Oceanside Council May Vote City Manager Out : Government: The Melba Bishop-led majority is at odds with John Mamaux over development and personnel matters, and his one-year contract has ended.

Oceanside City Manager John Mamaux may have fallen out of favor with the City Council majority and could be at risk of losing his $107,000-a-year job.

“I definitely think there’s serious trouble,” Deputy Mayor Melba Bishop said Wednesday. “We may need to look somewhere else.”

A closed-door executive session was scheduled for Wednesday night’s council meeting to discuss Mamaux, but there were late indications that a confrontation might be delayed until next week.

Nobody would conjecture publicly whether there are three solid votes to fire Mamaux, but it was unmistakably clear that he is in trouble.

If Mamaux is forced out, he’ll join a parade of city officials who have tangled with the council and departed over the past 18 months, including the past city manager, the city attorney, the redevelopment director, the police chief and the fire chief.

Last January, the council’s slow-growth majority, headed by Bishop, hired Mamaux, who had recently been defeated in a reelection bid for the Carlsbad City Council, to help rescue Oceanside from a severe budget deficit.

Mamaux has enjoyed a reputation for being a financial wizard and, in the years before his election to office, had been the city manager in both Carlsbad and Del Mar.

However, his sudden hiring in Oceanside angered Mayor Larry Bagley and Councilman Sam Williamson, who claimed the council majority secretly engineered the move and, in bringing Mamaux aboard, shunted aside acting City Manager Jim Turner, a 29-year city employee.

Lately there have been rumblings that Mamaux has clashed with the Bishop-led majority over development, personnel and environmental issues. City Hall insiders say he’s suspected of withholding information from the council and being “lenient” toward builders.

“I don’t know whether he’s going to be able to adjust some of his philosophical bents,” Bishop said.

Councilwoman Nancy York, a Bishop ally, pointed out Wednesday that Mamaux was hired under a one-year contract that ran out three weeks ago.

“I’ve been on record since the beginning saying that I wanted to do this (keep Mamaux) for a year and then do a search” for a permanent city manager, York said.

Both York and Bishop said Mamaux was hired to see Oceanside through its budget crisis, and they praised him for balancing the city’s spending program.

“Mr. Mamaux certainly did good work for us in getting the fiscal crisis under control,” York said. “We cut $9 million from the previous fiscal year’s budget in order to have a balanced operating budget.”

Bishop hinted both that Mamaux’s usefulness may have passed and that policy differences now overshadow his performance.

“We hired someone who would not have particularly been my choice in another time and another place,” she said.

Bishop then extolled Mamaux’s intelligence and “loyalty” to her during the recall campaign against her that failed in November’s citywide election.

“This is a man I care a great deal about,” Bishop said. “I don’t want to be unkind. I’ll be as objective as I can” in deciding his future.

Mamaux was outwardly calm Wednesday, saying, “I think I’ve had a good year, I’ve worked very hard.” He added, “I’ve done a creditable job in a difficult year and raised the respectability and stability of the work force.”

Asked whether he has enough council votes to keep his job, Mamaux replied, “I think I’ll be here tomorrow.”

Mayor Bagley has criticized the purportedly secretive way Mamaux was hired and how the city manager has handled controversial budget cuts and personnel actions in the Fire Department.

But Bagley said he will support Mamaux’s continued service, saying it’s up to the majority of Bishop, York and Councilman Don Rodee to fire him.

“The bottom line is, the three of them hired Mamaux, the three of them are going to have to fire him,” Bagley said. He said there is little point in ousting Mamaux if the same majority has the power to choose a successor.

“I’m not going to vote to get rid of him so long as they have the majority to say who’s hired,” Bagley said. “The devil I know is preferable to the devil I don’t know.”