Moorpark Voters to Decide on Method of Mayor’s Election

The Moorpark City Council agreed to let voters decide in November whether the city’s mayor should be elected separately from the rest of the council.

The council’s unanimous decision late Wednesday came after political infighting over the post earlier this year that reached a high point when three of the council’s five members held the largely honorary title in a single evening.

The ballot also will ask voters to set the mayor’s term at two or four years. There will be no change in the mayor’s authority, city officials said.

The mayor in Moorpark holds no special privileges other than serving as chairman of council meetings. The position is generally rotated among council members once a year.

The city, however, has had five mayors in the past year. The rapid succession began last spring when former Mayor Thomas C. (Bud) Ferguson resigned after a local newspaper attributed racially offensive remarks to him.

Councilman Clint Harper took over as mayor and Ferguson was later recalled by voters in November. But at Ferguson’s last meeting, he provided City Councilman John Galloway with the swing vote Galloway needed to replace Harper as mayor. Councilwoman Eloise Brown also voted for Galloway.

Then on March 2, after Bernardo Perez was elected to fill Ferguson’s unexpired term, Galloway announced his resignation as mayor in anticipation of a move to oust him from the post by Harper. Galloway said Harper’s frequent criticisms of him were a form of “political terrorism.”

Following his resignation, Galloway turned over the gavel to Mayor Pro Tem Brown, making her the mayor. Twenty minutes later, Harper mustered the votes of Perez and Lane to call for selection of a new mayor.

Finally, Lane was nominated for mayor and elected with the votes of Brown, Harper and Perez. Brown, who retained the position of Mayor Pro Tem, said she did not particularly want to be mayor.