San Diego City Council set to ban write-ins in run-offs

On August 8, the San Diego city council voted to ban write-in votes in city run-off elections. The bill passed unanimously. Even Donna Frye voted for it, even though she was herself a write-in candidate for Mayor in the November 2004 mayoral run-off.


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San Diego City Council set to ban write-ins in run-offs — 9 Comments

  1. What’s Wrong with this Picture????? (San Diego)

    Citizens For A Better Veterans Home,
    SAN DIEGO County August 16, 2005

    Lawrence Herzog’s (via Voice of San Diego) piece on public art was right on the money, but was certainly nothing new. Just ask Robert Pincus, art editor of the Union-Tribune who has been complaining for years about the appalling choices the so-called “arts commission” has made. Just ask all the regional artists who have either contributed to or thought about contributing to the “Call for Entries” over the years only to see the choices made by a very bland, non-controversial group who wouldn’t dare move out into a controversial choice from a noted artist that, in my opinion, would “live well” over the years and actually improve with age.

    Par for the course for a city that would elect an ex-surfer who never really held a job, ex-alcoholic and possibly drug addict as mayor of their city! It’s just hard to believe. All of it!

  2. A Plea For Peace With The American Colonies (AND A PLEA FOR BROAD
    SPRECTRUM, INTELLIGENT CAMPAIGNING IN 21 CENTURY SANDY EGO, COLLIE FORNIA):

    My Lords, this ruinous and
    ignominious situation, where we cannot act with success, nor suffer with honour,
    calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth!
    (ANTI CORRUPTION, ANTI MAYOR MURPHY, AND ANTI BUSINESS AS
    USUAL PROGRESSIVES NEED) to rescue the ear of (HER) Majesty
    (INTERNATIONAL MEDIA DARLING DONNA THE ONE IN THE CENTER
    OF THE MEAN GIRLS DEMOCRAT CIRCLE) from the delusions which
    surround it. You cannot, I venture to say, you (CANNOT) conquer America,
    (WITH RED COATS IN 1777. AND YOU CAN NOT WIN IN NOVEMBER
    2004, JULY 2005, OR NOVEMBER 2005 IN A GOP STRONG HOLD IN
    SANDY EGO COUNTY WITH OUT A BROAD SPECTRUM OF OTHER
    THAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUPPORT.)
    What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know
    that in three campaigns (PETITIONING, NOVEMBER 2004 ELECTION,
    COURT BATTLES) we have done nothing and suffered much. You may swell
    every expense, and strain every effort, still more extravagantly; accumulate every
    assistance you can beg or borrow; traffic and barter with every pitiful German
    Prince, (AS BOUGHT AND SOLD ALLIES OR SUB DIVISIONS OF THE
    NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY) that sells and sends his subjects to the
    shambles of a foreign country (AS AIDED BY SENATORS KERRY AND
    EDWARDS): your efforts are forever vain and impotent-doubly so from this
    mercenary aid on which you rely (VIA TONY BLAIR);
    for it irritates to an
    incurable resentment the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the sordid
    sons of rapine and of plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity
    of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, (AS THE
    IRAQIS ARE IRAQIS) while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never
    would lay down my arms! -Never! Never! Never!

    (IF I WERE A REGISTERED
    VOTER IN THE CITY OF SANDY EGO IN JULY 2005 OR NOVEMBER
    2005, I WOULD KEEP DONNA THE DEMOCRAT FRYE AS COUNCIL
    MEMBER BY VOTING FOR THE OTHER GUY (ALL OF WHOM DISPLAY
    WIDER SUPPORT THAT DEMOCRAT ONLY MS FRYE….). )

    William Pitt – Member of Parliament – LONDON – November 18th 1777;
    (DONALD R. LAKE AND JOHN D. COFFEY, CITIZENS FOR A BETTER
    VETERANS HOME, SAN DIEGO COUNTY, JULY 23, 2005)

  3. Citizens For A Better Veterans Home
    Post Office Box 2258
    Barstow CAlifornia 92312-2258
    jcoffey9991911@yahoo.com
    (619) 420-0209, (760) 253-2371

    15 August 2005

    Endorsement of Jerry Sanders, Mayor of City of San Diego, November 8, 2005

    To Whom it May Concern
    and/or
    Patricia@jerrysandersformayor.com
    Jerry Sanders for Mayor
    3252 5th Avenue
    San Diego, California 92103
    (619) 299-9982

    Citizens For A Better Veterans Home has seen over seven years of gross government corruption. While we
    are primarily an ad hoc abused veterans support and advocacy group, we do comment on public misadministration
    from time to time.

