EDITORIAL: Public demands vs. private lives

It’s shaping up to be an interesting City Council race with Mayor Steve Dicterow’s stunning, last-minute decision to pull out of the running last week.

Dicterow would have been seeking an unprecedented fourth consecutive term on the council, so it’s understandable he may have been attracted to the idea of making history as the longest- tenured council member.

Dicterow’s is a classic case of trying to juggle the demands of local politics with a family and career. When push came to shove — and a “formidable” lineup of candidates — the motorcycle racer manager decided he simply couldn’t afford to run.

Dicterow has been criticized for poor attendance at Council meetings and important special meetings over the last few years.

Worse, when the Bluebird Canyon landslide hit, he was out of the country and missed the first few weeks of intensive decision-making when the council was meeting sometimes twice a day to come up with strategies to address the many emergencies that arose.

Other Council members cut their trips short to get back to town and hunkered down to business in a city that was in “disaster” mode.

In a rather transparent effort to shore up his image, he recently took on the mayor post that had been unanimously extended in December to Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider for a second time after her sterling performance during the landslide. Pearson-Schneider stepped down to allow her colleague and ally to assume the high-profile, but honorary, post.

Dicterow has been acting as “mayor” now for a few weeks, appearing at ribbon-cuttings and opining in the press on various topics. But evidently he decided that he couldn’t just sail into office again with the power of incumbency, and his job and family had to come first.

Dicterow says he is saddened by the decision to drop out of the race and came to it apparently after much anguished pondering.

At least he can go out as Mayor Dicterow.