Oceanside Halves Pay for City Clerk

Oceanside City Clerk Barbara Bishop-Smith came home from an Alaska vacation to find the real chill: a City Council majority had voted to cut her salary in half while she was gone, without ever warning her the topic was on the table.

“It’s a total lack of decency on their part not even to talk to me about it,” she said Friday, after learning that her salary would be sliced from $60,000 a year to $30,000.

Bishop-Smith and Mayor Larry Bagley, who opposed the move, said they had no doubt the Wednesday-night council action was politically motivated--an attempt to discourage Bishop-Smith from running for reelection in November.

With Bishop-Smith out of the picture, a candidate hand-picked by council members Nancy York, Don Rodee and Melba Bishop could obtain the post, City Hall insiders said. York, Rodee and Bishop joined forces to order the salary cut.

Bishop (no relation to Bishop-Smith) and York have denied any political motivation. They say it is a matter of economics during a time when some city employees face layoffs or demotions.

“It’s not economics at all,” Bagley said. “It has nothing to do with the budget.”

Bishop-Smith said she had no doubt the move was political.

And no one from the council talked to her about the budget or her salary or gave any indication the issue would come up before she went on vacation two weeks ago, Bishop-Smith said.

The pay cut will not take effect until after the election, according to York’s motion. But Bishop-Smith said Friday that it will not force her off the ballot.

“I will be running again,” she said.

This is her 12th year as the elected city clerk and her 23rd with the city. Before running for office, she worked 11 years as a planning technician and secretary for the Oceanside Planning Department.

“I think they are just blatantly making a vicious attack at her,” said Councilman Sam Williamson Sr., who joined Bagley to oppose the pay cut. “It has nothing to do with saving $30,000. It’s strictly a vicious, personal attack.”

It is all part and parcel, Bagley and Williamson said, of attempts by the Bishop-Rodee-York majority to interfere with city employees and “micro-manage” individual departments.

They have blamed that for the loss--by resignation, retirement, or firing--of at least nine top Oceanside administrators in the less than two years since York and Rodee were elected and formed a majority voting bloc with Bishop. Departures include two city managers, a city attorney, harbor chief executive officer, finance director, fire chief, police chief, personnel director and public services director.

York and Bishop on Friday said their only consideration was the city budget.

“I noticed her (Bishop-Smith’s) salary was way out of line with what elected officials receive,” York said. Council members, who are considered part-time, make about $23,000 a year in pay and benefits.

Bishop and York also denied that the salary cut was aimed personally at Bishop-Smith or was in any way motivated by politics.

“It’s not aimed at Barbara at all,” Bishop said. “I don’t even know if Barbara is going to run or if anyone else is going to run, or who else might be going to run.”

Bishop-Smith has been the only department head somewhat immune to pressure from the council majority because she is elected and answerable to the voters and not the council. And that is another reason for the attack on her salary, Williamson said.

Others claim it is directly related to a bitterly fought, unsuccessful attempt to recall Bishop in 1991.

The city clerk, besides being responsible for maintaining almost all state-mandated city records, runs municipal elections in Oceanside. She is charged with making sure state election codes and campaign financing laws are followed by all sides in any campaign.

Bishop backers last year repeatedly accused the clerk of being biased in favor of recall proponents.

Bishop-Smith said Friday that she also believed bitterness over the recall was at least one factor behind the salary slashing.

“We have always been nonpolitical, nonpartisan,” she said. “They (Bishop and her supporters) are aware of that, but they chose to take this approach, and it’s quite appalling.”

She said there was no comparison between her full-time job as an elected department chief and part-time council members who have time to work at second jobs.

Her salary is lower than that of all other Oceanside department heads, and in-line or below all other elected or appointed city clerks in San Diego County, she said.

If her salary was cut to $30,000 a year, it also would mean she would be making less than her two assistant city clerks, she said.

In fact, said other city officials, Bishop’s salary would be less than that of an administrative secretary, who can expect to make $31,000 with the equivalent time on the job.

Escondido City Clerk Jeanne Bunch, who also is elected, said she is paid about $60,500 a year, almost the same as Bishop-Smith, adding that she has no doubt the job of any city clerk--most of whose duties are mandated by state law--should be considered full-time and treated as a department head post.

“I’m very fortunate in my city that I am treated as a department head,” she said.

Vista City Clerk Jo Seibert, who was appointed by the Vista City Council, said she was shocked by the news from Oceanside.

“I think it’s a terrible thing that they’ve done,” she said. “I understand what they are saying about her being elected, but she is still managing a department, and I don’t think her salary should be so disproportionate to the other department heads.”

Seibert said her salary is about $61,000 a year.