Following is the transcript of a question and answer session that the two finalists for San Diego mayor took part in on April 11 at a luncheon co-sponsored by The San Diego Building Owners & Managers Association and San Diego Metropolitan Uptown Examiner & Daily Business Report.

Moderator, San Diego Metropolitan Publisher Gary Shaw: By now you should all know the background of the candidates who ought to be coming up here, so I’ll dispose of the lengthy introductions. One guy is a middle of the road white Republican Phi Beta Kappa runner up ... the other guy is the winner.

Jot down your questions on those index cards and forward them to our lovely assistants. We intend to use many more questions from the audience than we did last year. The candidates will have one minute to answer each question followed by one minute for the other candidate to respond. For opening remarks we will begin with the winner of the coin toss and alternate who responds first to each question. Opening remarks are limited to five minutes each. I didn’t make all this rules. Five minutes enough for you guys?

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Second Semi-Serious BOMA Bulldozer Bill Cleator Memorial Mayoral Debate of the New Millennium, and the first serious debate of the 2000 mayoral runoff campaign. With opening remarks, here's Judge Murphy.

Superior Court Judge Dick Murphy: Good afternoon, I’m happy to be back. I’m sure it was the. BOMA debate in the fall of 1999 that was the reason for my 169-vote landslide victory, thank you very much.

Let me take the first part of my five minutes to briefly review my background, and then let me spend the second half telling you why I’m running for mayor. I grew up in the Midwest. I graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in economics, received an MBA from Harvard University, and then served on active duty as a United States Army officer. In the 1970s I worked for Bank of America, graduated from Stanford Law School, and then worked for the law firm of Luce, Forward Hamilton And Scripps in Downtown San Diego, a firm which at that time represented many of you. In the 1980s I was elected to the San Diego City Council — that was the era in which we built Horton Plaza Downtown and started construction on the Convention Center. In the 1990s I became a superior court judge hearing criminal and civil cases, including a few unlawful retainer trials and now have taken an unpaid leave of absence to run for mayor. In fact, Ted (Kimball, an attorney and BOMA officer) here has appeared in front of me many times. Did I rule for you the majority of the time? My wife and I have been married 30 years, so we’ve lived in San Diego almost all that time. We’ve raised three children who are all in various stages of their college careers, draining my pocketbook.

Now the question that many people have asked during this campaign is: Why would you run for mayor? Why would you give up being a superior court judge for a job like mayor? It pays less, it’s longer hours, it subjects you to substantially more abuse. And the reason is because I think San Diego needs to have a mayor who can provide this town with what I call "Leadership with 20/20 Vision." What do I mean by leadership with 20/20 vision? My belief is that most politicians are near sighted — they can only see as far as the next election. What we need is a mayor who has a vision for San Diego in the year 2020, who has the competence and the courage to implement that vision.

Now let me just briefly review with you three parts of my vision. First and foremost, we need to have a city in which our freeways are not parking lots. Traffic is already out of control and unless we take aggressive action, by the year 2020 our freeways are going to be in gridlock. And we need to move on multiple fronts — we need to build new freeways and mass transit, like State Route 125, a third north/south freeway from the border to North County and by double tracking the Coaster from Oceanside to Downtown San Diego. Secondly, we need to do a much better job of managing rush-hour demand, like encouraging much more strongly carpooling, telecommuting, staggered work hours. And thirdly, we need to control growth and development. We need to do that by primarily by determining where we build but also how much we build.

The second part of my vision is a San Diego in which we have neighborhoods that we can be proud of. I don’t know how many of you actually live in the city of San Diego. We need to have neighborhoods with streets that are paved, parks that don’t have dead grass, libraries that are adequate; more than adequate. We need to do that by spending less money on Charger ticket guarantees and other types of foolish decision making.

The third part of my vision is that we will have a city that is the safest city in America. Not just a lower crime rate, but the lowest crime rate of any city in the United States. That is my primary vision for San Diego. If you want more on my vision, check my Web site at murphy4mayor.com. And if you agree with my vision, then I hope you'll support me for mayor. Thank you very much.

County Supervisor Ron Roberts: Good afternoon. It’s nice to see so many of you here. Gosh it seems like just yesterday when we had what seemed to have been the first debate and the time has flown by. We’ve been very busy to say the least going out to all parts of this community. Let me start out with a little bit of background, just to refresh your minds, because I think there are some significant differences — I think you'll see them not only in our background, I think you'll see them in the positions we take and the way we take those.

