Moorpark Mayor Resigns After Leukemia Diagnosis

James D. Weak, the affable mayor of Moorpark who has led opposition to tight growth controls in the 3-year-old city, has resigned suddenly after discovering that he has leukemia.

Weak, 41, was admitted to Los Robles Regional Medical Center on Friday for an examination spurred by what appeared to be a bad cold. A bone marrow biopsy, however, revealed that Weak had leukemia, a cancer of the blood that makes its victims susceptible to infection and attacks the spleen and liver.

“He looks good, feels good,” his wife, Peggy, said Tuesday. She said that Weak began chemotherapy on Tuesday, and that physicians were administering large doses of antibiotics to combat an infection.

Weak is expected to continue drug treatments for one month and then possibly undergo a bone-marrow transplant, she said.

The surprise announcement of the mayor’s resignation, which was effective immediately, came Monday night before a City Council meeting in a brief letter read by Councilwoman Leta Yancy-Sutton.

“We thought he had a cold,” Yancy-Sutton said Tuesday. “I’m just devastated. It’s a shock.”

Weak, a business manager at the Newbury Park division of Northrop Corp., moved to Moorpark in 1981 and was appointed to the city Planning Commission in 1983.

He was elected to the council in 1984, and, a year later, was elected mayor by his council colleagues.

Weak emerged early this year as an articulate spokesman in favor of the council’s rapid-development policies, arguing against a community group’s initiative bid to limit new housing to 250 dwelling units a year in the Ventura County city.

He contended that a fixed-growth curb would endanger developer contributions to city traffic and park projects, and that it was too early for Moorpark, with a population of about 16,000, to put the brakes on growth.

The initiative secured enough signatures, however, to be placed on the Nov. 4 city ballot.

Council members said Tuesday that they expect Mayor Pro Tem Thomas C. (Bud) Ferguson, also a foe of fixed growth limits, to serve as mayor for the rest of the year. The council has 30 days to appoint a replacement for Weak.

Weak’s seat will be added to the November ballot, with the winner serving the remaining two years of Weak’s four-year term. Two other council seats--those now held by Yancy-Sutton and Albert Prieto--also will be on the ballot in November in races sure to be dominated by the growth issue.