Cancer keeps Mayor Kay Halloran out of the race

Mayor Kay Halloran has made official what had been suspected for months: She isn't seeking re-election.

Halloran, who had surgery Aug. 3 for what she has called an early stage of breast cancer, said Wednesday afternoon that her cancer diagnosis is the central reason she has decided not to put her name on the Nov. 3 ballot.

The 72-year-old - elected in 2005 as the city's first part-time mayor in what that year was the city's new council/manager form of government - said it wasn't fair to voters to try to stay as mayor when she wasn't sure what her cancer diagnosis might yet bring.

“While I'm fine now, and I feel good and I'm going to keep doing my job,” she said, “I'm not in a position to guarantee voters that I can remain in the position four more years. And if you don't have really a firm belief in your ability to do that, you probably ought not string them along.”

Halloran said she would be pursuing re-election if she thought she could complete another term without interruption or “falling apart.”

Thursday at 5 p.m. is the deadline for candidates for the City Council to file nomination papers with the City Clerk. So the mayor waited until a day short of the deadline to make her announcement.

Many people, though, had come to assume that the mayor would not seek re-election as prominent candidates Ron Corbett and council member Brian Fagan announced their runs for mayor and she deflected questions about her plans. At one point, Halloran suggested she would make her intentions known in late April at the end of the state legislative session. But it took until Wednesday to turn that suggestion to reality.

She declined to identify which candidate she will back to take her place.