot of empowerment from people when I am out at community meetings,” she responded. “In fact, I will say that during this last year and in the mayor’s [office] and dealing with some of these very difficult issues, that’s the thing that has given me the most hope and inspired me the most is actually going to community meetings. … I get recommitted to why I want to do this job because of the citizens. I have felt their support and I have gotten their input, and I heard their comments and recommendations and I just appreciate it.”