Dennis Kneier, the Mayor of San Marino, California, resigned Tuesday as a result of the recent, very peculiar scandal in which he threw a bag of dog waste onto his neighbor's lawn.
"As is well known, early in the evening of Saturday, June 7, I had a lapse of judgment and discarded dog waste on a neighbor's walkway," Kneier wrote in a letter to his fellow council members, the local CBS station reports. "It was insensitive, disrespectful, and wrong.... I can understand why this matter has some questioning my ability to lead the council."
The neighbor, Philip Lao, has stated that he believes Kneier did this in retaliation for Lao's opposition to opening a dog park nearby, and because he had placed a "no poop zone" sign on his lawn.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Under San Marino's system of local government, the mayor is a member of the city council, and is chosen as mayor by the council itself. Kneier still plans to serve his term as a councilman.