Dressed in black and surrounded by her cabinet, staffers and supporters, Mayor Coleen Seng tearfully announced Thursday that she will not run for another term next year.

Seng got choked up and teary as she began her press conference by saying, “Service is the rent you pay for your room in this world.”

That’s been her guiding principle for the past 20 years in public life, Seng said.

“Community service is the currency that earns you a place in our society,” she said.

As she was considering whether or not to run for another term as mayor earlier this year, Seng said she reflected on the reasons she ran for public office 20 years ago: “My life has always been about service to the community,” she said, “about participating in the community.”

She always put the public’s interest before her own, she said, and never needed to be publicly recognized.

“I didn’t need the title of mayor,” she said. “I never needed a title to do the right thing.”

And in deciding whether to run again, she said she put the public’s interest first again. She said she didn’t want a re-election campaign to derail the momentum of a number of big, long-term projects, including the Antelope Valley project, opening of the Stevens Creek basin, east and south beltways and possibly a new arena.

She concluded that if she stepped back from what she expects will be a nasty campaign, she’d be more free in the next nine months to ensure those projects stay on track.

“In reflecting on the past 20 years, it became clear to me that running for re-election could and probably would jeopardize the foundation that I’ve tried to (lay),” she said. “Advancing these projects is more important than campaigning for office.”

The possibility that Lincoln will build a new entertainment arena shouldn’t get caught up in a re-election campaign, for example.

“The project should not be torn apart by politics before it even begins,” she said.

In the end, she decided that would be a fitting way to end her political career: as a servant leader.

“The rent is due once again for my room in this world,” she said, choking up again as she closed her speech. “As as I have always done, I will step forward to pay for it.”

Seng said her decision wasn’t influenced by the fact that another Democrat, Sen. Chris Beutler, is interested in running for the position. She said she decided not to run again early this year but waited to announce her plans until the budgeting process ended, to keep politics out of the process.

Among the factors that did weigh into her decision: “The civility that is out there these days,” she said. She believes the level of civility has declined. When she’s out in public, people stop and thank her all the time for her work, but she said those people “would never write a letter to the editor or appear at the City Council.”

When her four year term ends, Seng said she’ll probably continue to serve the community somehow and continue to support issues and projects she thinks will “define the Lincoln to come.”

And while Seng was more emotional than she expected, she also said she felt some sense of relief and freedom.

The subject of whether Seng should bow out now or run again has been hotly debated by Democrats, especially in light of polling indicating she would get clobbered in a match-up with Republican Councilman Ken Svoboda, who intends to run. According to a source familiar with the poll, Seng’s job approval rating was at 41 percent; anything below 50 percent is considered problematic for a candidate.

Svoboda and Independent businessman Roger Yant are the only people who have publicly said they intend to seek the mayor’s seat, but Beutler has a mayoral campaign committee that has raised money.

Republican Councilman Jon Camp has expressed interest in the job, and Democratic Councilman Jonathan Cook has left the door open, saying he wants to see how things shake out.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.