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San Diego mayoral candidate Donna Frye, a.k.a. "surfer chick" by her enemies, lost a write-in campaign on a technicality. Now she's running again, this time on the ballot.
Photo by David Wasserman

by Josh Marcus
Working Smart Session
Donna Frye

Donna Frye, known as “surfer chick” t her enemies, won the popular vote in the last mayoral election in San Diego as a write-in candidate in a campaign that organized only five weeks before the election.  Unfortunately, voters didn’t fill in the bubble, so she lost on a technicality.  Fortunately, Donna is running again, this time on the ballot.

Mrs. Frye’s speech revolved around her transformation from surf shop owner to environmental activist to politician.  Surfers would come into her shop complaining of various health ailments.  When the ailments increased and became obviously related, she decided to figure out what was going on.  When she discovered large quantities of raw sewage in San Diego waters, she began a long campaign to ensure clean water, which culminated in the installation of statewide water-monitoring standards.

Perhaps her most important lesson from these experiences was the necessity of humor in dealing with the most overwhelming and frustrating situations.  At one point, her husband, renowned surfer Skip Frye, was very sick, and the city government was ignoring her.  Her response was to install a toilet in the surf shop.   She made the toilet sing and put a puppet head inside of it that closely resembled a “wilted green” candidate that she had regrettably helped into office.  Concerned surfers patrolled San Diegan beaches in haz-mat suits.  She thinks her use of humor is not only self-healing but also gets the attention of people who might not normally pay attention to environmental issues, because they view the environmentalist message as “too heavy”  -- a charge she thinks is sometimes justified.

She believes that “most people are one tragedy away from being an activist.”  Her goal as a politician is to prevent that tragedy, while keeping her constituents active.

-- 09/09/2005 Fri
4pm