    We can trace our San Diego County roots to the shameful treatment of judicial victim Dale Akiki by
    Democratic Party County of San Diego District Attorney Ed Miller. We have been yelling at the top of our lungs
    for over a decade that the San Diego area has basically become the western, sunny equivalent of Cook County and
    Chicago, Illinios.

    As laudatory as current City of San Diego Council Member Donna Frye has been upon occasion, we are
    formally withdrawing our support and endorsement from her flawed campaign. Mrs Frye’s biggest sin is that for
    the past year she has been locked in as the Democratic Party icon in a non partisan race.

    In addition to flip flopping on the issues, not having a vision for rehabilitating the local government, Mrs.
    Frye has actively ignored her original broad spectrum base. By the Special election in July 2005 a number of
    candidates had developed a wide support mass which put Frye’s ‘Mean Girls’ Democratic Party On. Most
    impressive among the ‘2005 Reformers’ is fix it expert former Police Chief, Red Cross Rehabilitator, and repeated
    crisis manager Jerry Sanders.

    Much of what we fear is that a 2006 Mayor Donna Frye is the prime example of the ‘Peter Principle’.
    What ever positives Frye has racked up as a Council Member, it does not automatically a Legendary Mayor make.

    Donna Frye is not a two time winner. She and her staff have blown a ton of media and political capital in
    not achieving victory in both November 2004 and July 2005. However (and occasionally) Mrs Frye has done good
    things and made integrity based decisions for the citizens, but in the end, she now comes across as just not savvy
    and smart enough to be Mayor.

    Donna Frye is a two time loser and it is time for a truly qualified manager to fix the fixable with a wide
    base of citizen and political support. Jerry Sanders for Mayor in November 2005.

    /s/ John D. Coffey, founder, Citizens For A Better Veterans Home

  4. Donna Frye (Council Member, City of San Diego), Today and Yesterday, Progressive Political Capital Squandered:

    PRESS RELEASE, RE: MAYOR DONNA FRYE (SAN DIEGO, CA)

    SUNDAY, NOV 14TH, 2004 REFORM PARTY OF CALIFORNIA

    RPCa BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ TELECONFERENCE:

    Donna Frye for Mayor of San Diego,

    Motion #5 (LakeSharpe-Geisler)

    “The Reform Party of California congratulates Donna Frey
    on her dramatic win. Donna Frye is the voters’ choice and
    the winner of the 2004 San Diego Mayoral race. The Reform
    Party calls upon those filing court challenges to her Write-In
    campaign to cease and let democracy prevail.
    Mayor Frye embodies many of the Reform Party’s ideals in
    her openness, her independence and her readiness to bring
    reform to city government.”

    passes unanimously

    (also email notice on Ken Bourke Thanksgiving Open House/
    Donna Frye Victory Party:)
    Thursday November 25th, 2004, 3 PM to 8 PMish
    6939 Florey Avenue* San Diego CAlifornia 92122-XXXX
    619 area code: 420.0209, 275.0208, 233.6150, 426.5698
    * Florey off of Gulfstream off of Governor off of I-805
    Feel free to bring can goods and other durable food

    stuffs for redistribution

    (Post Script: Do not take our ‘word’ for it,

    Donna Frye as Dummie Exhibit One: check out the positive supportive endorsing comments on the web site of the Reform Party of California.

    Exhibit Two: http://www.donnafryeformayor.com (nothing but Democratic Party organizations and fronts. No Libs, Greens, Reformers, Natural Law, Republicans, Constitutionalists, JUST DEMOCRATS!)

