CS Knowledge Base

The 1959 San Diego mayoral election was held on March 10, 1959, to elect the Mayor of San Diego. Incumbent mayor Charles C. Dail was reelected to a second term, receiving 43,544 votes, or 63.44 percent of the vote, against five opponents.^[1][2] Because Dail won a majority in the municipal primary, he was elected outright and no runoff election was held.^[3][1]

San Diego had operated under a manager–council form of government since the adoption of the 1931 city charter. Under that charter system, the city council consisted of six council members and a mayor elected at large.^[4] Dail, a Democrat, had served on the San Diego City Council from 1943 to 1955 and was first elected mayor in 1955.^[5][6] In the 1955 mayoral runoff, he defeated Harry L. Foster by 42,897 votes to 41,660.^[1]

The election took place during a period of rapid metropolitan growth and civic planning debate in San Diego. A later history of the city placed the Dail administration within the postwar period in which San Diego was confronting growth, downtown redevelopment, and disputes over civic planning.^{[7]: pp. 187, 196} A study of San Diego planning activism later described San Diegans, Inc., which grew out of a downtown advisory committee, as a separate organization founded in 1959 that helped finance an economic analysis leading to the Community Concourse and later office and hotel development downtown.^{[8]: p. 55}

Contemporary reporting also reflected the pressure created by growth in the city and surrounding region. In February 1959, the personnel director of the San Diego public schools said the district was recruiting nationally for 700 additional teachers needed for the following fall, with most of the new positions attributed to system expansion rather than replacements. The same report connected the expansion to a missile project near San Diego that had brought a workforce of about 12,000 people.^[9]

Under the version of Section 10 of the San Diego City Charter then in force, regular municipal primary elections were held on the second Tuesday in March in odd-numbered years, and general municipal elections were scheduled for the third Tuesday in April. For single-seat offices other than council seats, a candidate who received a majority of all votes cast for the office in the primary was deemed elected. If no candidate received such a majority, the general election was held between the candidates nominated at the primary.^[3]

The official return for the March 10, 1959 municipal primary listed six candidates for mayor:^[10][1]

• Charles C. Dail, incumbent mayor
• James W. Morgan
• Gerard A. Dougherty
• Robert Lewis Stevenson
• Kent Parker
• Juan Rivera Rosario

Dail's reelection campaign was underway by early January 1959, when he and several other city officials took out formal nomination petitions. The officials filing for the March 10 primary included Dail, City Attorney Jean F. DuPaul, and council members Justin C. Evenson and Frank Curran.^[11]

During the campaign period, Dail continued to speak on local development issues. In February 1959, The Star-News National City and Chula Vista reported that Dail was scheduled to address the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce on the proposed use of Brown Field as a San Diego international airport. The article stated that San Diego had begun negotiations for civilian use of the naval auxiliary air station on Otay Mesa and was seeking arrangements involving Mexican airspace for a southern approach pattern.^[12]

Dail won the March 10 primary with 63.44 percent of the vote, defeating his five challengers. His nearest opponent, James W. Morgan, received 17.94 percent. The Associated Press described Dail as having won reelection to a second term with almost a two-to-one majority over his opponents.^[2] Since Dail received a majority of the votes cast, the city did not hold a mayoral runoff.^[1][3]

Dail served his second mayoral term after the 1959 election. City biographical material states that he served two terms as mayor between 1955 and 1963 and promoted the Community Concourse project, which became associated with downtown redevelopment during his mayoralty.^[5] He did not seek another term in the 1963 mayoral election.^[1]