Moorpark’s Mayoral Selection System Ends With Bitter Battle

It was supposed to be a routine and somewhat wistful event--the last time the Moorpark City Council would select a mayor from among its five members. But instead the municipal ritual went out with a bang, angering and delighting an audience of approximately 75 citizens.

In the end, Paul Lawrason, a 61-year-old contracts director for a small aerospace firm, was chosen the eighth mayor in the city’s six-year history by a 3-2 vote, but not until there had been a bitter fight against his colleague Bernardo Perez and a raucous 15-minute recess to give the participants a chance to collect themselves.

Moorpark voters last year overwhelmingly adopted an initiative enabling them to elect their mayor rather than having the five council members choose the mayor from among themselves. The ballot measure grew out of a city scandal in which one councilman was forced to resign and the mayor was recalled amid never-proven allegations of kickbacks from a developer.

Wednesday night marked the last time the council would select a mayor--a largely ceremonial post, because the 25,000-resident city employs a full-time city manager.

Perez, a 40-year-old employee of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the council’s mayor pro tem, wanted to be the last chosen mayor. He was nominated by Councilman Clint Harper, as expected, but in a turn of events that appeared to catch Perez off guard, Councilman Scott Montgomery proposed that the position be rotated during the coming term.

Montgomery proposed rotating the mayor’s job among himself, Perez and Lawrason, who were all elected last year and have not yet had a chance to serve as mayor.

Perez, who appeared nonplussed, said he would refuse to participate in such a plan. At that point, Montgomery nominated Lawrason.

Perez’s supporter Harper said, “We don’t contribute to the community by making Moorpark appear to its residents and to other cities to be a bit of a political circus. What we’re doing tonight is introducing personal feelings when they shouldn’t be there. In other communities, this would be virtually automatic.”

Montgomery was elected mayor pro tem after Perez refused the nomination.