Every Coronado resident is free to endorse candidates. So is John Duncan. But no one, especially the mayor, should blur the line between private opinion and City Hall’s authority. This election season, like in 2024, that line has been blurred several times.
What’s at stake? Since spring 2026, a 3–2 majority of Council members Carrie Downey, Kelly Purvis, and Amy Steward has outvoted Mayor Duncan and Council member Mark Fleming on regional and state questions, including the offshore drilling resolution and the city’s position on the Metropolitan Transit System sales tax bill. Council member Downey is not seeking re-election. If her seat goes to an ally of the mayor, that majority flips. And it appears he is putting his thumb on the scale.
The mayor has made his preference clear. In letters, he has endorsed Kelly Purvis and Ricky Hoyt, and he says he personally encouraged Hoyt, a political neophyte with zero Coronado civic experience, to run. That’s his right as a private citizen. But that is not how he wrote those letters.
In the Hoyt letter, he writes, “As mayor, I know what the job requires.” In the Purvis letter, published here in The Coronado News, he praises her “from my perspective as mayor.” Each letter then closes by calling it a personal endorsement, not an official city position. A disclaimer can’t undo the message. You cannot tell voters what you think as mayor, then ask them to forget you are the mayor.
Coronado has a rule against this. The city’s Code of Ethics, Administrative Procedure 102, says no official shall use the prestige of his position to support a candidate by “indicating in such written communication that the position stated therein is stated by the official or employee in his capacity as an official.” That describes “as mayor” almost word for word.
According to the city manager, that code applies only to employees under her control, which leaves out the mayor and council. It also has no enforcement mechanism. A part-time lifeguard must meet this standard, but the mayor does not. This is clear evidence that our ethics laws need an overhaul.
The parade raises a second issue.
At this year’s Fourth of July parade, the mayor rode in car No. 13, the slot assigned to the mayor and City Council. The placard on its door read “Mayor John Duncan” and, beneath it, “Peggy Duncan,” with the official city of Coronado seal printed below both names. Peggy Duncan had announced her candidacy for the Coronado Unified School Board months earlier, in March.
Coronado Municipal Code section 1.02.070 makes it unlawful to use the city’s official insignia, including the seal, “for any purpose other than for city purposes or for the purposes of any officer, board or department of the city, without the express consent of the city manager.”
The mayor riding in the Coronado Fourth of July parade is a city purpose. Placing a declared candidate’s name above the city seal, months before an election, is not. The city’s existing ethics code lists putting the city seal on political communications as an official misusing the prestige of office.
I don’t know who designed or approved that sign. I am asking the city manager and city attorney to publicly state whether they gave consent under section 1.02.070 and, if so, on what basis.
A spouse riding along may be tradition. Printing a candidate’s name on a placard bearing the city seal is not.
Meanwhile, mailers from the Lincoln Club Business League PAC, which the mayor supports, attack Rebecca King over a fantasy lie tax plan, one no council member could impose, since California voters must approve any new local tax, while urging votes for Purvis and Hoyt.
Taken together, these episodes form a clear pattern. The mayor holds one vote of five. When he uses the prestige of his office, and the city’s own seal, to shape who sits beside him on the council and who sits on the school board, he puts the weight of City Hall on the scale in races voters should rightly, and legally, decide for themselves.
The fix is simple. Mayor Duncan should endorse as citizen Duncan, without invoking his office. The city should confirm in writing that its seal will never appear alongside a candidate’s name. And the next council should do what this one hasn’t: make the Code of Ethics apply to the mayor and council, with real enforcement.
Coronado has always prided itself on doing the right thing. Coronado voters should decide our elections, not whoever controls the letterhead.
