Oceanside Official Calls City Appointments Invalid

The infighting among Oceanside City Council members continued Wednesday when the city attorney said a controversial string of appointments by the new council majority should be voided.

City Atty. Charles Revlett issued a written opinion saying the council overstepped its authority in making appointments to the city’s boards, committees and commissions over the mayor’s objections in December.

Revlett wrote that “the mayor is the appointing authority, and the council’s role is that of advise and consent.”

On Dec. 5, the slow-growth majority of the council, which came to power in November, fired most of the Planning Commission and approved its own list of committee and commission appointees, ignoring a list submitted by Mayor Larry Bagley.

“As I read the opinion, it was an illegal act and therefore it is void,” Bagley said.

The council also dumped Bagley from the prestigious post of director of the San Diego Assn. of Governments, a regional planning agency. That action was also vacated by the city attorney’s opinion.

Members of the slow-growth majority angrily rejected Revlett’s opinion, saying it contradicted an oral opinion he gave at the Dec. 5 meeting.

“Frankly, I have lost confidence in the man as an attorney,” said Councilwoman Nancy York, herself a tax attorney.

“This is exactly opposite to the previous opinion he gave us,” York said. “I foresaw this very problem and asked him for his opinion. He allegedly did research and told me that there wasn’t a problem.”

York accused Bagley of “a political power play” to keep his seat on the Sandag board, and said she “will certainly look for other (legal) opinions, ones that I can have confidence in.”

“I, for one, am not happy with the service (of the city attorney), and, if the majority of the council is not happy, then there could be a change,” she said.

York, the member who drew up the list of council appointees, said the appointments will remain in place.

Revlett could not be reached for comment.