Encinitas politics is a really fun blood sport. And the newest piece of info/rumor to hit the spotlight is that none other than Sheila Cameron has decided to run for the Mayor’s seat and has put in the papers to make it official! This is the first election in the history of Encinitas where the voters will elect the Mayor, rather than the City Council selecting from its ranks.
If you’re new to N. County politics you may not remember her, but this is the same Sheila Cameron who was elected to the Encinitas City Council in 1996 after a failed attempt in 1992, was selected Mayor by her new majority on the City Council in 1999, then was de-throned by that very same Council who found her behavior too off-putting to allow her to remain as Mayor. Everyone knows that an appointed Mayor serves at the pleasure of the Council majority, but Ms. Cameron holds a distinction as the only Encinitas Mayor ever to not complete the one year assignment due to the City Council having had enough of her. She was unceremoniously dumped before her year ended.
As a City Council Member she ran for re-election in 2000 and was trounced. Her other major distinction was that she refused to have a portrait hung in city hall with the other elected members of the city council for reasons she never really articulated, and as Mayor she ordered the then fire chief to turn off the fire alarms in city hall so she could hold a smudging ceremony to chase away the bad spirits (or something like that). There’s more wackiness, but we’ll save that for another day…
Welcome to the race to be Encinitas’ first elected Mayor Ms. Cameron! You’ll no doubt make things lively!
Her opponents thus far are Appointed Mayor Kristin Gaspar, Appointed Deputy Mayor Tony Kranz, and likely some others not yet named.