I grew up in San Diego. I’ve lived here almost all my life. I went to school here, my family lived in public housing, and I went through the public school system here. I was fortunate enough to be able to get a job in the supermarket to work my way through San Diego State and then went on to another public institution, UC Berkeley. And I’m very proud of my degrees. I have a master's degree from Berkeley in architecture, and I have a bachelor's degree from San Diego State. But I’ll tell you what I’m more proud of. I’m more proud of the fact that I didn’t work at a firm, I owned a firm. I met a payroll and I managed a business. There's a difference, and listen to what I’m saying. Because every one of you who know who have your own business and have to meet a payroll know that it’s a lot different than the philosophies they gave you in school. For me there was a point where we had to put our house on the line to get the credit to make payroll and I’ll tell you there are lessons you don’t learn in school that you learn when you’re running a business and are responsible for a lot of other employees.

I was fortunate enough to meet my wife here and have been married for 35 years. I have three daughters — two of them are here with me today — and they are all highly successful; I’m very proud of them. But it’s also given me a great desire to be able to have the same things happen for other families that have happened for us. To have opportunities here in San Diego. And I think in San Diego things are going in very positive directions. Think of some of the successful companies we have here: Qualcomm, Leap, Alliance Pharmaceutical, General Atomic, SAIC — incredibly successful companies. And it’s probably just a coincidence that the chief executive of every one of those companies supports my candidacy for this position. But things are going good.

We have good schools, we have a lot to be proud of at San Diego, except for local government. There is a crisis for leadership in San Diego and we’ve seen a lot of mistakes made. We’re seeing in the best of economic times that we have a city that has virtually no reserves, that has piled up a huge bill of deferred maintenance, that is the only building Downtown in this city that doesn’t have fire sprinklers in it — the only high rise building after they made the rule — because there isn’t the money to do it. We need to put a strong fiscal foundation under city government in San Diego, and we’ve done that in the county of San Diego.

We need to invest in our local communities, and we’ve done that in the county of San Diego. In fact this year we’ve started five new libraries and we’ve increased library hours by 3,000 hours. We need to help shoulder the traffic congestion on our roads. And we’ve done that in the county of San Diego, in fact we’ve given the city in almost $20 million to stimulate them to get Highway 56 going. We can make all these things happen if we can create brighter opportunities for the kids and the families that are going to grow up here by getting control, by putting a fiscal foundation under the city and by investing in our local communities. As your mayor, I am going to see that program happens. Thank you.

Moderator Shaw: First question to Mr. Roberts — When we last met under similar circumstances it was September 14, 1999 and Peter Q. What’s-His-Name was embarking upon a million dollar name identification campaign. Just in one minute or less, what is the value of an endorsement from Peter Q. What’s-His-Name and have you discussed endorsements with any of the other unsuccessful candidates?

Ron Roberts: There is one endorsement and one endorsement only that’s important and that’s the voters on election day. Peter Q What’s-His-Name or any other "Peter Q" isn’t gonna make a difference in this race. I’ll note my endorsements — and there are people like Irwin Jacobs, there are people like Ted Roth, there are people like Bob Byster at SAIC — that’s a good list — but I also have the only law enforcement endorsements in this race from both the District Attorney's Association and the Deputy Sheriff's Association. And if you look we have labor unions, we have business associations. We have the endorsements, but I’ll still say that the proudest endorsement I have is being No. 1 one in the primary, and we’re working to be No. 1 in the runoff.

Dick Murphy: Well I of course have a different perspective since Peter Q. Davis has endorsed me for election. I think his endorsement is valuable because it presents a person who ran for office who had an independent perspective. Someone who is not a career politician, who stayed on the outside and said "these are the things that need to happen to make San Diego a better place." After having sat through 35 debates at which both Mr. Roberts and I attended, Peter Q. Davis endorsed me as the person he thought was most qualified to be mayor. And I’m proud of that endorsement. And his last name is Davis, D-A-V-I-S.

Moderator Shaw: Should telecommunication companies have the right to mandatory access to privately owned commercial property?

