The 2010 San Diego City Council election occurred on November 2, 2010. The primary election was held on June 8, 2010. Four of the eight seats of the San DiegoCity Council were contested. This was the last election to use eight council districts. Two incumbents ran for reelection in their council district.
Municipal elections in California are officially non-partisan, although most members do identify a party preference. A two-round system was used for the election, starting with a primary in June followed by a runoff in November between the top-two candidates if no candidate received a majority of the votes in the first round.
Campaign
The 2010 election was the last to use the eight district boundaries created by the 2000 Redistricting Commission. Seats in districts 2, 4, 6, and 8 were up for election.
The new city council was sworn in December 2010. Tony Young was unanimously elected as council president and Kevin Faulconer was elected as council president pro tem by their fellow council members.[5]
District 4 special election
On November 17, 2012, Council President Tony Young announced that he would resign from the City Council early to become CEO of the San Diego-Imperial Counties chapter of the American Red Cross. His resignation on January 1, 2013 triggered a special election for the balance of his term, which ends in 2014.[6] Nine candidates qualified for the special primary election, scheduled for March 26, 2013.[7]Myrtle Cole, who had been endorsed by the local Democratic Party and the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, received the most votes in the primary. She advanced to the May 21, 2013 general election to face runner-up Dwayne Crenshaw, Executive Director of San Diego LGBT Pride.[8] Cole was elected to the City Council with a majority of the votes in the runoff.[9]
San Diego City Council District 4 special primary election, 2013[2][10]
On March 3, 2014, Kevin Faulconer resigned from the City Council to assume the office of Mayor of San Diego, having won the special election to replace Bob Filner.[11] This created a vacancy in District 2. Because the vacancy occurred with less than a year left in Faulconer's term, the vacancy was filled by a City Council appointment per the City Charter.[12] On April 7, 2014, the San Diego City Council voted 5-3 on a second ballot to appoint Ed Harris, head of the city's lifeguard's union, to serve the balance of Faulconer's term.[13] Per the City Charter, Harris was ineligible to run for reelection in 2014.