billion left the city’s finances in shambles and made it virtually impossible to issue municipal bonds. Aguirre ran as a "clean up the mess" outsider, with support from Democrats in the officially nonpartisan race, and won with 50.4% of the vote. A 2008 Wall Street Journal article praised Aguirre’s efforts to address the City of San Diego's hundreds of millions of dollars of unfunded pension liabilities. In October 2007, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that during the California wildfires of October 2007, Aguirre had called for an evacuation of the entire City of San Diego. Aguirre was heavily criticized for the idea but said that the paper had distorted his position. Aguirre's claim was that he had written a memo to the San Diego Mayor at the height of the fires, advising that the city should draw up a voluntary evacuation plan in light of federal regulations, the immediate threat of the fire, as well as concerns over weather conditions and air quality. As City Attorney, Aguirre filed a legal action to force a developer to reduce the height of an already constructed office building near an airport. Federal Aviation Administration officials had later determined that the height of the building posed a threat to public safety, even if a city building permit had been issued. In 2009, a California Superior Court judge affirmed the City Attorney's position by determining the developer had no legal right to erect the building to the unsafe height, and the top several stories were ordered to be removed from the building. In 2005, immediately upon taking office, Aguirre attempted unsuccessfully to overturn a city grant of $900 million in pension benefits to police and other city workers, which Aguirre contended had been illegal. Aguirre sued Countrywide Financial in July 2008 over lending practices and convinced a federal multi-district litigation judicial panel to move all Countrywide Financial foreclosure cases to the jurisdiction of the City of San Diego. In 2008, Aguirre ran for a second term as City Attorney but was challenged by several other candidates. The president of the San Diego City Council Scott Peters ran with the backing of city unions, while Superior Court Judge Jan Goldsmith was backed by the Republican political establishment. In the five-candidate nonpartisan primary election in June 2008, Aguirre qualified for the general election by coming in second place after Goldsmith. In the general election on November 4,