Oceanside City Hall Resignations Highlight Tensions

Taken separately, they seemed like such petty offenses--an offhand remark by the police chief, the annoying late arrival to meetings by the redevelopment director.

But these incidents and others were like tinder-dry sticks piled on a political flame, and the flame roared up publicly when Oceanside City Manager Ronald Bradley and Redevelopment Director Kathy Graham abruptly quit in the same week.

Interviews with City Council members and political insiders in Oceanside’s business and development community reveal tension that had been building until it broke last month.

Some civic leaders wonder whether Bradley’s departure after two years and Graham’s after only six months mean Oceanside’s turbulent politics might settle down for a while.

“I don’t know if it’s a prelude to Oceanside getting it all together as a team, as it has a few times in its history, or a prelude to more political turmoil,” Councilwoman Lucy Chavez said.

Several business people who deal with the city’s redevelopment effort, and who spoke on the condition that their names not be used, are cynical about Oceanside losing two top officials the week of June 25.

The insiders believe the council has kept such tight reins on city officials that initiative and creativity are stifled by political heavy-handedness.

“They don’t give them the freedom to do their jobs,” said one source with financial interests in the redevelopment area.

While the long-term effect, if any, on city government is unclear, the resignations have brightly outlined the bickering and backbiting at City Hall.

Although a few general reasons have been given for Bradley and Graham leaving, there is much more behind the decisions.

Bradley, who made $101,000 annually, had become worn down by the political attacks of some council members on two of his key, hand-picked people, Graham and Police Chief Lee Drummond.

Graham, paid $61,800 a year, reportedly came to realize that strife within the redevelopment agency and growing dissatisfaction by a council majority left her little choice but to move on.

Some of the major factors leading to their resignations:

Bradley was fighting Councilwoman Melba Bishop over Drummond.

Bishop was furious that, after her lone council vote last Feb. 28 against buying two police helicopters, Drummond told a briefing room full of officers that they should remember how the council voted when reelection time comes around in November.

The chief’s apparent political threat got back to Bishop, who went to Bradley in a futile demand for punishment of the chief. “I told Ron I was upset he refused to discipline him. I was real upset,” she said.

Those ill feelings have lingered.

Although a council majority still favored keeping Bradley as city manager, there was bitterness toward him for announcing publicly last fall that he had taken allegations of misconduct against three council members to the district attorney’s office for investigation.

The three--Bishop, Sam Williamson and Ben Ramsey--were cleared after a nine-month investigation, but the damage had been done to the relationship between the council and their manager.

“I lost a lot of confidence in his ability to manage people,” said Bishop, who makes no bones about wanting Bradley gone, especially after “me and my family going through nine months of hell.”

Williamson flatly denies the incident soured him, and he praised Bradley for doing “the job he felt best at the time.”

But even Chavez, who wasn’t accused of impropriety, said of Bradley, “The business of the allegations didn’t help him at all.”

* Graham began having troubles almost immediately upon her arrival at the redevelopment agency, where Patricia Hightman, a 12-year agency veteran who had been acting director, was demoted to Graham’s second-in-command.

At one point, Hightman filed a formal grievance claiming that Graham had improperly denied her medical leave. According to sources, the matter was resolved when Graham relented and granted the leave.

Mayor Larry Bagley said, “It was really a damn near impossible situation from the beginning, I think, to demote Pat and bring in somebody over her head and expect them to get along.”

* The council--which had been divided in the first place over Graham’s hiring--suspected that Graham was negotiating big redevelopment deals on her own, without the council’s involvement.

“She made the mistake of meeting with the development community and leaving the impression you can do things without prior approval of the council,” said Williamson.

Several council members felt the council was left in the dark, for example, in her talks with the developer of the Harbor Hotel, a proposed 400-room hotel, 200 condos, restaurants and business-conference center at the city’s marina.

“What I hear is Kathy was doing some negotiating without the members of the (city) negotiating team,” Bagley said.

He said she also angered some council members on the team by arriving late to a couple of meetings.

Graham was far more popular with the city’s business and development leaders than with the council.

“She was innovative. When you came to her with an idea, she wouldn’t say ‘you can’t do that,’ she’d explore the issue,” said David Hadsell, chairman of the Redevelopment Committee of the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce. “I saw lots of bright, fresh ideas when I was dealing with her.”

The pre-resignation situation was indicative of the frayed relationships among Oceanside’s council members.

Bagley largely blames Bishop for making the city manager’s job unbearable. “As far as pressure on the city manager, it was primarily directed at getting rid of the chief of police by one member,” he said.

“I don’t think her primary objective was to get Ron, but I think if she had to take Ron to get Lee, she was willing to do it,” Bagley said of Bishop.

Bishop countered that the mayor has his own motive for attacking her.

“I dared to run against him for mayor . . . (and) even though he beat me in the election, he has never forgiven me,” she said.

City Manager Bradley took his share of heat from the council.

Chavez was upset over his demotion of Hightman, and Williamson raised pointed questions about the preparation of the new city budget.

Still, Bagley, Chavez and Williamson felt Bradley was performing well overall and he could have stayed in his job had he wanted to.

But, said Bagley, “if you have to spend all of your time covering your fanny, it isn’t much fun.”

He added that Bradley “felt, because of certain pressure he was receiving from one or two members, he couldn’t accomplish what he wanted as city manager.”

On June 25, Bradley announced he was leaving effective Sept. 28 to take a job with the nationwide accounting firm of Ernst & Young. He was out of town on vacation last week and unavailable for comment.

The council has appointed Deputy City Manager Jim Turner, a 29-year city employee, as interim city manager.

Graham has left to became the head of housing and redevelopment in Carlsbad, it was announced June 29. She was chosen from a field of 110 applicants and will be placed above Patty Cratty, who was the acting redevelopment director. Graham did not return a phone call from The Times.

Meanwhile in Oceanside, Hightman will resume the post of acting redevelopment director.