hoosing a fitting epitaph for the tenure of San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders won’t be easy given that he could be remembered for a great many things.

San Diego’s first strong mayor who overhauled a dysfunctional city government headed for bankruptcy. Or a Republican who pushed for a failed tax increase by threatening public safety cuts that never happened.

The leader who won passage of a 401(k) system for city employees that could become a national model for how to rein in pensions. Or the former police chief who betrayed firefighters by breaking a promise to safeguard retirements for new recruits.

The coalition-builder who helped secure an iconic downtown library, expanded convention center and pedestrian-friendly Balboa Park. Or the one who failed to make a deal for a new football stadium or City Hall.

As Sanders prepares to exit public office on Dec. 3, many will debate how best to describe his seven-year tenure.

“He was the right person, right leader, at the right time,” said Bill Geppert, the former head of Cox Communications. “He’s tough-minded yet he could bring people together to make difficult decisions. … He would be the first to say it wasn’t just him. He always had a sort of unique ability, which not all politicians are blessed with, to be humble and give others credit. But somebody has to lead and he did an impressive job under very difficult circumstances.”

Discussions of his legacy can be framed by looking back at the city government he inherited. Decades of neglect and mismanagement by past city leaders had made San Diego a national symbol for bad government and led The New York Times to dub the city “Enron-by-the-Sea” because of its pension scandal. Sanders’ predecessor, Dick Murphy, was named by Time magazine as one of the country’s three worst big-city mayors before he resigned in mid-2005 as the enormity of the city’s financial problems became clear.

Urged to run

Sanders was in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the local American Red Cross chapter when he first heard of Murphy’s resignation. When his meeting was over, he had a dozen phone messages from movers and shakers urging him to run for mayor. They felt the man who as San Diego police chief had brought violent crime to a 25-year low, who as chief executive of the United Way had slashed costs and increased fundraising, who as Red Cross board chairman increased transparency after a funding scandal, would be the perfect candidate to turn San Diego around.

Things were so bad that one mayoral candidate ran solely on the platform that the city should file bankruptcy. Sanders eventually won the special election over City Councilwoman Donna Frye and took office in December 2005. A month later, the voter-mandated switch to a strong mayor form of government — which he had opposed — went into effect, giving Sanders sweeping powers to transform City Hall.

At the time, the city and some of its officials were under several state and federal investigations stemming from the pension scandal. City and pension officials had approved deals in 1996 and 2002 to increase retirement benefits for workers while also underfunding the pension system. Lowering pension payments freed up money to host the 1996 Republican National Convention and build Petco Park. It also created a billion-dollar deficit that the city then hid from investors when it borrowed money. That led Wall Street rating agencies to suspend the city’s credit.


