One morning, Mayor John Duncan opened his office door to discover more than 200 soccer balls. Uninflated.
It was a surprise. But then he remembered a day back in July, when he’d spotted an email forwarded through the U.S. Conference of Mayors, originally from FIFA, inviting “active” communities to apply for free soccer balls in honor of the World Cup.
He applied. He heard nothing. He forgot. And then they arrived.
“We managed to get them all inflated,” Duncan said, a remark that undersells what must have briefly been the strangest afternoon at Coronado City Hall this year.
From there, the balls scattered across town. A batch went out to the grand opening of the new dog park at the Coronado Cays Park. Duncan personally delivered the rest in a one-man, ball-hauling goodwill tour to Village Elementary School, Christ Church Day School, and Sacred Heart Parish School.
Duncan framed the whole saga as a reminder that showing up matters as he told the story during the Sept. 15 meeting of the City Council. Kids don’t necessarily care what a council member does, he said, but more that a local leader showed up at all. He thanked his colleagues for their ongoing presence in the community.
The public record does not reflect who, precisely, was responsible for standing in a City Hall office with an air pump inflating 200 balls, or whether that person has fully recovered.
