San Diego will hold a special election to fill the City Council seat of Monica Montgomery Steppe on March 5, combining it with the state primary election that day.
Montgomery Steppe said last week that she was resigning her District 4 council seat effective Dec. 5, after winning a seat on the county Board of Supervisors in a special election to replace Nathan Fletcher.
Leading candidates to replace Montgomery Steppe include her chief of staff Henry Foster, mayoral aide Chida Warren-Darby and civil rights activist Shane Harris.
District 4 includes some of San Diego’s lowest-income neighborhoods in the southeastern part of the city. The district won’t have a representative for several months.
The absence of Montgomery Steppe will reduce the number of council members from nine to eight, potentially leading to more frequent 4-4 deadlocks on contentious issues.
Candidates seeking to replace Montgomery Steppe have until Dec. 14 to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The nomination period opened Wednesday.
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes on March 5, there will be a runoff between the top two finishers. The runoff, which would have to be held within 90, would likely be in June.
The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to combine the special election with the state primary, which will also include city elections for mayor, city attorney and five council seats.
The council couldn’t appoint a replacement for Montgomery Steppe because there is more than one year remaining in her council term, which began last December and is scheduled to run through December 2026.
San Diego’s election rules require special elections — and prohibit appointments — when an elected leader leaves office more than one year before their term ends.
The council could have held the special election on a different date than the state primary, but that would have prevented the city from sharing election costs with other agencies and been more expensive.
The possible runoff for Montgomery Steppe’s seat could be expensive for the city, because there won’t be an opportunity to share election costs.
Montgomery’s council predecessor, Mytle Cole, was elected to the District 4 seat in a special election in 2013 and then re-elected in 2014.
Neighborhoods in District 4 include Alta Vista, Broadway Heights, Chollas View, Emerald Hills, Encanto, Greater Skyline Hills, Jamacha, Lincoln Park, Lomita Village, Mountain View, North Bay Terrace, Oak Park, O’Farrell, Paradise Hills, Ridgeview, South Bay Terrace, Valencia Park and Webster.
While Montgomery Steppe hasn’t yet officially been declared the winner of her runoff against Amy Reichert for county supervisor, she got 62 percent of the vote in the latest totals, and Reichert has conceded the race.
For details on city elections, go to sandiego.gov/city-clerk.
