BREAKING NEWS:

In a surprise move, Mayor Dave Sullivan has pulled out of the City Council race this November.

Sullivan, 69, pulled papers for seeking reelection on Thursday before deciding to drop his bid for a third term on the City Council.

“There’s no other reason other than I have been doing this for a long time and I take it very seriously,” he said. “I want the freedom to do other things.”

Sullivan’s decision caught everyone by surprise including Steve Daniels, president of the Downtown Huntington Beach Business Assn.

“I think he’s done a very nice job, working on his 12th year,” Daniels said.

Sullivan had pushed hard to transform Main Street into a pedestrian mall, opposed by business owners in downtown Huntington Beach.

“It’s moving along and whatever happens on it happens,” Sullivan said about the committee overseeing plans to close Main Street temporarily to traffic.

“The committee’s work will be going on and I am around till December,” he said.

Sullivan was elected to the City Council in 1992, has been mayor of the city twice and will have served three four-year terms in December this year. He was reelected to the City Council in 2002 after a two-year hiatus.

Councilman Don Hansen was also surprised over Sullivan’s decision.

“I think Dave wrestled with the decision,” Hansen said. “He had decided it was time to do other things was how he explained it to me.”

About nine candidates including Sullivan had pulled papers for the upcoming City Council elections.

With one incumbent not running for election, there may be “a few other people who might show up at City Hall,” Hansen said.

“It’s tough looking at a campaign with four incumbents in the race,” he said. “Now remove one of those incumbents, it might cause people sitting on the sidelines to jump in the fray.”

Daniels, who heads the downtown business group, thinks Sullivan brought Main Street to the forefront.

“There’s a lot of alternatives that have come out it of this,” he said. “And that’s a good thing. . . . We can make Main Street a better place thanks to him.”

Sullivan, a Boston native, plans spend his time on “ ‘honey-dos’ around the house,” reading history and traveling around the country and to Europe — especially Ireland.

Sullivan graduated from Boston College and went on to Tufts University dental school. He completed a post doctorate program from the University of Detroit in orthodontics, before deciding to head west to Huntington Beach in 1966.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed it in the time that I have done it,” said Sullivan, a former orthodontist. “I know I’ll miss it but I know it’s time to go on to other things.”