Dick Murphy: The answer to that question is "no." Telecommunications companies should not get mandatory access to your buildings. You own the building, you manage the building. They are like any other tenant that wants to get into your building to make money, and you should be able to pick and choose who those people are. You should keep in mind what is best for your building, you should keep in mind what is best for your tenants, and you ought to be able to pick and choose who those folks are. I oppose legislation to mandate the right of telecommunication companies to enter into your building.

Ron Roberts: Gary I want to thank you for starting with such a red-hot issue in San Diego. I will share with you this is something I am hearing for the first time this morning. I don’t think that government ought to be interfering with private companies, period. There are times when those private companies go outside the bounds and when they are not following the rules as they should be, then I think that government should bring them back, but I don’t think that telecommunications should have a mandatory right to access anyone's building or other property.

Moderator Shaw: Is that your final answer? You still have 20 seconds to go.

Ron Roberts: Then I’ll bank it and I’ll get it as a credit later.

Moderator Shaw: Do you support the city's bubble ordinance which prevents the anti-abortion protesters from blocking access to clinics?

Ron Roberts: Not only do I support that, I was on a City Council that put it in place. The bubble ordinance, for those of you who are not aware, allows a lot of those women who seek services at a clinic to do that without having somebody standing in their way or getting in their face or yelling at them or doing any other things that the people who have a different opinion want to do. I support that, I have supported it, I voted for it on the City Council and I think it’s the least that we can do to ensure that people have the real right to choose.

Dick Murphy: I support the ordinance. Now that I know I can bank the time I’m going to save it.

Moderator Shaw: I’ll be reasonable but I can’t be a banker.

Moderator Shaw: Will there ever be a decision on the central library.

Dick Murphy: Yes, there will be. I’ll tell you what my position is: I support a main library for San Diego. I do not support making that decision now because, for three reasons. One: I’m not sure exactly how much the ballpark is going to cost us — we were told $20 million a year, now maybe $25 million a year — we need to know what the ballpark's gonna cost before we commit to building the main library. Two: I would point out that there is no consensus on what the best site is. And Three: I’m not sure we’re even in agreement on what that main library should be like. I have a daughter who goes to UCLA, another daughter who just graduated from Cal, and they don’t go to the main library at those schools — everything is digitized, they get it all on-line , and so they don’t even need to go into a main library. And I think we need to know that the whole technology of libraries is changing so dramatically, we need to be sure of what we want.

Ron Roberts: Will there ever be a decision on a central library? I think that there will be. Yes. Let me say something along with that. I think that decision should take a very different shape, and this debate needs to take a very different shape than it has up until today. I am willing to commit that San Diego should have the finest library system in the country. And I think we ought to talk about what that system's going to look like. That system ought to have great libraries in every neighborhood (libraries) that have access, that have access, to the books, to the electronic information in a way that they don’t today — and they should have system-wide access. We need to have the finest library system in the nation. And I don’t think, if you look at it from that perspective, that you start by spending $150 or $200 million on some mega-structure dome library downtown . When I get over there, if the concrete's not poured, I will do everything possible to reverse what I see the City Council doing today.

Moderator Shaw: Judge Murphy, during the primary campaign, it was difficult to distinguish opponents of the downtown ballpark from your so-called support of the ballpark. Can you reassure San Diegans that if elected you will fully and vigorously help execute the city of San Diego’s obligations under it’s agreement with the Padres, other developers, CCDC, bond underwriters and bond holders?

Dick Murphy: I will do that. My position has always been that I support the ballpark for the Padres. I do not think that the ballpark is being implemented in the most fiscally prudent and the most environmentally sensitive way. I think there is inadequate parking — 2,300 parking places for 46,000 fans is not enough in my opinion. The traffic problems have not been adequately addressed and I’m concerned that the city still has not put a cap on it’s exposure in land acquisition costs. By the time I’m mayor, that ballpark is going to be far enough along that my obligation is to see that it gets built and gets built in a way that protects taxpayers of San Diego.

Ron Roberts: First and foremost I support the redevelopment of Downtown. I’ve been involved with the redevelopment of Downtown for a long time. We live very close to Downtown — less than two miles from Fifth and Broadway. We’ve been very involved Downtown, and I support it. I supported Horton Plaza as a redevelopment project. The ballpark is a part, is a piece, is a fundamental piece of the redevelopment project. I want to see that entire project with that whole eastern edge of Downtown transformed and I think we have a great vehicle for doing it, we have people with capital who will invest, and I think that we can do just as much for that half of downtown as we can for the original redevelopment of Downtown and we can transform that area in a major way where it makes financial sense. There ought to be a limit — hard fast and very clear — to what the city's obligations are and we shouldn't go one penny beyond that.

