Special Election to Fill Oxnard Council Seat

Oxnard voters will choose the replacement for Manuel Lopez, whose promotion to mayor leaves an empty seat on the City Council.

Meeting for the first time, the new Oxnard City Council on Wednesday unanimously agreed to send voters to the polls to fill the vacancy, despite the $40,000 to $60,000 cost of a special election.

“We can’t give the impression that we’re going to sit on this thing and drag it out for another month,” Councilman Michael Plisky said. “I’ve personally always thought that this is the voters’ decision, and they didn’t elect us to make those decisions.”

The filing period for the race will run from Dec. 3 to 24, and the election is scheduled for March 2.

The decision to call a special election comes three weeks after a hard-fought campaign that resulted in a dramatic shift of power at City Hall. In the Nov. 3 election, voters chose Oxnard’s first elected Latino mayor, first black councilman and the fourth Latino councilman in the city’s 90-year history.

Councilmen Bedford Pinkard and Andres Herrera unseated incumbents Geraldine Furr and Dorothy Maron. And in the city’s tightest contest, Lopez edged council colleague Plisky by 137 votes in the race to replace longtime Mayor Nao Takasugi, who stepped down to pursue a successful bid for state Assembly.

Plisky, who was named mayor pro tem in the new council’s first official act, has two years remaining on his council term.

Council members got plenty of advice on whether to call a special election or appoint someone to fill Lopez’s vacant seat.

Some residents suggested appointing Furr, a one-term councilwoman who placed third in the two-seat race in the Nov. 3 balloting. Others suggested that the council solicit applications for appointment from residents throughout the city.

“The city is in no position to spend money on a special election,” former Planning Commissioner Manuel Perez told the council. “There are many outstanding people in our city to choose from.”

Others said an election was the only fair way to decide the issue.

“If there is not a special election to fill the vacancy, then there will be a special election for recall,” longtime resident Roy Lockwood warned.

The advantages to an appointment, council members reasoned, were that it would save money and allow a full five-member council to immediately get to work.

But in the end, it took the council about 15 minutes to decide against that action.

“We need to go to a special election,” Pinkard said. “We need to get the wheels rolling.”

Added Herrera: “I believe in the exercise of the electoral process. Only the voters have the ability to elect new council members.”