Donna Frye

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Donna Frye speaking to supporters during the 2005 mayoral campaign

Donna Frye (January 20, 1952–) is a member of the San Diego City Council, representing District 6.

Frye was born in 1952 in Pennsylvania, the second of three children. Her family moved to San Diego when her father took a civilian job with the Navy.

After an abusive first marriage and problems with alcohol abuse, Frye met her current husband Skip Frye at a Mexican restaurant in 1980. After they married, he persuaded her to give up alcohol, and together they opened a custom-made surfboard shop in Pacific Beach in 1988.

Frye first became concerned with coastal water pollution problems when her husband repeatedly became sick after surfing. She soon became an environmental and community leader. In 2001 she was elected to the San Diego City Council.

Frye ran for mayor of San Diego in November 2004 as a write-in candidate, and a plurality of voters wrote in her name. A controversy arose when she lost the election because a number of voters did not fill in the bubble next to her written name or misspelled her name (usually spelling her last name "Fry"). If those votes had counted, Frye would have won the mayorship.

Dick Murphy was re-elected as mayor after a series of legal challenges to the election results, but resigned on July 15, 2005, as the city's fiscal crisis and legal woes with regulatory and law enforcement agencies like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Bureau of Investigation worsened and became a matter of increasing public awareness. Frye ran for mayor in the special election that took place on July 26, 2005, with a platform advocating open and honest government and restoring order to the city's financial situation, points found in nearly all of the candidates' platforms. Frye was endorsed by Mike Aguirre, the city attorney who has confronted the city council over releasing documents.

Frye placed ahead of ten opponents, including former police chief and runner-up Jerry Sanders (27%), by receiving 43% of the vote. However, a majority was needed to win outright, and so a run-off election was held between Frye and Sanders on November 8, 2005. Frye was defeated in this election, receiving 46.1% of the vote to Sanders' 53.9%.