Moderator Shaw: New York and Los Angeles are currently suffering from police-related scandals, San Diego has a DA related scandal and a judicial one too. What will you do as mayor to prevent future law enforcement scandals in San Diego and ensure integrity in law enforcement?

Ron Roberts: There's a problem in the DA's office and within the courts. First of all, the DA is an elected official, and the DA is accountable for his office. I think that Paul Pfingst is taking care of things that he inherited and things that have occurred (since) and I don’t think it’s up to the mayor to interfere with the function of that office. For the judges — I think we ought to keep all the judges on the bench — I think that the courts are dealing with that issue. We’ve got a couple judges who are on the front pages of the paper today who are going to be sentenced, ought to be sentenced. For the most part I think we have a great judiciary here, and there are judges I work with on a daily basis who contribute so much and do so much beyond their 9-5 jobs in the courtroom. I think that it is a matter of reforming the courts. I think the people can handle the negative situation that has occurred. We shouldn't compare ourselves to L.A. L.A. is taking probably over $400 million worth of tobacco money and using it to settle up their lawsuits. We are putting out money into health care where it belongs.

Dick Murphy: First of all with regard to the judges, of course I have nothing to do with the three who got themselves into trouble and I, of course, have also been on a leave of absence for a year so I can’t do much about it. As for the district attorney, they are a function of county government. I don’t hold Mr. Roberts responsible for any scandals in the district attorney's office, and I think it is the district attorney who has to take care of that. With regard to the police department, all we can do is hire the best police officers, hire the best police chief, and make sure that they understand that what we want first and foremost is honesty and fairness in the police department, and to send that message as loud and clear as we can.

Moderator Shaw: Mr. Roberts, your efforts to persuade the oil companies to reduce gasoline prices in San Diego have not been very successful. This is an area where many people presume a county supervisor or a city mayor cannot be very influential. Is subsidizing Don Quixote a proper tax-payer expense.

Ron Roberts: Just this week prices came down 2 cents so I don’t know if you can say we weren’t successful. The fact of the matter is that the oil companies in the state of California are not competitive. There is no competition in the state of California. When the oil companies in California can have a different wholesale price for every gas station on every corner of the city, then something is seriously wrong. And the fact that they are the largest lobbying group in the state of California, the most effective lobbying group at the state level, should tell you why something can’t happen on the state level. As mayor, I intend, whenever I see an injustice like this, to do something about it, to speak out, and to see how we can change it. They are costing this community over $100 million per year. I think that the type of mayor I'd like to be would be not to be quiet and wait for something to happen to someone else, but rather get it started here in San Diego.

Dick Murphy: I disagree with the divorcement legislation that the County Board of Supervisors passed. I think it’s bad legally, I think it’s bad economically, I think it’s bad philosophically. Legally, it exposes the county to huge damages for interfering with interstate commerce. Economically divorcement hasn't really worked in other areas of the United States; has not reduced gas prices. And thirdly I just have a philosophical disagreement with government attempting to interfere. The question is, gas prices today, what’s the next group who will be the target for interference by government?

Moderator Shaw: Gentlemen, will you do everything reasonable to assure that Peter Hall's employment agreement is renewed and that the budget for the Centre City Development Corp. is properly funded?

Dick Murphy: I support CCDC. I was of course a member of the City Council when CCDC was really beginning to take leadership roles in San Diego during the time that Pete Wilson was mayor. I think CCDC has done a generally good job. I support their budget, I support Peter Hall continuing on. Are you a close friend of his?

Moderator Shaw: I just read (the questions).

Ron Roberts: The fact of the matter is, I don’t think the city of San Diego is very well run today, and I won’t commit on Peter Hall or anyone at the city right now — we are going to have reviews like we are doing at the county, and there are going to be people who are currently working there who aren’t going to be working there, I will guarantee that. People who have just slid along for a long time. The budget of CCDC is an important part of Downtown. I am committed to the redevelopment of Downtown. That doesn’t mean that the people who are there have to be the people that do it, or as to Peter Hall and anyone else know, I am not committing to him, but I am committing to a program of redeveloping Downtown.

