San Diego Judge Mayor: How Murphy’s Law Blindsided Leadership with 2020 Vision by Dick Murphy, Sunbelt Publications, 2011, 191 pages, $22.50
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO –As a local historian, I am very pleased that Dick Murphy, the 33rd mayor of San Diego, has written a book about his life and career. I wish that his 32 predecessors had also written memoirs, and I hope that the current mayor, Jerry Sanders, and all his successors will follow Murphy’s good example.
Sunbelt Publications, which published Murphy’s memoir, also published my biography of Louis Rose who, while not a mayor, served during the 1850’s as the titular leader of the City of San Diego when he served as president of the San Diego City Board of Trustees.
Like Murphy, Rose, in his time, was in the middle of every important decision affecting the city’s growth and development. There were plenty of newspaper articles, board minutes and other government documents for me to research, but to my disappointment, Rose never wrote down anything about his personal life. He didn’t leave for historians, as Murphy has now done, a rich account of his personal values, dreams for the city, religious beliefs, family life, and his setbacks.
Murphy wrote a short book–and that’s really my only criticism of it. I wish he had written at greater length, and elaborated more fully on some of the situations he had encountered. But, given my experience researching Rose, I know future historians will be happy for every word in Murphy’s book, being that the memoir is what historians call a primary source–an account of the times by someone who was involved first hand. In contrast, my biography of Rose, the first Jewish settler in San Diego, is what is considered a secondary source.
Knowing of my fondness for Jewish-interest news, Murphy directed me to Page 69, in which he wrote of traveling to Israel as a member of the San Diego City Council on a trip sponsored by the United Jewish Federation. “I came away very impressed with the courage, determination and ingenuity of the Israelis,” Murphy wrote. “In fact, after viewing a massive tree-planting effort to reclaim the desert in Israel, which has a climate akin to San Diego’s, I launched a similar effort in Mission Trails Regional Park. That continues today as Mission Trails Regional Park Arbor Day.”
Murphy told me he probably should have included in the book an account of his successful effort while a City Councilman to get the City of San Diego to provide the land on which the Lawrence Family JCC was built. As Murphy recalled it, the University City neighborhood needed a recreation center, and Al Hutler, a former Jewish Federation director who later in his life was a strong proponent of tennis centers, proposed a partnership between the city and the Jewish community.
Hutler said the Jewish Community Center would always remain open to the entire community, not just to Jews. And so it has, with people of all faiths and backgrounds using the JCC’s gym, Olympic size swimming pool, Hutler’s beloved tennis courts, and various meeting rooms.
The problem Hutler had in the early 1980s was that no one else at City Hall was motivated to take on the project. Mayor Pete Wilson was busily running at the time for U.S. Senator. The City Council member who represented that district, Bill Mitchell, didn’t have either the clout or the inclination to get it done. Although Murphy represented a different district, in the eastern portion of San Diego, he took it upon himself to call on then City Manager Ray Blair to study the feasibility of the proposal. According to Murphy, once Blair recommended positively, the rest of the City Council quickly lined up behind the idea.
Murphy’s memoir covers his fascinating career — BA from the University of Illinois; an MBA from Harvard; a commission in the U.S. Army; assignment to the Pentagon and the White House (occasionally escorting the daughters of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon); marriage to Janice Cole; a law degree from Stanford University; a clerkship with U.S. District Court Judge Howard Turrentine; a job with the prestigious Luce, Forward, Hamilton and Scripps law firm; appointment to the City Parks and Recreation Committee; appointment to the City Council; election to the City Council; appointment as a Municipal Court Judge; elevation to the Superior Court; election as mayor of San Diego, reluctant reelection as mayor…. and then, beset with problems stemming from the city’s pension deficit as well as an increasingly toxic atmosphere at City Hall, his announcement in 2005 resigning as mayor.
There were tidbits along the way of interest to future historians of our Jewish community. While a member of the Alpha Tau Omega, he was at the national convention that voted to repeal the policy restricting membership in the college fraternity to white Christians. His house pledged its first Jewish member in 1964.
In San Diego, he interacted with quite a few members of the Jewish community. After his appointment to the City Council, his opponent in the ensuing election campaign was Lucy Goldman, an important figure in both city and Jewish affairs. In writing about his service as a judge, he begins with a quotation from the prophet Micah: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
In discussing his mayoral campaign, he mentioned that Rachel Shira was his campaign coordinator, and after the election became his scheduling director. Shira also is the namesake for Shira Field, a Little League ballpark at Lake Murray.
In his book, Murphy acknowledged the positive efforts of former Congresswoman Lynn Schenk, while serving as chief of staff to Gov. Gray Davis, in securing State Park Bond funds for the construction of a Veterans Memorial Garden in Balboa Park. He also told of Assemblyman Howard Wayne (in conjunction with State Sen. Steve Peace) having the state create a new San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, taking jurisdiction over Lindbergh Field away from the San Diego Unified Port District.
One of his campaign goals had been to establish a City Ethics Commission, to which one of his first appointments was Lisa Foster, who today is a Superior Court Judge.
Murphy made a point of crediting various city employees for various accomplishments, including his predecessor Susan Golding’s efforts to raise awareness of the need for a strong mayor system of government; Planning Director Gail Goldberg’s efforts in behalf of creating a “city of villages,” in which old neighborhoods would be converted into more intimate and livable villages, and Parks and Recreation Director Ellie Oppenheim’s efforts in obtaining more open space for the city.
A photo in the book shows Murphy at the opening of Petco Park on the first day of the Padres 2004 season opener. The mayor is standing between former Padre and New York Yankee David Winfield and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Jewish community member Bud Selig, who is commissioner of baseball, stands between Carter and then Padres owner John Moores.
Another Jew receiving a shout out from Murphy is Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs for his proposal to restore Balboa Park’s Pan-American Plaza.
Besides its obvious historic value (writers for other religious, geographic, and ethnic communities could just as easily pick out the accomplishments of their members from Murphy’s narrative), the memoir is also important for the vision it sets out for San Diego.
The former mayor offers 10 goals for the city that he hopes his successors will consider, describing each in detail. 1) Completion of the San Diego River Park; 2) Turn Qualcomm Stadium into a Chargers Office Park; 3) Extend the San Diego Trolley line to Escondido; 4) Create a grand Balboa Park to San Diego Bay pedestrian link using Park Avenue and Broadway; 5) Build a new City Hall; 6) Eliminate parking in Pan-American Plaza; 7) Expand Lindbergh Field and move the Marine Corps Recruit Depot to Camp Pendleton; 8) Promote Solar Energy in San Diego; 9) Pursue Desalination Facilities in San Diego and 10) Remove the old Caltrans Building at Juan and Taylor Streets, and turn that property into a dramatic entranceway for Old Town in time for San Diego’s 250th birthday on July 16, 2019.
Murphy’s book is short, but it offers many ideas to weigh. I recommend it for anyone interested in the welfare of our city.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com