Heather Ferbert's goals as San Diego City Attorney

S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman today , the new San Diego city attorney , Heather Furber , joins us with her vision for the city. This is KPBS Midday Edition connecting our communities through conversation. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. Heather Herbert was recently sworn into office as San Diego's city attorney. For the last 11 years , Ferber has been a deputy city attorney , and before that , she was an attorney for a private law firm representing the San Diego Housing Commission. Well , last week we sat down to talk about her plans as she takes on the new role of city attorney. I began by asking her to tell me more about that role beyond representing the city in court ? Absolutely.

S2: The city Attorney's office is really exciting. We actually have three main roles , but we do a lot in those roles. We prosecute misdemeanors that occur within the city of San Diego. Those are usually , um , lower level crimes that are punished through up to a year in jail or a fine of up to $1,000. It's really important to keeping our community safe , and it helps us be responsive to things that are happening in our neighborhoods , throughout the city. And then on the civil side of things , we defend the city in lawsuits , and those vary from trip and falls on sidewalks to property disputes to , um , even some of the development cases we end up with. And then we're also providing legal advice to the city , which includes the mayor and the city council , but also every department that is out there working to get things done in our community. We're helping them navigate changes in state and federal law. We are helping them with their contracts and anything else that comes up. Wow.

S1: Wow. And you have an extensive background in housing and homelessness work.

S2: I think that there's a lot we can do. One of the things I talked about a lot on the campaign trail was a housing protection unit , and focusing on making sure people who own residential properties are using them for housing. For example , the one I talk about the most is accessory dwelling units being used for short term rental , uh , short term rental properties. That isn't legal under state law or our city's laws. And when people build accessory dwelling units , they get a lot of benefits from the city to reduce the fees they're paying to kind of incentivize that , that growth and that building. And so if people are getting benefits , I think they should be also complying with the laws.

S1: And the City Attorney's office is currently drafting an ordinance to ban the use of like AI devices to set rents.

S2: I that is interesting because the issue is allowing the use of technology to engage in activity that is already illegal. So it's not legal for somebody to engage in price fixing. Right ? Like go to three gas stations on a corner , can't all collude and say , we're all going to set gas at $5 a gallon or $7 a gallon , uh , and , and have an agreement. So the concept is to take the same principles and say the three gas station owners , for example , or the landlords can't use technology to allow them to set that price together to. And I think the intent is to draft it very narrowly , to not capture legal activities , like having software programs that just gather data from the internet that's publicly available or , um , software that helps them manage units. It really is targeting that collusion effort that's already unlawful under state and federal antitrust law. Wow.

S1: Wow.

S2: There was a lawsuit filed by the current attorney general. Uh , yeah. The current attorney general that cited reports here in San Diego and identify that , you know , we have that situation going on here.

S1: I want to go back to the issue of homelessness. You were involved in the legal analysis for the city's unsafe camping ordinance.

S2: Uh , it was adopted before the Supreme Court weighed in on the Grants Pass case that I think a lot of people are familiar with that discussed Eighth Amendment protections , uh , as they apply to , um , people who have resorted to the street. And at this point in time , the camping ban , I think , is , you know , on the same grounds as it was before and maybe even a little bit stronger with the decision by the Supreme Court. Um , so at this point , you know , I understand the city is going to keep using that as one of many tools to address encampments. And we even saw why the encampment ban can be really important with respect to the fire that broke out earlier this year , earlier this fall. So having having local government have the tools to make sure encampments , if they are going to build up , build up in areas that are less dangerous , or the ability to say , this place is too dangerous for anybody to live , it's a danger to the individuals in the encampment as well as the the greater community at large , is an important tool , um , how that gets enforced and the next steps with it really is going to be up to the mayor and the police department. But at this point , you know , we'll be ready and prepared if there is a challenge brought in the future. Uh , but I'm not aware of one , uh , to date.

S1: You've also said you want to create a focus on teen dating violence in the Family Justice Center. Why is that an issue for you.

