Donna Frye

Donna Frye
Donna Frye at a city council meeting, 2008
Member of San Diego City Council representing the Sixth District
In office June 2001 – December 6, 2010
Preceded by	Valerie Stallings
Succeeded by	Lorie Zapf
Personal details
Born	(1952-01-20) January 20, 1952 (age 65) Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Skip Frye
Residence	Clairemont, San Diego, California
Alma mater	National University
Profession	Businessperson

Donna Frye (born January 20, 1952) is an American politician from San Diego. She was born in Pennsylvania and is one of three children. Frye was a member of the San Diego City Council, representing District 6 and a two-time candidate for mayor of San Diego. In July 2013 Frye was among the first to call on then-San Diego Mayor Bob Filner to resign over accusations of sexual harassment and assault.

Frye was born in 1952 in Pennsylvania, the second of three children. Her family moved to San Diego when her father took a civilian job with the Navy.

After a failed first marriage and problems with alcohol abuse, Frye met her current husband Skip Frye at a Mexican restaurant in 1980. After they married, he persuaded her to give up alcohol, and together they opened a custom-made surfboard shop in Pacific Beach in 1988.

Frye first became concerned with coastal water pollution problems when her husband repeatedly became sick after surfing. She soon became an environmental and community leader. In 2001 she was elected to the San Diego City Council in a special election. She was later elected to full term on the council in the regular 2002 city council elections.

Frye ran for mayor of San Diego in the November 2004 run-off election between Dick Murphy and Ron Roberts as a write-in candidate. A plurality of voters wrote in her name, but a controversy arose when she lost the election because a number of voters did not fill in the bubble next to her written name or misspelled her name (usually spelling her last name "Fry"). If those votes had counted, Frye would have had more votes than either of the moderate republican candidates officially in the runoff, but still far below a majority vote. Whether Frye would have been allowed to serve as mayor in any case is uncertain, as her write-in candidacy was at odds with the San Diego City Charter.