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Community CommentaryOpinion

Commentary: Mosier, Sandpiper always put negative spin on Del Mar

By Hershell Price

Don Mosier, editor of The Sandpiper, seems to want to find any fault he can with the Council’s unanimous decision to terminate CJ Johnson, even though as the elected representatives of Del Mar, they have the right to do so.

As a past mayor and city council member, he knows this to be true, but he just wants to try to dig up dirt to make the present council members look bad.

Let us be honest, Mosier, privately and as editor of the Sandpiper, backed the three candidates who lost in the last election and he has been bitter ever since.

We will never know the reasons CJ Johnson was terminated because this was a personnel matter and as such is to be confidential.

She has moved on and we should, as a city, also move on.

After all, we have a well-qualified interim city manager in Ashley Jones. Jones has been an employee for almost five years, and because of her position as city clerk, is very familiar with the workings of our city.

She is a positive force and is well liked by the other employees and knows how to get the job done.

In September 2016, The Sandpiper called her a “multi-faceted gem” in a glowing article praising Jones.

But that is not enough for Don Mosier. Remember how he tried his best to blame Councilman Dave Druker about a North County Transit District board’s closed session issue that Dave and our city were recused from?

Nothing there, but he just wanted Dave to look bad. It is that same type of dirty politics he is engaging in once again.

And now, The Sandpiper and its editor, Mosier, have made a public records request to demand that Councilwoman Tracy Martinez produce the following documents:

“All communications/documents, including electronic communications such as emails. voicemails, online posts, and text messages between Councilmember Martinez and Arnold Wiesel, Annette Wiesel, Everett Delano, or anyone with Delano’s law office, or the Del Mar Hillside Community Association, that include any of the following subject matters: housing; zoning; the North Commercial Zone area or properties; the pending Referendum regarding the NC rezone (including communications/documents regarding its potential withdrawal), or Watermark. The time frame for this request is from November 3, 2020, to present.”

Mosier’s public records request may be legal, but it looks to me like it is not only harassment of Martinez, a Latina woman he detests because she was elected when his council candidates lost, but also harassment of an elected councilmember.

Why doesn’t he leave her alone and let her do her job?

Hershell Price is a Del Mar resident and former Planning Commissioner.