I sat at home Wednesday and watched the City Council meeting while dozens of my friends, my neighbors and my mom attended in person. Without child care, I cannot attend a seven-hour meeting, let alone one that lasts until 1 a.m.
I’ve lived in Encinitas for 30 of my 40 years, the last two in Village Park. I teach in Escondido, so when ICE began its invasion of Encinitas last year, I was saddened but not surprised. In Escondido, “La Migra” has been a normal occurrence for years. What did shock me was the behavior of a small subset of my community members and my City Council.
A year ago, when a man was abducted just two blocks from Park Dale Lane Elementary School, I spoke at a City Council meeting. I welcomed Encinitas residents to a fight that the people of Escondido had been fighting for years. That night, our City Council took action to address masked men kidnapping people off the streets of our lovely beach town.
Imagine my surprise when Republican Party official Garvin Walsh sued the city to rescind those protections for our neighbors. I was baffled that someone could be so determined to undermine efforts to protect members of our own community.
At the beginning of this week’s meeting, Deputy Mayor Jim O’Hara attempted to shut down an agenda item on curtailing ICE activity before it could even be heard. He called it “frivolous and redundant and a complete waste of staff’s time and taxpayer resources.” He ultimately voted in favor of the “frivolous” item.
After reading the opinion piece O’Hara submitted to The Coast News on Oct. 30, just two days after the meeting, I am left both confused and angry by the contradictions.
During the meeting, O’Hara characterized the item as a “political stunt” intended to help Councilmember Joy Lyndes’ politically aligned candidates. In contrast, in his opinion piece, he criticizes those same candidates for not showing enough leadership to be present.
During the meeting, he suggested the item was “carefully calculated by paid political actors online” — a familiar refrain from him. Yet in his piece, he appears to take pride in himself and fellow council members Ehlers and San Antonio for showing up and voting in favor of it.
At the meeting, O’Hara accused Lyndes of “weaponizing an important issue for political gain.” Two days later, he portrayed himself as voting to protect and inform our community.
So which is it?
Deputy Mayor O’Hara, if this issue is important enough to warrant your vote, why was it initially so frivolous that it wasn’t even worth discussing? If residents showing up to advocate for their neighbors is political theater, what does that make a council member who tries to shut down the conversation, only to later take credit for supporting its outcome?
Leadership isn’t about taking credit after the vote. Encinitas deserves leaders who want to hear from residents. Who welcome different opinions even when it isn’t politically convenient. Who actually lead on important issues instead of taking credit after trying to stop them.
O’Hara is right — governing is hard. But what he’s doing isn’t governing. It’s pitting neighbor against neighbor and taking credit for things that he has actively tried to undermine. That’s something that’s much easier — and much weaker — than governing.
Anne Schwartz
Encinitas
