Candidates focus on economy
Three vie for mayor's seat, while five in race for two council slots
SEASIDE >> The city of Seaside has competitive races for mayor and council this year with three in the race for the top spot and five in contention for a pair of seats on the city council.
A mayor serves a two-year term and the four members of the city council serve four-year terms. Two council seats come up for general election every two years. Seaside’s elected officials do not have term limits.
T he mayor ’ s ra ce sees current city leader Ian Oglesby being challenged by councilman Jon Wizard and Joseph Smith.
Oglesby, 55, has served the city for 10 years on the council — two of those as mayor pro-tem, and two as mayor. He has also served on numerous organizations including as current chair of the Veteran Issues Advisory Committee for the Military and Veteran Affairs Office of Monterey County, director of the leadership council for the Coalition of Homeless Services Providers and Seaside Groundwater Basin Watermaster.
Smith, 40, currently an internet technology director in the hospitality industry, served in the Army for four years, and worked as a government contractor in Iraq for six, including serving as base mayor for over 50 local nationals.
Wizard, 35, is public relations manager of Habitat for Humanity Monterey Bay and has served on the Seaside council for two years. He has also served on the Monterey County Planning Commission, Seaside’s Environmental Commission, the Blue Ribbon
Task Force for the Prevention of Youth Violence, and was a founding member of the Monterey Peninsula Housing Coalition.
Oglesby believes the most important issue facing the city is the COVID-19 economic recovery. He wants the city to adopt an eviction moratorium ordinance, create a rental assistance fund and increase the Microloan Small Business assistance pro - g r am. He also sees a great need for housing a f ford abi lity choices and education and youth engagement.
Smith sees a lack of jobs that pay a living wage and affordable housing as the top issues facing Seaside and seeks to help the under- served population get ahead.
Wizard also sees the city’s most important issue as multi-faceted including the lack of housing for all income types and jobs that graduating CSU Monterey Bay students need to prevent the braindrain from the community.
On the subje c t of reallocating or redirecting funding from the police department to other government agencies funded by the city, Oglesby said “I don’t believe we should defund our police department; we are at minimum staff levels now.”
The mayor would like to see a move from a “community policing” model to a community safety and violence prevention one “using equity as our guide. Adopting the database approach to crime prevention and intervention by addressing the root causes of crime in a long-term sustainable way.
Oglesby would also like to “continue my Community Equity Initiative with our initial funding of $500,000 to staff one fulltime city Social Worker and two part-time technicians including $320,000 of new community/social support services.”
Smith said he is “open to taking a closer look at the budget to ensure that all programs are receiving the
proper funding, and what can be moved around to facilitate that.”
Wizard said, “I remain committed to doing what is in the best interest of the community as a whole” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which has intensified the hardships of basic needs. The councilman also sees the city’s youth struggling, falling further behind due in part to the online learning environment.
“The peer-tutoring program (the council) was considering would’ve cost $150,000, but it too was scrapped by the mayor and mayor pro-tem in favor of a status- quo police budget,” said Wizard. He added that the police play an important role in the city but it is not the only service, and the council cannot “rely on policing to fill the gap when other serv ices have been st a r ved of revenue.”
In the race for two council seats, incumbent and mayor protem Dave Pacheco faces challengers Ayman Adeeb, a dentist and business owner, Tinisha Dunn, a health care worker, Alexis Garcia-Arrazola, a community outreach representative, and Regina Mason, a social worker.
Adeeb, 40, said his previous public service experience stems from being an immigrant, a health care professional, ser ving with the Salvation Army, helping members of his church with immigration paperwork, and is a property owner in Pacific Grove where he is building a multi-unit mixed-use structure that will include affordable housing.
Affordable and lifecycle housing in Seaside is the most important issue facing the city, said Adeeb. He said the process to build affordable housing is “a cumbersome process, with many procedural barriers.” If elected, Adeeb said he will seek to streamline and create efficiencies so more housing choices and stock can be developed.
On the issue of redirecting funding from the police budget for other city agencies, Adeeb said he firmly believes in continued investment in fire and police safety services to ensure Seaside’s continued safety and opportunities for growth. He said he would work with the rest of the council to provide responsible oversight for
law enforcement and provide it with the right tools and proper training.
Ga rcia- A r ra zola , 2 3, cites his work as a former Panetta Institute intern who worked in the office of a U. S. House Representative and a current Central Coast Community Energy Public Engagement representative as his previous public service experience.
The council candidate sees economic development and resiliency as the most important issue facing Seaside and would push for the creation of jobs that would “ensure residents do not pay more than 30% of their income on rent. Many families in Seaside fall under the McKinney Vento definition of homelessness, often living in substandard conditions, or multiple families in a household due to low wages and the lack of housing stock.”
Garcia- A rrazola said the city has “to reimagine how we are policing in Seaside. We have to analyze how officers are being deployed and how we measure whether they are achieving the goal of creating a safer community.” Garcia-Arrazola believes the city must assess the budget and find a solution that bene - fits both the community and the department.
Mason, 59, has served the public for over three decades including as past president of the Monterey County NAACP. She founded the Poor People’s Campaign for Monterey County and served as a commissioner for the Monterey County Commission on the Status of Women. She currently is a mentor for transition-age youth in Seaside.
She believes the most impor tant issue facing Seaside is economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic citing priorities related to housing, homelessness, jobs, and small business development.
As far as redirecting funding from the police department to other government agencies, “our city does not have enough money to reduce the budget of law enforcement as we are short officers and public safety is a prior
ity,” said Mason. “The police department is already greatly underfunded and the community needs to be assured that when and/or if they need an officer, one will arrive. Reducing funding is not in the best interest of the city at this time.”
Pacheco, 67, has been on the city council for eight years and is the current mayor pro- tem. He has served on boards and commissions including the Seaside Youth Commission, founding president of the Seaside Jr. Chamber of Commerce, Community Partnership for Youth board member, and the Pacchetti Dog Park board.
“The most important issue facing the city of Seaside is to start the development in the former Fort Ord area,” said Pacheco. “With COVID-19, we have had our most glaring inefficiencies highlighted: job creation, the retention of our youth, funding for programs and services, and affordable housing.”
T he incumbent said development of this la nd will create jobs providing more opportunities for Seaside youth, create affordable housing, and revenue for the city.
“Having a steady income base will allow the city to begin to be creative and evolve our model to find better ways to serve our people, the environment, and create a long- term and sustainable future,” said Pacheco.
The mayor pro-tem said he believes in community policing.
“In this current economic climate, we can’t afford to defund as I believe we need to maintain the existing police force,” said Pacheco.
But the incumbent said the city has taken steps in the direction of diversifying by adding social workers to assist in crisis situations and redirect cases better served away from the police force. He said the city has accomplished the initial steps toward this in its FY 2020-2021 budget and as the city learns about and assesses that action, it can move forward to review the budget and find ways to expand services to residents.
Council candidate Tinisha Dunn did not return messages to comment in this story.