San Diego’s new mayor, Todd Gloria, will be only the second Democrat to hold the office in the past 50 years.
Except for Maureen O’Connor, a Democrat who was mayor from 1986 to 1993 and Bob Filner, the disgraced Democrat, whose sexual behavior with women got charged with a crime and thrown out of office, the other 8 mayors in the last 5 decades have been Republicans.
And before that, from 1963 to 1971, for almost one full decade, the mayor was Frank Curran, a Democrat who got caught up in a Yellow Cab bribery scandal which ended his political career.
Democrats aren’t the only past San Diego mayors who have made the kind of news you don’t want to make. Republican Roger Hedgecock who was mayor from 1983 to 1986 was charged, tried and convicted of campaign finance allegations that were later overturned.
And there was Republican Dick Murphy, who was mayor from 2000-2005, but who resigned before his term was up after being embroiled in the city’s pension funding mismanagement for which San Diego for a time was called Enron by the Sea.
So as Todd Gloria becomes the new mayor in San Diego, he takes over a city with a troubled history in the mayor’s office.
But he takes over as mayor with past city hall experience as a member of the city council who served as interim mayor between Filner’s criminal departure and the election of now outgoing Republican mayor Kevin Faulconer. And he also has served the last few years as a member of the California state assembly.
And he will need that experience because San Diego faces some big problems, the biggest of which is trying to restore the economy that has been devastated by the pandemic. But every San Diegan should be hoping Todd Gloria can help San Diego really be what we have said we are, America’s Finest City.
(Photo Getty Images)