Official Squawks Over Baby in City Hall

Asleep in her roomy bassinet, 9-week-old Anne Elizabeth Foucault-Nelson looks innocent enough. Nonetheless, her presence has caused quite a stir at City Hall here lately.

A recently adopted addition to the Foucault-Nelson family, Anne Elizabeth--or “Annie”--spends two of every five weekdays at the office of City Manager Suzanne Foucault, better known as “Mom.” The other three days she reports to work with “Dad”--Del Mar City Manager Bob Nelson.

The doting parents say the arrangement is temporary, pending their hiring of a suitable baby sitter.

Many employees in both cities either hardly notice Annie--who does a lot of sleeping--or like to gaze and coo at her, but Oceanside City Councilman Sam Williamson believes her presence in the workplace “disrupts city business” and “gives Oceanside an unprofessional, bad image.”

“If I allow Suzanne to bring her baby in, then in all fairness I’m forced to let some guy over in planning bring in his child as well,” Williamson said Monday. “She’s the chief executive in the city, and I frankly think she’s setting a bad example.”

Prompted by “a handful” of complaints from the community, Williamson said he intends to take the matter up with his colleagues during closed session at Wednesday’s council meeting. But he’s not likely to get a lot of support: At least three of his four colleagues said they don’t see the baby affair as anything to whine about.

“There are many, many issues in Oceanside more deserving of our attention than this one,” Councilman John MacDonald said. “Personally, I think this whole thing is just a tempest in a teapot.”

Councilman Ted Marioncelli agreed, noting, “The baby is usually sleeping or eating and hasn’t in any way made Suzanne less conscientious about her job. And this is only a temporary situation.”

Foucault, meanwhile, said that while she regrets “that Sam and I have a disagreement,” there’s not much she can do.

“If I’d had nine months of pregnancy to plan for this, I would have been prepared,” Foucault said. Instead, after three years of waiting, Foucault and Nelson were given only 10 days’ notice before Annie arrived on their Del Mar doorstep in December.

The baby squabble follows by less than a year the resolution of another highly publicized domestic-related dispute involving the couple. In January of 1983, then-assistant city manager Foucault was offered--and accepted--the manager’s job.

The promotion was great news, but it left the pair of city managers in a quandary: Both Del Mar and Oceanside had ordinances requiring their top staff employee to live in the city he or she oversees.

The couple had been living in Del Mar, and Del Mar City Hall had even loaned Nelson $57,000 so he could afford to buy a house down the block from his office. Would the couple split up for the sake of their careers?

Oceanside officials gave Foucault and Nelson a year to decide. In the end, Oceanside City Council members voted to waive the “old-fashioned” requirement because of the high marks their city manager had earned.

Some City Hall observers say that Williamson’s attitude on the baby matter is “old-fashioned” as well, and the councilman admits that it may well be. But he stands firm on his contention that “babies have no place in city government.”

“I’ve had a lot of calls from people asking me what we’re doing in the baby-sitting business,” Williamson said. “What do I tell them?”

The councilman added that a former representative of the Oceanside City Employees Assn. had written a letter arguing that it is “unfair” for Foucault to bring Annie to work when other city employees are denied the privilege.

But Marioncelli said that charge doesn’t ring true.

“We’ve had sick little ones at City Hall and even older kids here when the day care centers are closed on holidays,” he said. “We’re flexible. I wouldn’t feel any differently if it was anyone else on our staff in this position.”

Marioncelli said he also detects “a definite feminist issue here, something we’re going to have to deal with more and more as more women take important positions in the workplace.”

“We’re going to have to come up with solutions beyond just saying, ‘You can’t have your baby here,’ ” Marioncelli said. “That’s like telling an alcoholic he’s fired until he’s not an alcoholic anymore. It doesn’t address the real problem of child care.”

Despite all the fuss in Oceanside, the City of Del Mar seems to have embraced Annie with open arms.

“It’s all been very positive on my end,” Nelson said. “We’ve got a sign in, sign out board and the employees have even suggested we put Annie’s name up there. Seems they’re more interested in her whereabouts than in mine.”