Oceanside Council Strips Mayor of Regional Posts

The Oceanside City Council majority successfully stripped Mayor Jim Wood of his regional positions Wednesday night. 

Councilwoman Esther Sanchez, a Wood ally, called the action “mean-spirited.”

Wood also was defended by a half-dozen speakers from the audience, including a representative of the local Democratic Club, Pat McFarlane, who said it broke tradition last year in supporting the mayor although he is a Republican.

Sanchez said the Council majority of Gary Felien, Jack Feller and Jerry Kern, all Republicans, is “to the right of Attila, the Hun."

 “You want to strip the mayor of his mayoral powers because he beat you guys—Mr. Kern lost miserably," Sanchez said. Wood was re-elected over Kern in November by a vote of 54 percent to 30 percent with a third candidate, former Mayor Terry Johnson picking up 15-plus percent. 

 “This absolutely is an insult to the citizens of Oceanside,” Sanchez said.

 “I'm angry about the disrespect for the position of mayor,” Wood said. “I am the senior mayor in North County. I'm just not very happy when three people can circumvent the will of the people,” he said. “It's embarrassing and it's sad.”

 Felien countered that the three Councilmen also were elected by the people and thereby represented a majority on the council.

 Previously, the council took away Wood's power to appoint the city's representatives to the powerful San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) which determines the distribution of transit and road moneys.

The Council appointed Feller to the post with Felien as his alternate. Council also decided to give the North County Transit District position to Felien with Feller as the alternate. Brian Boyle, an independent appointee, no longer would represent the city on the County Water Authority, a job given instead to Kern.

Felien introduced the measures and took much of the heat of the opposition. He said other cities pass those regional positions among council members, but Wood retorted that former Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis “was on the water board forever”.

From the audience, Joan Brubaker said since he seems to be getting his own way all the time the name of the city might just as well be changed to “Felienville, formerly Oceanside,” and Peggy Malik said Felien “really turned into a nasty, nasty person.”

“Do not dump our beloved Mayor,” speaker Robert Markley said. “Just once listen to your constituents rather than your out-of-town handlers.”

Jim Jenkins called the Council majority's action “a big embarrassment.”

Felien also succeeded in putting the deputy mayor's position on a rotating basis. An ordinance to that effect is to be drawn up for approval next month.

The Council earlier had refused Wood's appointment of Sanchez.

He said Wednesday night that, although the deputy-mayor position is largely ceremonial, when he can't be present, he wants to be represented by someone who shares his views.

"It's hard when people the totally opposite of you represent you,” Wood said.

“It's a sad day today in Oceanside—a sad day when democracy means nothing to its leaders,” Sanchez said.

Felien did withdraw one of his proposals, to make President's Day a legal holiday in Oceanside. He said he needs “to smooth some ruffled feathers” after some in the city took offense at his concern that the city celebrates the birthday of late civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, but not Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Proponent Jimmy Knott noted that this year marks the 250th anniversary of the time in 1765 when Washington realized he no longer supported the English king and the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves as well as the Gettysburg Address.

In other action, the Council:

• Voted 3-2, with Kern joining Sanchez and Wood, not to put $500,000 into a program to finance small business loans, averaging about $30,000. Sanchez said the money could be used better by improving rest rooms at the beach. “We are not bankers,” she said.
• Voted 3-2, with Sanchez and Wood opposed, to participate in the California HERO Property Assessed Clean Energy Program which allows property to be assessed for installation of such as solar panels. The opponents said they want more information first. Both a group of North County mayors and county government are studying the matter.
• Amended its local street improvement program (using Transnet tax money allocated by SANDAG) to add the Coast Highway Corridor Study ($500,000) and the Wisconsin Street median project ($47,500) and remove nearly $300,000 from the Melrose Avenue extension project.
• Unanimously approved a three-year strategic plan for the city library. Library director Sherri Cosby said she knows more money can be obtained from the Friends of the Library and the Library Foundation, and the next step would be ”to make sure we are allocating resources to the new goals.”