Moderator Shaw: What is your position on the current janitorial strike and how would you respond if San Diego was experiencing more aggressive behavior such as in Los Angles.

Ron Roberts: I think the janitorial strike is something that is symptomatic of some problems that we have to confront here in our community. On the Board of Supervisors we’re going through the same thing. Because in fact we have janitors who don’t have health care benefits. I think that we’ve seen an incredible, successful economy, and I think for a city like San Diego with 625,000 uninsured workers, and their families, that we’ve got to come to grips with something. And I think that people who work for a full week if they're going to have careers in these industries we ought to be able to figure a way to have health care coverage for them at the very least. So I think we have a problem we need to work on. I think we shouldn't turn our backs, and I think if the solution from this industry or any other industry is to ignore it, and hire other people who will work, I don’t think we’re going to get the solution we ought to have for the long term.

Dick Murphy: I think the role of the mayor is to remain neutral in disputes between labor unions and private business. I think we ought to just stay out of the way. As a judge and someone who's been involved in hundreds of settlement conferences, if the labor dispute were significant enough I would be willing to use the office of the mayor to help mediate that dispute, and I don’t think you can mediate a dispute unless people on both sides think that you’re truly neutral. That's where I think the mayor should be.

Moderator Shaw: You already answered this question at the last debate and the answer was no. Do either of you speak Spanish, if not no, why, and do you plan to learn?

Dick Murphy: Well I did say no. I did have two years of high school Spanish so my vocabulary probably includes 10 words. I think it would be very helpful to be fluent in Spanish and be mayor of San Diego, but I think that for the next seven months I’ll be pretty much preoccupied with the campaign and once I become mayor am not really sure I’ll have time to study sufficiently to be truly fluent.

Ron Roberts: Si. That's it. I don’t speak Spanish (except) in a very, very limited way. I took some Spanish in school and living in this community you can’t help but pick up a little bit of Spanish, and I would hope that there would be a day that I would be proficient enough that I wouldn't embarrass everyone, even myself.

Moderator Shaw: All right gentlemen, I don’t know how you’re going to handle this one in one minute. Ron, Ready, set: What are you gonna do about the airport?

Ron Roberts: Nobody in public office today has worked longer and harder on this. There was a solution that I felt was the very best solution in the early 90s, that isn’t available to us. I’ve learned that this is not an issue that by meeting here you can appoint a site and have it automatically happen. In fact, based on my other experiences, I'd say what we have to do is we have to buy into a process, a process that is going to guarantee that out of that will come the best solution. The best solution. There is no perfect solution. As the mayor, I intend to start that process, I intend to see in through, and I intend to have, for this community, selected the best location and actually implement the plan so that we see this done within the next decade.

Dick Murphy: I think we need to do two things. First of all, we need to create the San Diego County Airport Authority, which will have responsibility for selecting a site, securing a site and attempting to allocate air traffic between airports. After looking at this issue for the last year, my personal belief is that the most feasible airport site is at Camp Pendleton. It would be using 3,000 or 4,000 acres of Camp Pendleton's 120,000 acres. I would call it Southern California International Airport. It would be joint venture between the county of San Diego and county of Orange. It would primarily deal with transcontinental and international flights. Lindbergh would continue to be the short haul carrier for Las Vegas, San Francisco, Phoenix.

Moderator Shaw: Regarding the airport, can you elaborate?

Dick Murphy: If I'd known about that, I would have broken (my answer) into two parts. First of all my belief in the Airport Authority is that we would be better off having people appointed to that authority, who would have the independence to make a decision that is best for all of San Diego. I'd like to think that there are people like you who would be willing to be on that Airport Authority. That authority should be given a deadline, and say either find a site for us that’s other than Lindbergh, or we’re going to have to proceed with attempting to expand Lindbergh Field. Now I think that that is the only prudent way that we can go forward. And I think that we need to make that decision about what we’re going to do about an airport during my first term as mayor.

