San Diego — San Diego's first openly gay city councilwoman, Democrat Christine Kehoe, is pondering whether to run for Congress next year against GOP incumbent Brian Bilbray, and she's already hired the polling firm of Evans-McDonough to test the waters. At least one Coronado resident reports getting a call this week from the Berkeley-based pollster, which is asking voters' opinions on everything from Kehoe's gayness to her never-say-die support for the Chargers' stadium deal and its 60,000-seat ticket guarantee. A spokeswoman for Evans-McDonough confirms that the company is working for Kehoe, who so far has shaped up as the only serious candidate to consider running against Bilbray, who won by just 53 percent of the vote in 1996. Roll Call, a Washington weekly that covers Capitol Hill, reported two weeks ago that San Diego lawyer Paul Kennerson, whom the paper erroneously called a "La Jolla city councilman," was also thinking of making a bid, but Kennerson says he's now leaning against making a bid. Meanwhile, the woman who lost the seat to Bilbray in 1994, Democrat Lynn Schenk, has scotched a rumor reported by a national banking newsletter that she's in line for appointment by President Bill Clinton to the chairmanship of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, replacing current chairwoman Ricki Helfer. Schenk says she's fully committed to the upcoming race for state attorney general.

The art of spending

San Diego City Manager Jack McGrory has gone on to what he says are greener pastures in the private sector, but many of his pet projects remain behind. McGrory was a big booster of so-called "diversity seminars," in which city employees take time off from work to be sensitized to the feelings of those from different racial backgrounds. The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group Inc. of Cincinnati, a management-consulting firm specializing in "strategic culture change and cultural diversity training," just picked up another $75,000 "for the purpose of continuing the Diversity Commitment educational sessions," says a recent city hall document. Then there's the McGrory-run public arts for sewers program, which spends sewer improvement money for works of art adorning the city's sewage treatment plants. Artist Chris Burden of Topanga has just been commissioned to "design and fabricate" an undisclosed work of art for the 12,000-square-foot "grassy island" at the new North City Reclamation plant. Cost: $150,000. Meantime, musical affairs consultant Gerdom International is spending a total of $50,000, to help with the long-promised resurrection of the San Diego Symphony.

Dope town

The county's reputation as the pot capital of America got another boost last week with the indictment in Massachusetts of five local men alleged to be part of a multimillion-dollar-marijuana trafficking-and-money-laundering ring. Feds claim that Alfred and James Craven of Jamul, along with Anthony Campos of Bonita, James Ballow of Spring Valley, and Paul Schenk of San Diego, as well as 12 others, conspired to distribute more than one ton of marijuana, with a street value in excess of $3 million ... A Tijuana native and ex-San Diegan has been executed for a 1991 murder-for-hire killing of a Navy cook in Virginia Beach, Virginia, despite pleas for clemency from the Mexican government. Mario Benjamin Murphy, 25, a Mexican citizen who grew up on this side of the border, was put to death by lethal injection last week. In a letter to Virginia Governor George Allen written before the execution, Angel Gurria, Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs, claimed Murphy was not advised of his rights under the 1963 Treaty of Vienna, which allows Mexican citizens arrested in the U.S. to consult with their embassy. Of the four men convicted for the slaying, Murphy was the only Mexican and the only one to die ... A San Diego financier has been accused of defrauding a Swiss bank and a Wall Street firm out of a total of $9 million. According to a civil complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in federal court here last week, Charles Anthony Ferracone, along with five others, used "leased" stock certificates to get illegal loans.

Contributor: Matt Potter