Better Late Than Never

The Mayor of San Diego, Dick Murphy, finally resigned on Monday April 25th in the wake of a continuing corruption scandal. Murphy had been on shaky ground since he was recently named one of the three-worst mayors of a big city by Time magazine (Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit and John Street of Philadelphia were the others).

You may also recall Mayor Murphy, because he was declared the winner of last Novembers' election even though he did not get the highest number of votes. That honor went to City Councilwoman Donna Frye who ran an amazing write-in campaign against Dick Murphy and his challenger Ron Roberts. However, a judge ruled that current state law says that not only must a voter write in the name of the person they want to vote for but they must also indicate that they are casting a write-in ballot. A subsequent examination of the ballots made it clear that more people wrote-in the name Donna Frye than wanted Dick Murphy or Ron Roberts to be Mayor of San Diego. Murphy's resignation is effective July 15th. Frye has said that she is interested in running in a November special election to replace him.

With any luck, by July 15th both California's first and second largest cities (Los Angeles and San Diego) will have new, more effective mayors!