Councilman Keith Curry was appointed to the seat in February and is running. Dolores Otting, a city activist who lost to Heffernan in 2004, hasn't decided whether to run, and Heffernan said he might defer to her. In his resignation letter he endorsed Otting as his replacement.
"I don't want to get into a three-person race," he said. "Dolores and I will be fighting over some of the same voters, and my intent is to win, not to put a lot of my own money into a campaign and come out second or third."
Heffernan realizes some voters may call him a quitter, after he came close to resigning in 2002 and resigned three months after winning a second term. But in recent months, he cleared up his work and family issues, and he wants to address what he believes is widespread public distrust of the council.
"I think that I bring a perspective to the council that neither Keith Curry or Dolores Otting can," he said. "I'm a proven commodity."
Whoever wins the seat will serve until 2008 and then would have to run again to keep the office.
IMMIGRATION ISSUE CROPS UP IN SACRAMENTO
The illegal immigration issue has been lying low on the Newport-Mesa political scene in recent weeks, but it has popped up in Sacramento, according to Newport Beach Assemblyman Chuck DeVore. Assembly Democrats have squirreled a half-a-billion-dollar healthcare proposal that would cover illegal immigrants into the state budget bill, DeVore said Wednesday.
A conference committee added the item to a budget trailer bill while hammering out the budget over the weekend.
DeVore's take is that the proposal would expand the Healthy Families program, which offers health insurance to poor people, so that illegal immigrants and families of four with incomes up to $53,000 could participate. He estimates this would cost $500 million a year at a minimum.
