by Rex Wockner
[story filed July 26, 2005]
SAN DIEGO --
San Diego became the largest city in America with an openly
gay mayor July
25 when the remaining members of the City Council chose
lesbian Councilwoman
Toni Atkins to fill the position until December.
Former Mayor
Dick Murphy resigned July 15 amid a massive employee
pension-funding
debacle.
At that point,
Councilman Michael Zucchet, who held the rotating
position of
deputy mayor, took over.
But, three days
later, Zucchet and Councilman Ralph Inzunza were
convicted of
multiple felonies in a case involving bribes from a
strip-club owner
who wanted a no-touch law repealed.
Zucchet and Inzunza
quickly resigned from the council, leaving the body
with only six
members.
In an emergency
vote July 19, Atkins was selected by the other five
councilmembers
to fill the mayor's shoes for one week. Then, on July 25,
her selection
was re-affirmed and she will hold the job until a new
mayor is elected
in November and sworn in Dec. 5.
Atkins is not a candidate in that election.
"I'm certainly
aware of that fact [of San Diego being the largest U.S.
city with an
openly gay mayor]," Atkins told Wockner News. "I know
that it has
significance for our LGBT community, so it is something that
I take seriously.
I think it's a huge responsibility, so I'm very much aware
of it and I
hope that it's a good thing for our community.
"But, how can
you be excited to get such an honor under such
circumstances
[the three resignations]," Atkins added. "Still, given the
circumstances,
I think it makes it even more important that I do the
best job that
I can, and I intend to do that, because it's an
opportunity
for our community to show that we really are engaged and
active and can
step up to the plate and do these kinds of things when
called upon
and when needed."
Atkins said her sexual orientation was a nonissue in her selection.
"It wasn't even
a consideration. I believe that's absolutely correct.
And I think
that's what we're striving for," she said.
The Nov. 8 special
mayoral election will be a runoff between the top two
vote-getters
from the July 26 special primary -- Democratic Councilwoman
Donna Frye,
a progressive maverick who came within 2,108 votes of
winning the
mayor's seat as a write-in candidate last year, and
Republican former
Police Chief Jerry Sanders.
Frye actually
got more votes than former Mayor Murphy last November, but
5,551 of her
votes were invalidated because people who wrote in her name
failed to fill
in a corresponding bubble.
Frye received
43 percent of the vote in the July 26 special primary to
Sanders' 27
percent, with the remainder split among nine other
candidates.
Had Frye received 50 percent plus one, she would have become
mayor on Aug.
22, cutting short Atkins' time in office.
The mayoral race is officially nonpartisan.
San Diego, population
1.2 million, is America's seventh-largest city
behind Phoenix,
Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New
York.