Old Rivals Heat Up Oceanside City Council Race

Everybody here remembers Melba Bishop. As a councilwoman during the early 1980s, Bishop held sway over the political scene in this seaside city like few before her or since.

A curly-haired woman with an imposing physical presence, Bishop earned the loyalty of friends and the disdain of foes with her energetic--some say confrontational--brand of political gamesmanship. Even to critics, Bishop seemed invulnerable, a force destined to shape Oceanside’s affairs for years to come.

But in 1984, Bishop’s reign was cut short as she lost a bitterly fought mayoral race to incumbent Larry Bagley. Stunned, the erstwhile councilwoman slipped from public view.

Now she’s back, campaigning hard in a packed field of 18 candidates vying for two City Council seats in the Nov. 4 election. Bishop’s reemergence is the talk of the town and a headline issue in a fall campaign being dominated as much by personalities as by debate over substantive issues.

Bishop isn’t the only former council member attempting a political comeback in Oceanside this year. Lucy Chavez, a lifelong resident of the city and a one-term councilwoman in the late ‘70s, is also running. And, in a move that left more than a few City Hall political observers shaking their heads in disbelief, former Councilman Bill Bell--who was recalled by voters in 1981 over allegations that he misused city credit cards--is seeking to regain a council post.

Joining the three former city leaders in the race is incumbent Ted Marioncelli, who has served on the council since 1982. Ben Ramsey, a city planning commissioner, and a list of political newcomers that includes a longtime council gadfly, a barber, a mechanic and the manager of a drive-in movie theater round out the crowded field.

Also on the November ballot are two measures that, so far, have been overshadowed by the council race. One asks whether officials should prohibit the construction on city territory of any industrial facilities and pipelines that would be used for oil-drilling operations offshore. The other measure asks if Oceanside should adopt a city charter, a wide-ranging municipal constitution that would significantly alter the political calculus of the community. Under the charter, Oceanside’s five-member City Council would be replaced by a governing body composed of seven representatives, four of them elected by district.

Politics has generally been a tumultuous pastime in Oceanside, a city nestled next to the sprawling Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. And no wonder. Civic leaders have been frustrated for years by the city’s inability to shake its reputation as a sleazy haven for rowdy bars catering to servicemen. Lately, officials have grappled with a problem that has plagued all of North County--growth.

In recent years, issues like redevelopment have continually divided the city’s leadership and cloaked Oceanside with an image as a place where political dogfights barred any real municipal progress.

Melba Bishop was a key player in those stormy political times. A housewife elected to the council in 1980, Bishop quickly established herself as the champion of neighborhood interests she felt had been neglected for years.

Under her wing, 52 residential groups banded together to form the Neighborhood Alliance, a coalition that battled City Hall over innumerable issues in the early 1980s. Bishop used the organization to help bring down council colleagues Bell and Ray Burgess during the 1981 recall and then seat Marioncelli and Councilman Walter Gilbert, a coup that firmly established her reputation as a potent City Hall power broker.

While supporters say Bishop helped set the stage for unprecedented citizen participation in the political process, foes argue that she often drew blood with a confrontational, bombastic style that provided myriad newspaper headlines but accomplished little.

Now her opponents worry that, should Bishop be reelected, her powerful personality could spoil the political calm that they say has settled over Oceanside since 1984.

“She has a certain style that doesn’t lend itself to cooperation,” said Marioncelli, who has taken steps during the race to distance himself from his former political ally. “She’s very confrontational. And I think that has to change if she’s going to be on the council again.”

Bishop, 44, says she has done just that.

“My opponents are saying things about the Melba Bishop of several years ago,” she said. “Hopefully, I’ve grown, I’ve learned. I’ll always be the type of person who gets involved with issues and does the homework. But my style has changed a bit.”

Since her defeat by Bagley two years ago, Bishop has served as chief administrator of a health-care program in Fallbrook that is run by the Episcopal Church. She contends that the experience has given her an increased business awareness that should combine well with her spirit of neighborhood activism.

The groundwork for her return to politics was laid last year, when Bishop was elected president of the Neighborhood Alliance and began pushing the organization, which had splintered after her 1984 defeat, to once again become a force at City Hall.

In recent weeks, Bishop has pulled together a campaign organization numbering, she says, more than 100. Posters and signs heralding her candidacy have been planted along numerous streets and highways, campaign offices have been set up throughout the city, money has been raised.

Moreover, Bishop has lassoed the hot topic of the fall election season--the growth issue--and seems determined to ride it far. Bishop is the only top candidate backing a proposed slow-growth initiative that calls for an annual cap on the number of homes that can be built in Oceanside. The measure, which has not yet qualified for the ballot, is expected to go before voters sometime next year.