Ron Roberts: I should share with you that for almost two years I’ve met with county supervisors in Orange County and I can tell you more about Camp Pendleton as a solution than anybody sitting up here today. I’ve met with other elected officials, lawyers in Orange County, and I’ve met with elected politicians in San Diego, and as much as I know about that I’m not willing to say that that’s the site where we ought to go. We ought to start by recognizing that Lindbergh has a very limited life span. No matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars we want to put into it, Lindbergh field is not the airport of the future for San Diego. It’s going to be an amazing constraint on our economy, it’s going to hold us back and companies that are here. It’s going to keep us from growing new companies that we want. It’s going to put a constraint on opportunity. We need to have an option. But I don’t think we’ll get there by a mayor looking at a study here and a study there and all of a sudden deciding "I know the answer to this question." We’ve got a lot of work to do, and we’re going to involve a lot of people in getting there, and that is precisely the process that I intend to oversee.

Moderator Shaw: Gentlemen, if local government has a duty to revive inner cities, why has the county of San Diego moved more employees to Kearny Mesa in the last 10 years than it has retained in Downtown San Diego? Do you favor relocating Downtown to Kearny Mesa because it is more centrally located to San Diego’s northern suburban sprawl?

Ron Roberts: I think part of the problem with your question is that you look at this, you see Downtown as the center of this universe and the fact of the matter is the world works quite different from that today. At the county we are investing in a big way in Downtown. We’ve just invested more in our County Administration Building than the city probably has over the last couple of decades. If we had high rises we'd have sprinklers and we have all those things done. What we’ve done is we’ve put that property back into great shape and we are talking about building additional office space Downtown and leasing additional office space Downtown. And it just so happens on behalf of all the taxpayers of this county, we own property in Kearny Mesa, where we can house and we can use an effective way to save tax dollars and use that additional money for employees. That is not something we should be criticizing. That's the type of thinking we should be encouraging. We’ve been there, we’ve done it, and it doesn’t mean we’re turning our backs on Downtown. We’re going to have a far healthier presence Downtown than the county has ever had and I’ll remind you that the courthouse and the new jails have been built and the office buildings that we’re going to be involved with.

Dick Murphy: If I wanted to move San Diego county employees from Kearny Mesa to Downtown I'd have to run for the board of supervisors and I don’t want to do that.

Moderator Shaw: What are your plans with dealing with our future population growth? How do we avoid becoming L.A.?

Dick Murphy: That's a 60-second question, too? The projections are that we’re going to have maybe as many as one million additional people by the year 2020. It is indeed the most critical problem we face. I talked earlier what I propose to do about the traffic problems that we’re generating. We do have to embrace some sort of smart-growth solution to address the housing needs of those people. We do have to increase density Downtown, Mission Valley, transportation corridors, developed areas in the city that are willing to accept additional density. I’m not sure that we’re going to be able to accommodate all of those people through smart growth, but I think it is at least something that we have to move forward as much as possible.

Ron Roberts: I think that we have an opportunity unlike any other city in this country. Every city is wrestling with this, but I think we have opportunity to solve this. I think that we have every opportunity — and it’s not just about Downtown. Downtown, when it’s all developed, is only going to hold a small number of people in compared with almost one million people who may be here 20 years from now. And as I look around the community, I see things happening that are very positive. As you drove in from La Jolla Village today if you came in from Highway 5 as I did, you saw some very high density housing that’s going in there and that’s part of this urban village, and it’s going to be an important part. I think that in some of the older areas of the city we can show people hot not to just add families, but how to build better communities. We don’t have to go with what was done in the 70s and early 80s, you can do it different. I’m very proud of the Uptown District in the Hillcrest area that we built when I was on the City Council, that is a model for this entire nation as to what smart growth should be. We need more examples of that so that communities will start to understand what we are talking about and work with us to create the housing opportunities that we are going need if we are going to succeed as a community.

Moderator Shaw: Gentlemen, how can you reduce government fees applied to new home builders which are passed onto new home buyers when most of those fees legitimately pay for new roads, utilities parks, and libraries.

Ron Roberts: Again, look at what we have done. At the county we have reduced building department fees 30 percent. We’ve also shortened the time. The city of San Diego today has a process called Process 2000 that is total chaos. It doesn’t add any value to the community, and it increases the length of time it takes to get permits, and it increases the cost. We have to ask ourselves a fundamental question and that is "if what we’re doing is not adding value, then change it. Get rid of it. Get rid of these people who think that they have to run these bureaucracies and force the change." That's exactly what makes it happen in the city of San Diego. There is a way to doing this, and it doesn’t involve library fees or road fees or any other fee, it gets waste out of the system, and at the city of San Diego that waste is rampant right now.

