Bart Miesfeld was leading in the three-way race to become the next city attorney of Chula Vista, San Diego County’s second-largest city, early results showed Tuesday.
Marco Verdugo was narrowly trailing Miesfeld and Dan Smith Diaz was in last place.
Miesfeld was the city’s last appointed city attorney from 2008 to 2010 after first joining the City Attorney’s Office in 1998 as a deputy. He is a lawyer in private practice. Verdugo is a deputy city attorney with a private firm that represents the cities of Coronado and Solana Beach. He previously served the same role for the city of San Diego. Smith Diaz runs a criminal defense law firm in downtown Chula Vista. He started his law career as a federal public defender and also owned a pedicab company.
If no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast, a runoff will take place on March 5.
Whoever wins serves through December 2026 and replaces acting city attorney Jill Maland, a lawyer with an outside firm the city hired in February to fill the position until voters elected a new city attorney.
Simon Silva, a former Chula Vista deputy city attorney, died before he could take office. The Democrat was the top vote-getter in the June 2022 primary and was set to face off against Republican Smith Diaz, but Silva died in September of that year after a lengthy battle with cancer. His name remained on the ballot due to election codes and he won with controversial support from the San Diego County Democratic Party.
The circumstances triggered the special election, which is costing taxpayers about $1.4 million.
Miesfeld said the sudden death of Silva, whom he hired when he first joined the city, and the several staffing changes that followed in the City Attorney’s Office, prompted him to run for office. His first order of business, he said, would be “to restore a sense of stability.” The Democrat earned endorsements from former City Attorney Glen Googins, former Mayor Mary Salas and Sen. Steve Padilla, a former mayor and council member. Googins had been serving as Chula Vista’s city attorney since 2010,but was barred by term limits from running again. He is now city attorney for Santa Clara in Silicon Valley.
Smith Diaz said Chula Vista needs a city attorney who can ask common sense questions, and that he can do so to guide city officials when making decisions about the future of Harborside Park, homelessness, residential developments and public safety. The county Republican Party endorsed him.
Verdugo said he wants to preserve Chula Vista as a safe and affordable place to live. He said he would prevent wasteful city spending and advise officials on how to better address homelessness, as well as strengthen the city’s use of the red flag law, which prevents people from obtaining a gun if they show signs of being a threat to themselves or others. He received endorsements from the county Democratic Party.
