Attending the Forum for Mayoral Candidates

I trundled back to MiraCosta College Thursday afternoon (9-13-2012) to hear the three candidates for mayor.  As with the forum for council candidates, the Chamber of Commerce sponsored the doins.  I was impressed with both forums.  The proceedings were well-planned and monitored and the moderator did a great job.

 Mayoral candidates include Terry Johnson (not an incumbent, but past mayor of Oceanside), incumbent Jim Wood, and current councilman Jerry Kern.

Terry Johnson led off with an earnest commitment to curtail the bitterness he sees dominating council meetings.  His characterization of council meetings was interesting for a couple of reasons.  His solution left me drop-jawed.

I’ve attended several council meetings over the last couple of years and yup, the temperature can run pretty high.  Listening to Terry, though, you’d think the meetings need to refereed inside a chain-linked octagon.  No doubt, citizens get after council members and council members get after one another.  But the proceedings are not out of control.  Listening to Terry talk about council meetings, you’d think he was talking about meetings of the Tri-City hospital board. 

As a second point, I’m not quite sure how Terry comes to his view of council meetings.  Of the several meetings I’ve attended, I remember seeing Terry in attendance once. 

More to the point, Terry’s solution for resolving conflict on the council was pretty scary.  Please follow along carefully here.  To improve Oceanside’s economy, Terry wants to attract investors.  He argues that investors are going to shy away from a city where the council argues.  According to Terry.  Yeah, anyway, so to attract investors, he suggests the council meetings – you know, where the public who elects the members of the council to represent them in open government gets to observe and offer input into decisions that affect their lives – manifest consensus and composure.  To achieve this manifest, he offers the suggestion the council take care of their business behind closed doors.  Now there’s an endorsement of transparency in government.  Yeah, striking a blow for democracy, rather than hanging all that public business out in front of the public – and outside investors – well by gum let’s just hide the public business and have the council take care of business behind closed doors.  In public, they play nice-nice.  (Has anyone seen recent TV news displaying the accordance among Chinese Communist party leaders as they pose after purging one of their own?)

I doubted what I was hearing.  I just knew I was misunderstanding what he was saying.  But he repeated the idea.  Twice.  Like he repeated his characterization of the brawling council meetings. 

These two themes were evidently the outcomes of his homework because other than these two points, he didn’t have much to say.  Oh, my bad, he did too have another repeated point.  He gave us a roll call of his compadres and comadres from years past when he was mayor and council member.  And he told us how splendid things were in Oceanside in those days.  

I remember those days.  That’s when Oceanside’s homicide rate was, per capita, among the highest in the nation and people in certain sectors of the city were afraid to leave their homes at night.  When gangs controlled the streets.  When two policemen were murdered.

Jerry Kern, the candidate who tells us on his yard signs that he’s all about leadership and accountability told us trash is more important than water.  While Jim Wood and Terry Johnson were rightfully concerned about the Gregory Canyon landfill where garbage would be dumped over an aquifer from which Oceanside draws its drinking water, Kern waded in (pardon the pun) with “Look, we need to have a place to put our trash.”  Thanks, Jerry.  But does it have to be put on top of our drinking water?  How about we do what you constantly suggest we do and follow the lead of other cities?  How about we focus on "Zero Trash"?  How about we compost and recycle?

Ah, but as both Jerry and I know, my questions are red herrings.  The trash isn't Oceanside's.  It's coming from Los Angeles.  Dumped on land that drains into the river.  On top of an aquifer.  Adjacent to a site sacred to the Luiseño folks.  Like I asked him and other council members who supported the landfill, I wonder how they’d react if the Luiseño decided to dump their trash or pee on the doorsteps of their churches.

Oh, and since I have Kern on the grill I want to comment on his gushing about the “development” projects slated for the beach area.  He trumpets the two projects will provide tens of thousands of square feet of retail space.  Umm, two questions, Jerry.  Will this new “developed” retail space match or surpass the empty retail space currently available in Oceanside? 

Second, and keeping in mind it happened during boom times, can you tell us how many years the retail space around the Regal Theater remained empty?

Affable and cool as ever, Mayor Wood answered questions directly and firmly.  I think what I liked best about Mayor Wood was his heartfelt wish that he could have saved the jobs of 140 or so employees over the past couple of years.  I’ll admit his concerns are mine – ones I wrote about in my first blog.  In stark contrast to Terry’s goals of attracting investors and Jerry’s alliances with developers, Wood has the crazy idea that the way to improve Oceanside’s economy is to protect and create jobs for people who work for a living.

And Wood listens.  Rather than draw from script prepared prior to the forum, Wood actually listened to the questions asked by the moderator.  And answered them.  Clearly and firmly.  No bluster.  No arrogant posturing.  No correcting or interrupting the moderator. 

Wood opposes Glen Canyon garbage dump.  And imminent domain that threatens the homes of 14 families.  To build a roadway to nowhere.  With money that could repair streets we already travel.  Wod prefers using taxpayer money to preserve city services and city control of those services.  He opposes using taxpayer dollars to turn city services over to private for-profit corporations owned and controlled by people who live elsewhere.  He understands that we can create and conserve jobs right here in Oceanside rather than pay taxes to and give away our self-sufficiency to outside corporate interests.

I don’t know where he lives, but I look on Mayor Wood as I do a good neighbor.  A neighbor who will watch out for me and others in the neighborhood, protect our interests.  A neighbor who asks for my help when he needs it.  A neighbor who is cheerful and respectful, instead of boring me with lectures and arrogance.  A neighbor I can trust.  A good neighbor.  Period.  And that’s why he’s getting my vote.