As I mentioned in my last post, there are challenges to reporting on the county supervisors. The only place to record what goes on at a county supervisors' meeting is a bank of audio outlets inconveniently close to the dais, from where board members can conveniently keep an eye on the media. The seats near this outlet are often taken, leaving TV and radio journalists to stand awkwardly in the aisle.

At the State of the County address, the audio feed was, again conveniently, made available on a loading dock outside of the Balboa Theatre, where it was impossible to see anything. (The city provided numerous audio outlets inside the theater for Mayor Jerry Sanders' State of the City address.)

The committee rooms, where the county's much vaunted Regional Fire Protection Committee meets, have an audio outlet the likes of which I have not seen in years. I happen to have a dinosaur connector to fit, but it turned out the audio feed only picked up half the mics in the room, not including the podium or the chairman's microphone!

Former State Senator Steve Peace says his vision for the airport and an intermodal transit center is a composite of visions many people have had before him. But his call to action at the Feb. 8 joint meeting of San Diego mayors (SANDAG) and the Airport Authority was striking (listen to audio above).

For months the Airport Authority has been holding public meetings about its master plan, challenging the community to say "OK, we like this," or "No, we don't want this." And for months it seemed there was little public reaction to the plan. Perhaps San Diegans are just relieved that the whole debate over whether to move the airport to Miramar was finally laid to rest last year. Perhaps they want no more to do with airport questions.

But the way the Airport Authority expands Lindbergh Field will affect San Diego at its core. The proposal would build a multiple story concrete parking lot on Harbor Drive and expand Harbor Drive to perhaps 10 lanes to accommodate people arriving to catch flights. What will that do to the Bayfront that is San Diego's crown jewel?

Finally, the mayor of San Diego has weighed in on the airport debate, and perhaps just in time. Steve Peace was able to roll out his ideas before a room full of all the mayors of cities around San Diego. The vision he started pushing last year may seem far-fetched; it would shift the front door of the airport round to the other side, the north side, next to Interstate 5.

But everyone in that room agreed the airport needs to be put into a larger picture of transportation around San Diego. It needs to become part of a hub with public transport helping to bring passengers to and from the terminals. Otherwise, it becomes the elephant on the waterfront, generating more and more gridlock in the surrounding city and filling some of best real estate in San Diego with parking lots and on-ramps.

Turning the airport around to face inland would take a huge shift in planning and land use. Even the Port District Headquarters would probably disappear to make way for a new off-ramp from Interstate 5! It will be a Herculean task to make this happen, but at least the region's political leaders have agreed to cooperate and start pushing for it.

The question is, can they get things moving soon enough?

As luck -- or life -- would have it, I was not at the press conference where Mayor Jerry Sanders cried as he revealed he had changed his mind, that he would not veto the council's support of gay marriage after all. But when I heard the tape, as he struggled to speak without breaking down, I felt the power of his emotion.

So it was a surprise to me when I heard a listener commenting that, though she was glad the mayor made that decision, she wondered why he was crying; surely having a gay daughter isn't THAT bad! And then someone else asked me what Sanders' tears were about, and whether they might partly be for all the support he knew he was losing among his conservative base, by taking that stand.

I have watched the mayor since he first announced his candidacy and I am compelled to say I feel his tears were not about what he was losing, but about what he had found.

It was a letting-go of the official mantle of conservative views he has had to adopt to represent those who put him in office (and who will keep him there, assuming he toes the line).

Businessman Steve Francis is breathing down his neck as the campaign season begins and Sanders is holding him at bay. The mayor is working to appease business interests who want to see managed competition happen faster, and hold the line for voters who balk at the mere mention of rate increases, even as the city's infrastructure continues to crumble.

But this week's decision on gay rights was an opening of the heart that was so strong, Sanders went against his better political judgment and revealed his true feelings, making himself vulnerable to unknown political consequences.

Anyone who has struggled with their conscience and then found they had to let go of the fear to find the love, knows what this feels like. So in this case, I, for one, choose not to be the skeptical journalist, but to take what I heard in Sanders' voice at face value, applaud his courage, and leave the sniping for another day.

-- Reporter Alison St John has covered city hall since 2003. Please read our guidelines before posting comments.

Perhaps Toni Atkins, a gay city councilwoman, knew her effort would be in vain. She persuaded San Diego's city council to sign a resolution in support of gay marriage. But the Republican mayor swiftly promised a veto. That would be consistent, he said, with the views he'd always expressed in public.

The mayor would not talk to me about his decision. Instead, his spokesman Fred Sainz, who's gay, told me the mayor does not believe in gay marriage. End of discussion.

But I had no idea of the mayor's private turmoil that night.

On Tuesday evening, Jerry Sanders was on the phone with his daughter, a lesbian in her 20s. Friends and neighbors stayed awake with a man whose heart was at odds with his politics. Just 48 hours later, the mayor would launch his re-election campaign, already facing competition from a conservative rival. And he would address the core of the GOP at a major conference here.

On Wednesday afternoon, a surprise announcement:

Mayor Sanders TO SIGN Council Resolution on Gay Marriage Brief; Mayor to Explain Principled Stance at News Conference this Afternoon

I ran through all the political explanations in my head. Here's what I came up with: The city council speaks for the people, and it would be wrong for the mayor to resist the will of the people, and a veto would be needless political theater that distracts the city from its real business.

I scooted to the the 13th floor of City Hall with my gear. It's a routine that felt different as soon as I entered the room. The mayor's entire staff was there. Fred walked in and asked us to please keep our questions brief, as it had been a very rough day for the mayor. He started to leave and then doubled-back. By the way, he informed us, Rana will be here.

Rana Sampson is Jerry Sanders' wife. The reporters had to get the spelling of her name, because most of us had never written it down before. She had never appeared with him in the press before.

Rana was stoic, even stern. She never uttered a word. The mayor wore a crisp suit, as he does at every press conference, and smiled at the reporters. A photograph would have revealed nothing unusual. Sanders began a prepared speech, then paused, then took a shaky sip of water. ( Watch the video -- Windows Media )

He told us he suddenly felt the "enormity" of the city council's resolution, and that his gay friends and family prompted serious soul-searching. He told us he had evolved. Oh my God, I thought, he's coming out. 

I was wrong. Perhaps more stunningly, Sanders revealed his daughter's sexual orientation, and that several staffers are gay. "I couldn't look any of them in the face and tell them their relationship, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife," he said through tears.

Arrested, I stopped taking notes. A press conference is normally so sterile, so superficial, so staged. This moment was none of those. "Wow," a friend later told me. "He totally just accepted that his daughter is gay."

I struggled to maintain my professional distance. No matter your politics, you could not have watched this speech unaffected.

The mayor finished speaking and sailed out of the room. We sat stunned, silent. A few moments later, the frenzy of phone calls began. Fred came back in the room to tell us the mayor would answer questions inside his office.

I resisted the urge to tell the mayor how courageous he was, how much I appreciated his honesty. He spoke to us softly, repeatedly thanking us for being with him. I knew the live shots, the sound bites, the news alerts would take over the airwaves within hours. I knew the story would be scooped up by the national media and the blogosphere. But for a few minutes, sitting next to Jerry Sanders, I felt like the moment was ours.

-- Andrew Phelps is a reporter for KPBS News and co-host of Off Mic. Please read our guidelines before posting comments.

See also:

KPBS reporter Alison St John reflects on the mayor's change of heart.

Emotional Mayor Reverses Opposition to Gay Marriage