Oxnard Officials Fire Ex-City Clerk From Police Post : Personnel: Report says dispute over her appointment hurt Mabi Covarrubias Plisky’s ability to do her job.

Oxnard officials on Tuesday fired former City Clerk Mabi Covarrubias Plisky from her job with the Police Department’s crime prevention unit, ending weeks of controversy over an appointment that many residents charge was politically motivated.

Plisky immediately went on vacation leave and will remain on the city’s payroll through the end of next week.

In a report released Tuesday, City Manager Vern Hazen concluded that Plisky followed proper procedure in landing the Police Department job shortly after losing a bid for reelection last month.

But Hazen said he and Police Chief Harold Hurtt determined that, because of the wrangling surrounding her appointment, Plisky could no longer effectively do her job.

Mayor Manuel Lopez and Councilmen Bedford Pinkard and Andres Herrera approved the action in a special closed-session meeting Monday.

“Right or wrong, it has created one heck of a lot of controversy,” Hazen said after releasing the findings of an inquiry into Plisky’s hiring. “In the final analysis, I had to make a decision on what was best for the Police Department and the community.”

In her new job as crime prevention coordinator, Plisky was on probation and could be removed with little warning, Hazen said. The position with the Police Department’s crime prevention unit has been frozen, he said.

Plisky has until her last day of employment, Dec. 18, to seek another job at City Hall. She said in an interview Tuesday night that she is considering that possibility.

“At this time I’m looking at all of my options both within the city and outside of the city,” she said.

Plisky started her new job a day after stepping down as city clerk, and she immediately became the center of controversy.

Residents complained that she sidestepped established procedure to land the police position, and charged that she received preferential treatment because of her years of city service and because she is married to Councilman Michael Plisky.

“It’s not anything she caused,” Lopez said after reading a prepared statement at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “But since this particular situation became so volatile and created such an uproar, we just felt her effectiveness had been compromised.”

The city’s investigation concluded that proper procedure had been followed in giving Plisky her new job.

She applied like any other employee and won the new position, the report said, which amounted to a voluntary demotion and came with a $20,000-a-year cut in pay.

Hazen said Plisky was entitled to ask for a job transfer after losing the Nov. 3 election because she was considered a city employee. Her elected duties paid only $300 a month, and the bulk of her $54,845 base salary came from doing council-approved staff duties in connection with her elected position.

Hazen is recommending a series of policy changes that, among other things, would prohibit defeated elected officials from requesting transfers. Under current city policy, the city clerk and the city treasurer may request such transfers.

“It’s a very, very unusual situation,” Lopez said. “All we can do is try to avoid it in the future.”

Hazen has taken a lot of heat for hiring Plisky and stirring up a controversy that prompted an investigation by the Ventura County grand jury. That inquiry, launched last week, came days after a group of neighborhood leaders called for the City Council to authorize an independent inquiry by the city’s Community Relations Commission.

“Hazen’s blatant, arrogant behavior and his continuous mind-set of doing business as usual has blackened the eye of our City Council,” Oxnard resident Harry D. Cortez told council members.

Herrera said Hazen should have sensed the uproar that Plisky’s hiring would cause.

“The city manager should have anticipated the public outcry,” he said. “There was apparently a lack of understanding of what the implications would be.”

Added Lopez: “I wish the council had been taken into the loop.”

Hazen said he was aware that some residents might have a problem with the job offer, but that he felt Plisky deserved fair consideration for another position after losing a city clerk’s job that she had held for 12 years.

“I felt that I could not discriminate against her,” Hazen said. “I had some trepidation, but I didn’t think it would be like this.”

Knowing what he knows now, Hazen said, he would have handled the matter differently.

“Sometimes in life you’ve got to do what you think is right,” he said. “I thought at the time I was doing the right thing. I also think what we are doing now is right.”