Incumbent San Diego City Attorney Faces Challenge From Public Interest Lawyer
Speaker 1: 00:00 The San Diego city attorney is elected. So their role is to represent the interests of San Diego residents and taxpayers. But the city attorney also has to represent the legal interests of the city. These two interests do not always align. And that may be at the heart of the difference between the two candidates running for San Diego city attorney this year, who to tell us about the options on the table for San Diego city voters is KPBS reporter Joe home. Joe, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. So now we have one incumbent city attorney and one challenger to consider tell us briefly who they are and how their priorities differ. Speaker 2: 00:35 So the current city attorney is Mara Elliott. She comes from public service. She was a deputy city attorney before she was elected in 2016. And her priorities sort of have been done regulation and advocating for domestic abuse survivors. She sort of prides herself on being able to, uh, formalize alliances, uh, from across the aisle from all parts of the political spectrum. And, um, yeah, she sort of boasts, you know, a good working relationship with the current city council and her challenger is Corey Briggs. He's a, uh, civil attorney. He describes himself as a taxpayer's advocate. He's sort of known, uh, in the legal community in San Diego for suing the city over, uh, real estate development over public records laws. And yeah, he's become known as someone who I guess, fights for transparency in city government. Speaker 1: 01:39 Hm. So Mara Elliot has had for years, what does she consider her major accomplishments? Speaker 2: 01:44 Yeah. So Elliot has really, uh, taken steps to tighten gun regulation and protect, uh, victims and survivors of domestic abuse. I talked to her last week. Um, here's what you said. Speaker 1: 01:58 We have a nationally recognized gun violence restraining order program that has removed over 600 guns from the street, from people who are threatening suicides or domestic violence or mass shootings Speaker 2: 02:11 Beyond sort of a gun regulation. She has really made elder abuse of focus. So she's, you know, taking pride in, cracking down on nursing homes and making sure that San Diego is elderly are being protected at these facilities. Speaker 1: 02:26 Now, why does Corey Briggs argue that he would be the better candidate for city attorney? Speaker 2: 02:31 So Corey Briggs has, like I said, sued the city, um, countless times, dozens of times in the past 10 years. And he says sort of, it would be an easy transition for him to go from someone who has advocated for taxpayers in the courtroom to being the person who sort of runs the city from a legal perspective, at least. And he has accused, uh, his opponent, uh, Mark Elliott of being sort of politically motivated. And here's what he sort of said about that. Well, you Speaker 3: 03:00 Just don't know what she's doing unless you read headlines and there, you know, but all she's doing is reaching for headlines and trying to advance her career as opposed to advancing the quality of life for San Diego. Speaker 1: 03:11 Okay. So, so what examples does Briggs give of things that Maura Elliott has done that do not advance quality of life for San Diego? Speaker 2: 03:18 Yeah. Uh, so Briggs, his campaign has been really sort of just fleeing a lot of accusations at Elliott, um, about her lack of transparency with law enforcement. Uh, he's accused her of, you know, protecting bad cops, which Elliot completely denies. She says there is a prosecutorial process for keeping police officers who have been accused of misconduct accountable. Um, and you know, during the primary, a big issue was the contract with general electric. Uh, he accused her of thinking about selling data to law enforcement or third parties, which Elliot also denied at the time and Speaker 1: 03:59 The surveillance cameras on the street lights. Right? Speaker 2: 04:02 Yeah, that's right. Yes. And so, yeah, Briggs is main accusations, really revolve around, you know, the lack of transparency, um, that he sees as, uh, the ways just sort of Elliot runs things. Speaker 1: 04:17 She's also, of course he's implicated her, of course, in the fiasco over the Ash street deal, the real estate. Yeah. Speaker 2: 04:25 Yeah. And that's, that also gets kind of messy. So the ashtray deal was basically done and done for w when Elliot entered office. So in her first week as city attorney, she, her, her name is printed on the contract and her assistant signed the final contract. But, you know, Briggs sees that as a major failure of, of Elliot's, but Elliot told me that, you know, she had at that stage in, in the contracts development, you know, she had no reason to doubt the work that the attorneys have been doing for, you know, months and months. Speaker 1: 05:03 She said earlier, Briggs has frequently sued the city, mostly in issues related to new development. Would he be able, do you think to defend the city, if that was what he was called to do if for that, Speaker 2: 05:14 I mean, he sure thinks, so I think he sees himself as someone who has sort of isolated all the weak spots in city government, and he knows therefore how to make city government, uh, sort of, you know, a tighter running ship. Speaker 1: 05:31 Did Briggs had some negative publicity connected to his name when there was an, I knew source investigation of his business practices briefly, how did that turn out? Speaker 2: 05:40 The new source? They found some legally and ethically sort of questionable behavior, um, in his, in his business dealings and his legal dealings with his clients. Um, but you know, Bruce has denied all of new sources, findings, uh, the bar, uh, briefly investigated him. They've found no, um, sort of, uh, evidence of, of misconduct. So yeah, no major outcomes from that. Speaker 4: 06:09 Thank you so much for filling us in Joe. Yeah, sure thing. Thanks for having me. We've been speaking with KPBS reporter Joe home.