Dick Murphy: I think the direct answer to your question right now is I would be reluctant to reduce building fees if it’s going to compromise our ability to provide adequate infrastructure for the city.

Moderator Shaw: Hey guys, who is a better mayor and why: Maureen O'Connor or Susan Golding?

Dick Murphy: Gee, I’m not sure I really want to answer that. I think if you look at their administrations, Susan Golding has accomplished a number of things that are beneficial to the city. The creation of the multiple species conservation program is very positive, the economy of San Diego has been very positive, and I think that as history looks back on those two mayors, I don’t think they'll be critical of Maureen, but I think that they might say that Susan Golding accomplished a few more things.

Ron Roberts: Someday I hope to be a moderator who could ask questions like "Who do you think's better the Daily Transcript or the Metropolitan?"

Moderator Shaw: Do I get a minute?

Ron Roberts: I know what your answer would be. But let me tell you, because the question isn’t too dissimilar in that and the fact of the matter is: two different people, two different environments, two different sets of challenges. With Maureen O'Connor as mayor of San Diego, we had just come through a very scandalous time, and I won’t go into that. We had a city councilman who was removed because he abused his office, we had a mayor who was removed from office. I think what Maureen O'Connor did was to restore to a large degree public trust in local elected officials, and for that she should be given credit. Susan Golding came in with a series of other issues to deal with, and I think in her first term she did largely a good job, and I’m not going to comment on the second term.

Moderator Shaw: Gentlemen, you may now offer your closing statements please, and you are limited now to two minutes.

Ron Roberts: I can’t believe the hour's gone by so fast. With the advent of the primary election in March it gives a lot of time between then and November, so we’ve got a long way to go. I feel blessed that the voters on election day made a very, very clear decision to send me into the runoff and we’re not going to sit back, we’re not going to take that for granted. We’re going to take my program that I have stated constantly and let's redesign city government. Let's put city government to work for us. And let's not make it Downtown vs. the neighborhoods, but let's make it Downtown and the neighborhoods. I think that we can put a strong financial foundation under city government. It’s not too dissimilar to the time when I was elected to the Board of Supervisors. The county was in very, very bad shape. Today the county has never been in better shape. When we talk about things like MSCP, of course the Board of Supervisors was also very involved in pulling that off — trust me, that wasn’t the mayor that did that single-handedly. The difference is that the county has money to implement the program today where the city doesn’t. While the city doesn’t have money to repair it’s fire stations, or to repair or keep open libraries, or to have the basic street repairs, or the sewer repairs. A $3 million repair that should have been done three or four years ago that’s waited caused one of the most major spills of sewage into our bay that we’ve ever seen just a few weeks ago. We need to turn us around — we need to start with a strong fiscal foundation and build. That's what I intend to do with you as your mayor. I’m offering you not just vision, but vision with experience, and there's a difference.

Dick Murphy: When we started I told you that I was running for mayor to provide San Diego leadership with 2020 vision. Let me explain to you why I think I can provide that. First, I have done it before. Look at my history as a member of the San Diego City Council. I was there during the controversial days of starting Downtown redevelopment in Horton Plaza. And today 15 years later, Downtown redevelopment's a reality. Secondly, I was the chair of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board when we decided to build an East Line of the San Diego trolley, which was the beginning of the San Diego trolley system. Again, a controversial project that we carried to fruition that has resulted in our trolley system today. And finally, as the chair of the Mission Trails Regional Park task force, I was one of the creators and founders of Mission Trails Park, which is today, at 6,000 acres, San Diego’s biggest park and open space preserve and a legacy to future generations. Second reason why I think I can provide that kind of long range vision is because I have the freedom to do so. I am not a career politician. If I am elected mayor, I do not intend to run for anything else, and so I believe that I have the freedom to do what’s right, regardless of the vote in six months. Thank you.

Moderator Shaw: Ladies and gentlemen, I said it last time, and I will reiterate. We are very fortunate to have two very well-qualified candidates running for mayor. This was not the case four years ago and this was not the case eight years ago. If you can make a decision prior to the November election on which candidate you prefer, please help him campaign. Because the more you participate, the better the process will be. Thank you very much for being here.