Breaking Bread--the Political Way

The sixth annual North County Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast, held Saturday at Pea Soup Andersen’s Restaurant in Carlsbad, was a decidedly political and conservative affair.

David Courson used the occasion to make a fund-raising pitch for his Carlsbad-based Christian Emergency Relief Team and its work in teaching paramedic skills to the U.S.-backed contra rebels fighting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. He was backed by an articulate refugee identified as “Joseph Douglas.”

And keynote speaker Harold Ezell, western regional commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, gave a tearful account of his late father’s work as a pastor in the Los Angeles suburb of Wilmington.

He attacked the “big mouths who are going after” Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) for recent comments about a crime wave caused by illegal aliens, and said he has no apologies for his aggressive and controversial approach at INS.

If the Democrats win the White House, Ezell said, he’ll be the first person purged.

“I’m only doing what God put me in office to do . . . ,” he told the 150-plus breakfasters, mostly businessmen, Protestant ministers and other civic leaders. “I don’t think my work is through but if that’s God’s plan, I’m history in 1988.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, if Nicaragua gets its way, Mexico has had it,” Ezell said. “If you think you have illegal immigration now, wait until that happens.”

Sponsored by the National Christian Fellowship, the prayer breakfast was presided over by Dr. Richard Koole, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Vista.

Missing from the roster of mayors at the breakfast was Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley. “I was very disappointed at their performance last year,” Bagley said. “It was an evangelical performance, not nondenominational as I had been promised. If that’s what they want, they can count me out.”

Golden Hype

The quest for the senior housing and health care market in North County is intense. Nursing homes and “assisted living” complexes are competing to provide more services to their residents, particularly more social activities.

On Valentine’s Day, Rancho Encinitas Center brought in baritone Norman Mittelmann, who has performed at the Paris Opera and New York Metropolitan Opera.

On Friday, Rancho Encinitas, and two other complexes owned by San Diego-based Income Property Group, Rancho Bernardo Convalescent in Poway and Casa Del Norte in Escondido, will be visited by Herve Jean Pierre Villechaize, who played Tatoo on TV’s “Fantasy Island.”

Villechaize will be whisked by limo between the three facilities as part of Fantasy Island Theme day. When you’re in a competitive business, every little bit helps.

Ties That Bind

A businessman-constituent at the aforementioned mayor’s breakfast remarked at how well-dressed San Marcos Mayor Lee Thibadeau was.

Like a good politician, Thibadeau didn’t want to appear to be putting on airs. He whipped off his clip-on tie and wiggled it like a garter snake. A tie is an obligation, not a preference, he explained.

“I knew San Diego was going to hell 15-16 years ago when I returned to find so many people wearing ties,” Thibadeau said. The tie-less constituent agreed and the mayor’s political base was covered.

Strutting Their Stuff

You know that fancy letterhead that lists down the left margin all the groups and/or degrees and honors that the letter-writer has accumulated? The Zendik Farm Arts Cooperative, a commune in the hills above Boulevard in southeastern San Diego County, has that kind of letterhead.

The Zendik letterhead lists the commune as belonging to:

Acres U.S.A., American Donkey & Mule Society, American Federation of Arts, Assn. of Ceramic Artists, California Certified Organic Farmers, Earth First!, International Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, Land Institute, Native Seed Research, San Diego Area Dance Alliance, School of Home Learning, Sea Shepherd, Seed Savers Exchange, Society for the Promotion of Future Folk Music, and the Southern California Milk Goat Assn.

Among the groups not listed--for good reason--are the Democratic or Republican parties.

The Zendikers plan their own alternative political movement, with the first bash-rally-concert planned for 8 p.m. Saturday at the California Performing Arts Centre, 2838 University Ave., San Diego. A previous time-and-place was nixed by fire regulations.

They’ve Got the Boards

Timing is Everything Dept.:

Oceanside Recreation Director Richard J. Watenpaugh submitted his resignation last week amid an investigation in which police went to his home and seized five city-owned surfboards.

The next day the Recreation Department sent out a press release, still listing Watenpaugh as director, advertising its spring aquatics classes, including surfing.

Students were advised to bring their own wet suits. The city will provide the surfboards.