It took 23 San Marcos City Council candidates over 2 1/2 hours Tuesday night at City Hall to present credentials and answer a handful of questions. It took Mayor Rebecca Jones, Vice-Mayor Sharon Jenkins and council members Randy Walton and Maria Nunez the governmental equivalent of a New York second, or about five minutes, seemingly to rubber-stamp Escondido Assistant City Manager Jay Petrek as their…
San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones and the San Marcos city council may be taking a curious approach to Tuesday’s city council member election. While most elections feature a few candidates and lots of voters, Jones and council have twisted that fact into an inverted pretzel. Do the math. At 6 pm. Tuesday, more than eight times the usual number of candidates for council possibly will…
Conflicting special election cost estimates and private lobbying of council members are just two of the lingering questions pertaining to the San Marcos City Council’s decision to appoint a new member for a 2-year term rather than allow voters to decide. After a final Thursday count, City Clerk Phil Scollick had received 24 – count ’em, 24 — applications in various stages of completion. Applicants…
San Marcos has an open city council seat. However, leaders won’t schedule an election. Instead, council members want to fill the seat themselves and appoint the new council member. Wait, what? On Tuesday, Dec. 11, council members voted unanimously to fill the seat left open by Rebecca Jones when she was elected mayor last month, by voting among themselves for a new member. Does that sound…
If San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones’ attempt to circumvent local voters by appointing a new City Council member next month instead of scheduling a special election sounds familiar, it is. It has happened before and Jones was the beneficiary of the new seat, her first political office, as a result. That happened in 2007 when then-mayor and newly elected San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond…
It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas on Saturday, Dec. 8 as 160 kids from 38 families along with 110 kids without family members were adopted in the form of gifts and goodies provided by host families at the Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos at 1 Positive Place. “We look for families we know will need support for the holidays,” Boys…
That gruff yet recognizable voice. The trademark cigar. Those corny jokes that may, or may not, be funny but with that rat-a-tat-tat Vaudevillian delivery that never seems to fail. It might be. It could be. It was…. Al Mager? Or was it George Burns? For those who thought George Burns was a permanent fixture in the Las Vegas of the sky, think again. Al Mager…
To help students become more engaged in the political process, Cal State San Marcos decided to bring the politicians to them on Tuesday, Oct. 9, exactly four weeks before the election. About 150 students, faculty, staff and community members turned out for CSUSM’s first candidate forum, held in the ballroom of the University Student Union. Of the six candidates invited, four were in attendance: Ammar Campa-Najjar, running to…
San Diego County supervisor candidate and San Marcos Mayor Jim Desmond committed campaign finance fraud, taking $2,150 in illegal campaign contributions from San Marcos Highland project officials seeking to do business in San Marcos since 1981, a Twin Oaks Valley Community Sponsor Group member alleged Wednesday. Desmond is considered the leader in the June 5 primary being held to replace District 5 Supervisor Bill Horn,…
Cal State San Marcos had a different feel when Rylee Leavitt’s grandmother attended in the early 1990s. Back then, Jane DeRoche was a single mother returning to school for her bachelor’s knowing it would help her earn a better living. “I gathered all my transcripts and kind of dumped them on the counter and said, ‘I want to go to school here. What do I…