Candidate for
Council Member; City of San Diego; District 2

A fifth-generation San Diegan raised in Point Loma, Tim Rutherford has spent his career helping the less fortunate. He is a father of six and an active community member who has the economic and legal experience needed to restore our city's finances and bring values back to City Hall.

Tim graduated from Stanford University in 1975 with an honors degree in economics. In 1978, he graduated from Stanford Law School and returned to San Diego to serve the community as a County public defender, focusing on death-penalty cases. Tim left the public defender's office and joined a private law practice where he tried civil cases and continued assisting the less fortunate by providing free legal services for those who deserved an attorney but could not afford one. Many of his cases included defending first amendment rights and individual freedoms.

He has served as a Judge Pro Tempore for the County of San Diego, an arbitrator for the Superior Court and on the faculty of the Trial Lawyers College. In addition, Tim has taught economics at Stanford University and law at the University of San Diego (USD) Law School. At USD Law School, he undertook advanced studies in the tax system, including pensions, deferred compensation, employee-benefits, municipal borrowing, corporate reorganizations, cancellation of indebtedness by reducing or renegotiating debt, restrictions on operating losses, restructuring debt, bankruptcy, penalties for officers, directors, and other individuals, and the civil and criminal aspects of tax fraud.

Since 2002, Tim has served as Vice President and General Counsel for Episcopal Community Services (ECS), a non-profit, multi-cultural organization serving people in poverty and addressing homelessness, unemployment, addiction, mental illness, domestic violence and children's care and education. At ECS, he is working to solve community problems and poverty through faith-based social services.

With an honors degree in economics and experience running a business, Tim knows how to read a budget, balance books and make payroll. At ECS, he is confronted daily with limited funds and tough choices on how best to serve those most in need. His decisions have helped ECS become one of the leading faith-based social service agencies in San Diego, and assisted the organization with meeting its government contract and audit requirements.

Tim has been active in many community organizations and schools including the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Peninsula and Mission Valley YMCA, Point Loma Little League, Peninsula Soccer and Softball Leagues, Sunset View Elementary, Warren-Walker School, and The Bishop's School.

Tim and his wife, Bertha Bustamante Rutherford, live in Point Loma. They have six children. Their eldest child, Lezlie (Paros), 31, is disabled due to a head injury. Ryan (Paros), 29, is a financial analyst for Sempra Solutions, which provides energy-management services to commercial and industrial businesses, and Christopher, 25, is an English teacher at Harvard-Westlake School LA (in Los Angeles), which ranks among the top ten high schools in the country in number of National Merit Semifinalists. Abigail, 23, works as a paralegal at Winston & Strawn, the prestigious law firm that a recent survey found has the highest number of minority partners and was honored by the New York Urban League with a 2005 "Champions of Diversity" award. Austin, 15, is a sophomore at Bishop's School, which provides an academic community pursuing excellence in the Episcopal tradition, and Baylor, 10, is in 5th grade at Warren-Walker school, which was established in 1932 by San Diego school teacher Nellie Warren-Walker.