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The editorial board endorses Heather Ferbert for city attorney. She is much better-qualified and more likely to be an independent voice in a city government in perpetual need of such voices.

Elliott said Wednesday that she was endorsing Ferbert to succeed her because of her experience and the issues Ferbert would prioritize.

San Diego’s independent, elected city attorney has worked to protect the city’s finances and the public interest for nearly a century. Yet now, some city councilmembers want to strip voters of their power to elect San Diego’s chief legal advisor and eliminate the independence essential to the office’s mission of protecting taxpayers and putting residents first.

“The City Council and the voters insisted on deep legal experience for this position because there’s so much on the line — 20,000 criminal prosecutors and 200 civil lawsuits a year, plus hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars at stake in every decision,” he said. “The last time Maienschein practiced law it was literally the last century.”

As accomplishments in office, Ferbert touts two pandemic era policies: writing the temporary eviction moratorium enacted when Covid-19 hit, and working on the shelter-to-home program at the Convention Center that the city snapped into at the time.