In political disputes mud-slinging is not uncommon, but the mayor of a small California town was forced to resign after he was caught throwing not mud, but feces into a rival’s yard.
San Marino Mayor Dennis Kneier was caught on a surveillance camera on June 7, hurling a small plastic bag filled with dog excrement onto a resident's walkway.
Kneier has since admitted to his foul transgression and apologized, saying he should have disposed of the animal waste properly. And on Tuesday, he resigned.
'I thought it would be the very best thing for us to move forward and have a reorganization and have a new mayor,' he said in an interview with NBC Los Angeles.
Speaking to the Whittier Daily News, the mayor said he was walking home from a local park with his wife at around 6pm on the day of the incident when they stumbled upon a bag of feces on Charlton Road.
Instead of throwing it in a garbage bin, the head of the municipality picked it up and flicked it onto a pathway belonging to Philip Lao.
The homeowner told NBC Los Angeles he recognized the mayor on surveillance video and called police, who responded to the home and photographed the sack of pungent evidence.
Lao and Kneier have been at odds over a proposed dog park in San Marino - a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles with median household income of nearly $200,000, which more than 13,000 people call home.
The provenance of the bag of waste at the center of the controversy remains unknown as neither Kneier nor Lao own a dog.
Mr Kneier said he delivered an apology letter cited by Pasadena Star-News to Lao, which read: ‘Dear Phil, Late in the day this past Saturday, June 7, Liz and I were returning from a walk in Lacy Park when we noticed a bag of dog waste in your west parkway near the lamp post.
Rather than leave it or dispose of it properly, I placed it on your side walkway. This was a mistake, for which I apologize. It won’t happen again. Sincerely, Dennis Kneier.’
Lao turned the surveillance footage to police but declined to file charges against the mayor.
Philip Lao suspected that Kneier flung the bag as payback for opposing his plan to create a dog park in Lacy Park near his home, saying that pets tend to get into scraps when left unattended for hours by their owners.
Lao also has run afoul of the mayor by posting signs on his front lawn that read 'no poop zone.'
In Kneier's resignation letter, he acknowledged that dog feces situation as the reason he was quitting. Vice Mayor Eugene Sun will now step in as acting mayor until the city council can meet and select a new mayor.
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