    Exhibit Three: http://www.reformpartyusa.org

    Exhibit Four: http://www.jerrysandersformayor.com

    Exhibit Five: http://www.VoiceOfSanDiego.com

  5. DECLARATION on the self distruction of Donna Frye:
    (Oh, what a difference a year makes…….)
    I, DONALD R. LAKE, am using this Declaration to
    announce the results of a 2004 Regional Endorsing
    Convention of the Reform Party of California. On August
    7th the Region 13 of RPCA met in Chula Vista. The
    membership present mourned the failed incumbent career
    politician and lack luster City of San Diego Mayor (and
    former sitting Judge) Dick Murphy. No other additional
    electronic mail or telephone calls were recorded that
    weekend.
    We have major problems with Murphy, personally and
    with the City and County of San Diego, generally. FBI
    surveillance, failed District Attorneys (yes, PLURAL),the
    Pension Debacle, corrupt SDPD, county wide fires
    (COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE), Chargers Stadium
    wheeling and dealing, Petco Park Padres quagmire, and
    VOLUMOUS other maniciple and regional short falls are
    among the reasons for an American Reform Movement in
    the first place.
    Sandy Ego, with it’s sand, surf, sun and ‘Leave it to
    George (Bush)’ attitude, is the text book example of the
    21St Century failed, dysfunctional noncommunity.
    Murphy, like former (indicted!) Mayor Roger Hedgecock,
    was far enough on the edge of the ruling oligarchy to
    supposedly to have made a difference. Unfortunately, his
    legacy in the smoldering ruins of the worst wild fires in
    state history, is ‘More of the Same’. The Wall Street
    Journal (‘Bankruptcy By the Bay’) and USA Today
    (‘Enron By the Sea’) hint at the worst municipal
    corruption this side of Chicago and Cook County.
    Murphy, a ‘faux-reform’ incumbent, did not win over 50%
    in the 2004 March ‘June’ Primary Election. When the
    definitive multi volume is produced on the History of
    Local Government Corruption, Murphy (and recently
    departed Council member Lewis —-a quilt ridden
    bleeding ulcer killing him at 37—-while he and other city
    officials await Federal trial ) will be listed as part of the
    problem —not part of the solution.
    Our real hero was Jim Bell. This Independent Engineer
    and Environmentalist is a stand up guy. Unfortunately he
    is not process orientated and does not ‘play well with
    others’. Our real hope was more conventional San Diego
    Port Commissioner Peter Q. Davis. Neither survived the
    rough and tumble primary. Unfortunately, neither
    displayed activism during the Nader campaign.
    Primary runner up Ron Roberts has been personally
    known to the author for over a decade. Another
    professional politician, he wears his smile on a stick and
    does not keep promises or appointments. Like the sneaky,
    corrupt, backroom Murphy, this is just another gray
    haired, tired old, male Republican, without the heart of
    Bell or the vision of their buddy and almost clone Davis.
    We can do no better for Mr Roberts than ‘Anyone but
    Murphy’….
    Emergency amendment: With the historic grassroots write
    in vote of Courageous maverick Democrat Council
    Member Donna (TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT)
    Frye we modify our opinion to WRITE IN DONNA
    FRYE FOR MAYOR OF SAN DIEGO. If ever there was
    a reformer with a “small R” it is Frye.
    Additional Comments: Both tired old GOP grandfathers
    were initially gracious about the write in addition and
    debate add on of Ms Frye. After she won the November
    2nd election as the first major city mayor write in victor
    the slimy lawyers came out of the ooze. As her individual
    write ins are being personally tabulated at the Registar of
    Voters, court filings are just now saying the write in
    addition is illegal. This is besides the deafening silence
    earlier and the presence of multiple mayoral write ins in
    years past. Like Reform Party USA’s candidate for
    president, Ralph Nader, let civil voices be heard. Let
    every vote count. Donna Frye, the next mayor of the City
    of San Diego. (To do anything less would to initiate
    “Reform” by “Business as Usual” in one of the most
    corrupt regions of the modern American nation.)
    ………SIGNED SPELL CHECKED HARD COPY
    VERSION TO BE MAILED TO NADER, CAMEJO,
    SHARPE, WITTKAMM, ROBERTS, MURPHY, FRYE)
    Citizens For A Better Veterans Home
    http://www.calvets.blogspot.com
    http://www.reformpartyofcalifornia.org/vetspage.html
    619.420.0209, 619.426,5698, 760.253.2371

  6. SAN DIEGO’S SURFER GIRL DONNA FRYE, June 2005
    International Star of Maverick and Reformist Politics?
    Or Just Another Stealth Partisan Democratic Party Pol?
    Official Supporters of Council Member Donna Frye for Mayor
    are listed on http://www.donnafryeformayor.com. Lacking thereof are
    independents, Libs, Greens, Natural Law, and Reform minded
    citizens of the San Diego County area. These folks have
    interacted and supported media darling Frye from day one in
    her improbable defiance of the insular, corrupt, button down
    Southern Southern California establishment. She and her Dem
    Party ‘Mean Girls’ inner circle haven’t yet reciprocated.
    Months after her top vote getting achievement, reformers are
    forced to re-assess Mrs. Frye’s potential for governance. Do not
    get us wrong, we think Frye has been a wonderful and reform
    minded council member. What we worry about is that this may
    be the Peter Principle in action.
    Often a terrific teacher does not make a good administrator. It
    is not guaranteed that a great police officer makes a good
    supervisor. Because of her narrow partisan stance, reformists in
    the area have started to think that an out standing council
    member does not automatically a legendary mayor make.
    Maybe it will take a true out sider needs to lead the San Diego
    City administration into the 21st Century—-with COUNCIL
    MEMBER Frye at their side.