Candidates such as incumbent Marioncelli, Chavez and Ramsey also point to growth as the dominant issue this fall, but take a different tack, saying the dramatic measures favored by Bishop are unnecessary. Instead, they stress, the city needs to assure that public facilities such as roads, parks and sewers keep pace with growth.

“The logical way is to plan for it, to make sure city services are not outstripped,” Chavez said. “It’s more a question of quality growth and not stopping it or putting caps or moratoriums on it.”

Marioncelli noted that city officials have already taken steps to manage growth, pointing to the council’s approval in September of a new land-use blueprint that reduced the city’s maximum potential population from 320,000 residents to fewer than 225,000.

With slow-growth efforts blossoming in Carlsbad, Vista and San Marcos, Marioncelli argued that Oceanside is finally in an enviable spot to reap the sort of quality development that traditionally has gone to other communities.

Ramsey, meanwhile, warns that growth-control measures could scare off businesses considering a move to Oceanside. Business leaders might fear that such growth caps would lead to a shortage of housing for employees, he said.

“I think we can have good, quality growth without sticking our heads in the mud and saying no one else come in,” Ramsey said.

While Bishop has latched onto the slow-growth banner, Marioncelli has emphasized his record as an incumbent councilman as proof that he should be returned to office for another four-year term.

Marioncelli, 38, was elected in January, 1982, serving out the remaining three months of Bell’s term. In April of that year, he was elected to a full term and, since then, has established himself as a straight-shooter.

As chairman of the council’s legislative committee, Marioncelli has helped establish funding for the proposed California 76 highway project, worked to win state approval for the city’s Local Coastal Program and pushed for money to improve the pier.

Opponents say his chief weakness in the election may be the lack of a single, united constituency, but Marioncelli said he feels his position as an incumbent should help him retain a seat on the council.

Chavez, meanwhile, has solid support in the city’s downtown, where she has lived for many years, but is an unknown commodity to newer residents flocking into the San Luis Rey Valley and other fast-growing areas on the city’s eastern flank.

Elected to the council in 1976, Chavez says she decided not to seek reelection after one term because she felt four years was enough. Chavez, 65, decided to run again this year, however, after she determined the crowded crop of candidates lacked anyone she wanted to support.

Until 1983, Chavez and Bishop were personal and political allies. But that year, the two split over a proposal to build rock groins along the city’s beaches to quell erosion. The rift deepened when Chavez backed Bagley over Bishop in the 1984 mayor’s race.

Now squared off in the council race, Chavez and Bishop find themselves on opposite sides on most of the issues. Aside from the growth debate, they differ over the charter--Chavez supports it--and flood control for the San Luis Rey Valley--Chavez favors a privately financed plan while Bishop wants the federal government to do the work.

Ramsey, 56, enters the race as a relative political neophyte, but what he lacks in experience the business executive is trying to make up for with sweat and shoe leather.

In recent weeks, he has been walking the districts, and hopes to have marched up to every door stoop in Oceanside by Election Day. A vice president in charge of marketing and public relations for a firm that auctions automobiles, Ramsey stresses the need for a business-like approach to governing the city.

Specifically, the Kentucky native--a member of the city’s Planning Commission since 1984--would like to see the city’s redevelopment agency become a private set-up, similar to San Diego’s Centre City Development Corp. Moreover, he wants to see the city work harder to improve its road network.

A similar stand is being pushed by Bell, who has become the unabashed spoiler of the race. An arch-foe of Bishop, he would like nothing better than to best his one-time council colleague.

Bell, 60, was elected to the council in 1972, but vacated his seat after one term, running a losing campaign for mayor in 1976. In 1978, he again was elected to the council. Three years later, however, he was hit with the recall after the credit card allegations were raised.

Today, Bell insists that the recall was “trumped up” by Bishop because of her desire “to control the council.”

The retired Marine Corps sergeant major stressed that he is running again primarily because of two recent council decisions that irked him. First, the city allowed apartments to be built across from Oceanside’s Hobie Cat plant despite pleas from the firm. Second, the council agreed to proceed with a $3-million building on a key downtown block that Bell contends should have been reserved for a project in excess of $10 million.

Rounding out the field are: Ralph Caballero, a mechanic; Jerry R. Beauchamp, manager of the Valley Drive-In; Patrick I. McGreal, an attorney; Abraham Edlin, a longtime council critic and retired social worker; Paul R. Wick, a barber and tax preparer; Keith B. Leaverton, a construction surveyor; Dorothy Oak, a housewife; C.C. Sanders, a former Oceanside police officer who now owns a body-building club; Bolling L. Robertson, a retiree; Ronald Hodge, a real estate loan agent; Kimberly Hulihee, a packager; Higinio F. Casarez, a quality assurance inspector, and Linda S. Shaffer, a registered nurse.