Morgan M. Hurley | Downtown Editor

The Honorable Todd Gloria is a two-digit midget.

That’s what we used to call someone in the Navy when the number of days left until they transferred — to a new status or location — dropped under 100. As of the day we go to print, Gloria has 11 days left in his current role as interim mayor, or #iMayor as he has been affectionately tagged.

On Feb. 11, San Diego will elect a new mayor and Gloria will return to managing his dual role as city councilmember representing District Three and presiding over the entire council body as Council President.

The path to holding the top executive post in the City of San Diego over the last two years has been filled with a great deal of national attention, contention, turmoil and drama. I am here to say Gloria has led us out of all that with both class and style.

The mayoral race of 2012 saw some history being made and potential history to be made, but the contentiousness of the race eventually subjugated those factors.

Two strong candidates in the field were members of the LGBT community and both already held prominent local elected positions; shockingly to many, both were also Republicans. One of them made it through the difficult primary season and should the republican candidate have won, San Diego would have had its first-ever openly gay elected mayor. But that’s when things really got dirty.

The self-proclaimed pro-gay democratic candidate in the race used his gay republican opponent’s gayness as a liability every chance he could.

Who would have guessed that just a few months later, that same democratic candidate, once elected, would he himself become one of the biggest liabilities this city has ever known.

Enter Todd Gloria.

San Diego is not new to openly gay city council members, or interim mayors, for that matter. Toni Atkins led the city for six months in 2005 after former mayor Dick Murphy and others in his administration resigned. Atkins then ran for state assembly, and just this week was chosen by the democratic majority to be the next Assembly Speaker.

However in December of 2012, when Gloria was chosen Council President by his peers the same day the first democratic mayor in 30 years was sworn in, no one knew what lie ahead for this charismatic, actively engaged — and openly gay — elected official. He certainly had no idea, but apparently the city charter had even bigger plans for him.

“As a Native American, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Dutch, gay guy, and the son of a hotel maid and a gardener, it is fair to say this was not an expected experience. It was one I took with a sincere commitment and a heavy heart,” Gloria said in the closing remarks of his State of the City (SOTC) speech on Jan. 15.

The tempestuous mayoral race of 2012 had gleaned an openly gay mayor, after all, and what a fine job that man has done for this City.

Many still wonder why Gloria didn’t make a permanent run for mayor, but I understand without question why he did not. He is one of those public servants who really do put others first. He had the immediate needs of the second largest city in the state of California in his hands — something a campaign would have surely clouded if not eclipsed — and he knew he could not fail us.

He was clearly, as his city council colleague Sherri Lightner said during his introduction at SOTC, “the right person at the right time.”

Gloria navigated our city back out of the chaos, in a very hands-on style. He “righted the ship,” as they say; he got programs moving forward again, bills paid, and even got San Diego off the late night and cable television shows where it had held residency for months.

He hushed the snickers that now followed “America’s Finest City,” and made people proud to live here again. The former troubles are all but forgotten.

And though his short mayoral stint may have maxed out his calendar and knocked his social life off its axis, it surely put a much sturdier — and prettier — feather in his cap than any messy last-minute campaign could have ever done.

The sky is now the limit for this young local “statesman,” as Lightner called him at the SOTC, and I have no doubt we will watch him continue to climb the ladder of even greater statesman-hood in the years to come.

On Feb. 12, as we prepare for yet another set of hands on the wheel, it will be a bittersweet day for many but a proud day for our interim mayor, because Gloria will indeed be handing the city over to a new mayor in much better shape than he found it.

I for one, thank him for all he has done and am glad he will still be here helping the next mayor to steer this great ship called San Diego.

—Morgan M. Hurley is editor of Gay San Diego. She can be reached at [email protected].