S2: Our office has two roles in the several roles , but two that I see can interconnected with respect to teen dating violence. We operate Your Safe Place , which is a family justice center that serves survivors of domestic violence and trafficking , elder abuse , and other types of abuse. We also prosecute domestic violence. When I started running , I was really surprised to learn that some domestic violence is prosecuted as misdemeanors. And it it seemed to me to be a logical place to start educating our teenagers about healthy relationships so they understand if a relationship isn't healthy and how to get help if they are in that situation in the hopes of stopping the cycle of abuse , so that hopefully our criminal or criminal division , our prosecutors never see anybody involved in domestic violence , um , that we can start , you know , stopping the cycles. And hopefully we're not going to be prosecuting those same people because they've learned , you know , this isn't a healthy way to deal with a problem in a relationship , or I'm in a bad situation and I need to get some help and get that help early. I think that education is a key component of diverting people away from the criminal justice system , and it's a good place to start addressing that those issues early. Sometimes it's stuff that they've witnessed or learned through their life experiences or seen in social media or on the TV. And I think it's really important to tackle , and it's personally important to me. I have a teenager at home and just watching her navigate the world and social media and everything else that's out there , you know , really opened my eyes to what I think a lot of our teens are going through. Mhm.

S3: Mhm.

S1: And you were endorsed by outgoing city attorney Mara Elliott , which , you know , much of her term was focused on the use of gun violence restraining orders and the use of red flag laws , which gained national attention.

S2: I have every intention to continue to grow and expand that program. Tools like gun violence , restraining orders are only as good as people knowing that they exist so they can seek them when they hear about something. So one of the goals I have is to make sure that their community outreach is there , to make sure people understand that tool exists for them in case they hear something from a friend , a loved one , um , a neighbor , an acquaintance , wherever it may be that they then can reach out to law enforcement and and identify concerns to hopefully save even more lives and continue to protect our community.

S1:

S2: Um , I am a land use lawyer and a housing lawyer. A property lawyer by practice. It's what I've spent my career on , so I'm really excited to dig into those spaces. You know , in my opinion , those are two of the biggest issues facing our community , facing our state. So , uh , I think that there's a lot of opportunities to work not just with the , uh , mayor and council administration , but also internally in the city attorney's office to start addressing those issues. And , you know , those are issues that are so big and they're so complicated that I think any progress chipping away at it one piece at a time is really the way to go. And if we all work together , we can start to make real change.

S1: I also want to talk about 101 Ash Street , uh , a skyscraper the city attempted to acquire that really turned out to to mostly be unusable. The last time we saw a transition between city attorneys , Jan Goldsmith was handing over much of the legal work on 101 Ash Street.

S2: With 2020 hindsight , you know , what could have been done or what should have been done. I think that my understanding is when Mara took office , that deal was baked , signed , packaged. And there comes a point when transactions that are decisions that are made by our council , our mayor , are no longer really within our purview to say no to unless they are truly illegal. So depending on what facts were known at the time , in my understanding is we uncovered a lot after the fact , after that was executed and after the city tried to move into it. Uh , I don't know that anything could have changed the trajectory. That said , I do think my housing , my property background going forward is going to be really important as the city continues to pursue and evaluate properties for , um , homeless shelters for , um , I know that there's been talk about new city hall off and on. So as the city is interested in procuring or purchasing new properties , the background in those property transactions , I think is only going to be helpful. I do think how this office handled the Kettner and Vine purchase and sale proposal , and providing public written information about the legal risks and concerns is an appropriate path forward , one I intend to model as well. There comes a point on multigenerational transactions that the city undertakes where I believe the public should be informed , along with the decision makers. So there. So I think it's fair to expect that if those transactions come through our office , this office going forward.

S1: Still to come , City Attorney Ferber talks about how she'll balance San Diego's legal needs with those of the people.

S2: The city as a whole is the client , and that includes all of the people who live here. We are always looking out for the interest of of that entirety and not just one piece of it.

S1: More on that when KPBS Midday Edition returns. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. Heather Herbert is San Diego's new city attorney. She says her priorities include addressing housing and homelessness. Last week , I sat down with Ferber to hear how she plans to do that. In this part of our conversation , I asked about her goals to crack down on fraud and protect taxpayers. Yeah.