    /s/ Don Lake
    San Diego County

  7. Donna Frye, the stealth PARTISAN candidate for NON PARTISAN Mayor of San Diego (as submitted to RP USA National PRINT Newsletter):

    In November 2004 in Southern California, an historical grass roots movement occurred in the
    San Diego area. With Nader-Camejo not on the ballet, the OTHER WRITE IN CANDIDATE
    in the City of San Diego was a maverick council member. Donna Frye was posed to become
    the first non ballot elected mayor of a major United States metropolitan area. Legendary
    consumer advocate Ralph Nader became (with reformist Citizens For A Better Veterans Home
    help) a fully vested write in candidate in San Diego County, much less all of California.
    Independents, Libs, Greens, and reform minded citizens in the City of San Diego were free to
    promote both Frye and Nader-Camejo. And they did so.

    Although she lost to local former judge and incumbent mayor Dick Murphy in his venue, the
    court room, Donna Frye became an international celebrity by racking up more votes than either
    of the ballot access establishment types. This should have been a source of pride and joy to
    reform minded citizens.

    However, upon closer inspection, Mrs Frye, married to surfer great and board manufacturer
    legend Skip Frye, falls short as a true reformer in deed and in spirit. Reform officials and other
    Nader-Camejo supporters have been boo’d by Pro Frye crowds —-as she stood silently by.
    From one write in candidate to another, this is leadership NOT! Reform types have brought a
    RECALL DICK MURPHY cake to her City Hall staff, to the ‘buzz’ of the entire building.
    (This is after Frye missed a well publicized open house while dissing a local long term NON
    DEMOCRATIC PARTY activist in November 2004!)

    Not one political group out side the DEMOCRATIC PARTY has ever been listed on her
    official web site. Prominent officials from Non DEMOCRATIC groups have been listed as
    individuals with out party affiliations or left off completely. Her ‘Junior HS clique’ inner circle
    refuses to respond or communicate in any meaningful way with any one but DEMOCRATIC
    PARTY officials.

    The fastest growing segment of registered voters (non DEMOCRATS and non Republicans)
    once saw Mrs Frye as a non partisan God Sent for local woes. Reform minded activists keep
    on waiting for her and her crowd to prove that they are more than just DEMOCRATS who
    have merely unilaterally appropriated the mantel of middle class, common sense, centralist
    spectrum Theodore Roosevelt style PROGRESSIVE POLITICS for some undeserved media
    attention. At the July 26th Special Election, Frye is still lacking as a broad based, non partisan
    beacon of hope. The ‘revolution from the center’ is primed and ready. NON DEMOCRATS
    are still waiting for her to ‘see the light’ so that she can ‘bring the light’. We await still.

    —-Citizens For A Better Veterans Home, founded May 1998 (619.420.0209)

  8. EDITORIAL and more proof that Frye is not much more than a Democratic Party Shill….

    THE SAN DIEGO CITY BEAT IS A KNOWN DEM FRONT!

    “Donna Frye for mayor

    As CityBeat prepared to publish its first issue about 25 months ago, we were told repeatedly by
    people who knew how difficult it is to get important government information in this town—public
    information that belongs to us taxpayers—despite a state law that tells government officials to
    cough up documents when they’re requested.

    After two years, we have two words: true dat.

    Now the whole country knows what journalists and government watchdogs here have known for
    long time—San Diego is positively pathological about hiding information from the public.

    Last week, Standard and Poor’s Rating Services blew the whistle on San Diego, suspending its
    credit rating, which was already in the tank, because the city is being too slow to release an audit
    of its 2003 finances, and because city officials seem to have deliberately withheld information that
    painted a not-so-rosy picture of San Diego’s financial health, information specifically about the
    condition of the employees’ retirement system.

    San Diego is mired in a culture of secrecy, and the hiders of information have finally gotten the
    city in big trouble for it. The other shoe will drop when the FBI and the Securities and Exchange
    Commission conclude their investigations. Some observers believe there could be civil and
    criminal charges filed against the information withholders.

