puerto-rico-flag_web.jpgSAN JUAN — Mayor Jorge Santini said he will sleep aboard a bus on the streets of San Juan to prove they are safe.

Santini said July 2 he and his family will spend several nights on a bus parked in different neighborhoods. He also planned to cook a typical rice-and-beans dish for residents of those communities as part of his re-election campaign. Santini said his wife and three children also will participate in the sleepover. Santini said he wanted to prove that crime has not taken over San Juan, though many of the island's 1,117 homicides last year occurred in the metropolitan area. Santini is known for occasional quirky acts. He recently sent out a holiday postcard that featured his family along with a taxidermied leopard sinking its teeth into an antelope. Santini has been mayor since January 2001 and faces a challenge from Rep. Carmen Yulin Cruz in the November elections.