S2: Yeah. So on taxpayer protection , there are instances where the city enters into a contract with a contractor , and maybe that contractor doesn't perform what they're supposed to or has engaged in. The technical term is self-dealing , where they make the deal sweeter for themselves. We had that happen with a couple of properties the Housing Commission purchased and the broker , uh , had bought stock in the seller of the property , realizing , oh , this is going to be a great deal. And , uh , now I'm now made themselves interested in the transaction , which doesn't serve the the public good , the taxpayers interests. So that work really is continuing to keep an eye on these transactions , making sure self-dealing is reported , called out and that we are taking a hard stance on those , uh , we , the city attorney's office and the Housing Commission successfully Recovered. I believe it was in excess of $2 million from that broker. Uh , with respect to those properties. And so it's continuing to just be vigilant and about what contracts are being signed , the performance of those contracts and ensuring that everybody is living up to the promises that they made when they made those commitments.

S1: Well , I want to talk more about your approach to this role.

S2: And so it's keeping a critical eye on what's going on , making sure that we are diligently monitoring and reviewing everything that comes forward and having that healthy push and pull. I think it's really important and it makes for better decisions overall. When the city's attorney's , the city Attorney's office provides legal advice that candidly says there are legal risks with this. That's you know , we talked a little about unsafe camping earlier. When I approached that project. There were a lot of legal unknowns , and we explained those all in a written memo that I felt helped lay out exactly the options that this office felt the city could take without undertaking an extreme risk or producing something that was illegal , and then provided support to let the decision makers in that instance , the city council and the mayor mayor's proposal , navigate those legal options and decide what they felt was best for the city , and so that independence is important to to maintain that distance and say , here's , you know , I sometimes joke it's like the sandbox , here's the legal sandbox that you can play in to address this one issue. And there's lots of options. There's lots of ways to do this. And we'll tell them these are the most risky. These are the least risky. The public doesn't see this happening because attorney client relationships are typically confidential even with the city attorney. And so a lot of these conversations happen outside of the public eye , and they're getting legal support. So we don't talk about them a lot. But I think sometimes things happen like unsafe camping , where those conversations sort of get memorialized into a memo that that explains here is here's the state of the law , where it is today , and here's the decisions there that you know , you're undertaking and what we think about it and go forth and make the decision that they feel is best for the city , that's their decision to make , too. So I think that independence is important in that sense to really Outline the role of the office. The role of the office is legal adviser. It's not decision maker. So ultimately the decisions are with the decision makers who our community elected to be those decision makers , the mayor , the city council. Um , and you know , once in a while those play out very publicly and it gets messy. But most of the time we're just all doing the work together to try and move the city forward.

S1: And talk a bit more about that , because , you know , while you're the city's chief legal counsel , how will you serve the general public ? By actually holding the city accountable ? In some cases.

S2: That's where it gets into being vigilant about the contracts , being vigilant about the decisions that are being made and making sure everybody knows what those decisions are and sometimes why you see our legal advice or our legal concerns be aired at like a public meeting , like a city council meeting , because I get especially on , you know , deals and Transactions that are going to impact the city for generations , like a purchase of a massive property. Those really ought to be handled in a public setting , I believe , so that the public knows what everybody is agreeing to and deciding and what risks they're willing to take , and then they all get to decide. The voters all get to decide in the future how they feel about that the next time their elected officials are up for reelection to including me. So that's where I feel like that independence , that transparency and and looking out for the taxpayers happens. The other thing is , every time we're reviewing something , we're looking at it a lens from the city as a whole. The city as a whole is the client , right ? The city , we call it the city of the municipal corporation , and that includes all of the people who live here. So we are always looking out for the interests of of that entirety and not just one piece of it , not just one department , not just one elected official. It's the city as a whole. Is this decision furthering the goals of the city as a whole. What's in the best interest of the city as a whole ? And when we defend lawsuits , we're doing it on behalf of the city and making sure that those taxpayer dollars aren't , um , being spent on frivolous settlements. We're trying to get those costs down to protect the public dollars at the end of the day , and really vigorously defending those cases to ensure those taxpayer dollars can be spent on things like streetlights and potholes instead of lawsuit settlements and attorney's fees. Hmm.

S3: Hmm.

S1:

S2: I had no , uh , trajectory. It wasn't like I was , you know , the kid in high school who had this plan. But I realized a few years ago as , um , as city attorney Mark Elliott was entering her second term , that it was , uh , really nice to have the continuity , the stability of having a candidate and a new city attorney who understood the role of the office , understood the office , the work we do and why it is so incredibly important. And I that's when I started thinking about it. And maybe a year or two later I decided to jump in.

S1: That was my conversation with Heather Ferber , a newly elected San Diego city attorney. And that's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.