    Amid all of this, there has been one elected official’s voice crying out about all the secrecy—City
    Councilmember Donna Frye. She who doesn’t believe everything she’s told. She who dares
    question the mayor, and the city attorney, and the city’s top bureaucrats. She who does her
    homework and considers thick municipal bond prospectuses fascinating bedtime reading. She who
    thinks the public should be allowed to participate in their government and actually enjoys taking
    reporters’ phone calls at home late in the evening. She who worries that the relationship between
    the city’s government and wealthy sports team owners is a little too cozy. She who alone voted
    against the under-funding of the retirement system in 2002—not because she understood it
    completely and had all the answers, but because she was hearing knowledgeable people say
    something was terribly wrong. She who endures the criticism of those who wish she’d shut up so
    that public meetings can end sooner and they can get on with the business of exhibiting their
    power and exerting their influence.

    Tuesday morning, we opened up the Union-Tribune and found a story that said Frye was
    considering a write-in candidacy for mayor, and we were simultaneously uplifted and
    frustrated—uplifted because she’s precisely the mayor San Diego needs, frustrated because we
    wish she had decided to run before the March primary election.

    We can tell you in all certainty that Frye agonized over her decision not to throw her hat in the
    ring this spring. She told us she decided against it because her “gut” told her to. While we
    wouldn’t dare argue with Donna’s gut, we wish it hadn’t been so persuasive at the time.

    Voters in November may wish to change the role of the mayor in San Diego—it’s one of the
    questions they’ll be asked. But for now, the mayor’s job, in addition to being the city’s public
    face, is to make important appointments to boards and commissions, run meetings, decide what
    gets on the City Council agenda and deal with crises. We can’t think of a more perfect person to
    handle those chores than Donna Frye. She’s an ideal candidate more now than ever.

    Why? Simple—she’s honest and has no discernable hunger for power. She’s hell-bent on pulling
    back the curtain that too often obscures the inner workings of government, and San Diego needs
    that now—a time when the city’s being compared to Enron and bankruptcy-era Orange
    County—like people need oxygen. If voters make the mistake of favoring a new, strong-mayor
    form of government, her disdain for power politics would negate the most worrisome components
    of the strong-mayor initiative.

    Phil LaVelle’s story in the U-T said Frye was considering making an announcement about her
    write-in candidacy on Tuesday, but Steven Hadley, Frye’s chief of staff, told CityBeat in an e-mail
    that Frye was “swamped with the pension issue at [City] Council today.” So, at press time we
    didn’t yet know what her decision would be.
    What we do know is this: Even though she’d be attempting to overcome a nearly insurmountable
    obstacle, we’d do whatever we could to help her do it.”

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  9. San Diego City Beat, April 13th 2005:
    (FINALLY, AFTER WEEKS OF BADGERING
    THIS DEMOCRAT PARTY ORGAN…..)

    LET’S GET READY (TO RECALL!)

    “I’m a local reformist activist and… as early as November the Libertarians,
    the Greens and the reformists have been working on a recall,” reported Don
    Lake in a voicemail message last week. “We are quietly waiting for the sixth
    month…. We don’t want to mess it up for other potential allies….”

    Hear that? The whackdoodles and fringe politicos (we’ll leave you to sort
    them out) are on the march. They’re fed up with Mayor Dick Murphy and a
    city that’s “run like a country club,” so they’re joining forces to oust him
    from office.

    No, they don’t have the dollars necessary to finance a recall effort or
    hundreds of thousands of registered supporters, but they do have
    cake—something every successful rebellion needs. Frosted with “Recall
    Murphy,” one recall cake was already presented to City Councilmember
    Donna Frye last November by a coalition of Libs, Greens and reformists and
    now serves as proof, according to Lake, that the little guys were the first to
    float the big idea.

    While a bit premature in their confectionary exuberance, the coalition has
    turned its ovens to preheat, after being reined in by county Democrats who
    insist they wait the full six months, as required by law, before baking any
    more recall goodies.

    While that news probably isn’t enough to send Murphy staffers scrambling
    for Nordstrom applications just yet, it’s another in a series of omens
    indicating the mayor will eventually get his just dessert. And because we at
    CityBeat simply adore baking metaphors and can’t keep our fingers out of
    the batter, we’re offering up two more potential recall candidates who we
    think would make any recall recipe a little sweeter.

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