Marco San Antonio is running this November for the District 4 council seat he currently holds by appointment. He was appointed to the seat in January 2025, when our council majority, Mayor Bruce Ehlers, Deputy Mayor Jim O’Hara and Councilmember Luke Shaffer, had their pick of candidates for a nonpartisan seat in a left-leaning city.
They chose San Antonio, a registered Republican with a long, then-public history of open MAGA advocacy. Concerned citizens flagged that history at the time, and the majority appointed him anyway.
His old posts, since scrubbed but preserved in screenshots available here, tell a consistent story. In November 2018, he posted a photo of a MAGA hat with an “I Voted” sticker, writing, “All my #MAGA red wave supporters, let’s get out there and Vote tomorrow. Someone has to be the voice of reason and logic in this crazy state of liberal California, and the entire USofA!” tagged with #protectourborders, #2A and #makeamericagreatagain.
A few weeks earlier, he’d shared a Fox News piece on a dating app for Trump supporters, joking about raising “future Chads and Brads” and tagging #redwave and #triggered.
In 2021, as the country was still losing thousands of Americans a week to COVID-19, he posted “#FREETHEFACE” alongside a National Review piece built around a photo of Dr. Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a mask, framing mask-wearing as a psychological red flag rather than a public health measure. That mockery hasn’t aged well.
A study published in the Journal of Health Economics later estimated that state mask mandates saved roughly 87,000 American lives through December 2020 alone, with tens of thousands more lives potentially saved had a national mandate come sooner.
He shared a post declaring that Senate Democrats owed Justice Kavanaugh an apology and telling followers to “VOTE RED,” paired with a meme mocking Obama over school shootings and gun control. He also reposted Donald Trump Jr., joking that his pronouns were “Told/You/So” to identify as a conspiracy theorist.
Other evidence indicates that this appointment reflects the true views of Mayor Ehlers and council members O’Hara and Shaffer, who each changed their affiliations from Republican, and in Shaffer’s case, the far-right American Independent Party, to Independent ahead of running in 2024.
They also quietly collected endorsements from Trump-aligned groups like Reform California, run by Carl DeMaio. Did they change their affiliations to appeal to more moderates, and if so, was it a coordinated effort to mislead voters?
This now seems part of a pattern reflected in policymaking. Ehlers, O’Hara and Shaffer campaigned as the anti-development slate who would finally hold the line against overbuilding. In office, they have approved every development that has come before them.
We’ve already seen where that leads elsewhere, too. In June, this council voted 4-1 to turn down nearly $4 million in state funding to house our unsheltered neighbors, choosing to posture against Sacramento over actually helping people.
They gutted the protected bike lanes on Santa Fe Drive, right in front of San Dieguito Academy, one of the highest-density e-bike corridors for kids in this city, choosing car traffic flow over student safety. That instinct isn’t unique to Encinitas.
Recently, Trump’s transportation secretary moved to strip federal funding from what he dismisses as “DEI bike lanes,” even as his own agency’s safety office had advised that bike infrastructure prevents crashes. Locally and nationally, the same politics keeps deciding that kids’ safety on the road is negotiable.
A council majority willing to say one thing to get elected and do another once in office is a council majority that will keep doing it — on development, on housing, on bike safety, on preserving our environment, ICE overreach, and every issue that shapes this city, unless voters change the incentive this November.
We have real alternatives on the ballot this November, and they’re worth voting for on their own merits, not just as a rebuke to San Antonio’s candidacy.
Candidate for Encinitas mayor, Rimga Viskanta, and candidates for Encinitas City Council, Brad Lefkowits and Arielle Golden, are running on the things this community has consistently said it wants: real environmental protection, strong public schools, support for small businesses, conservation of our open space and smart, responsible development that doesn’t sacrifice the character of this city for the sake of growth. Those are Encinitas values.
I also want to note that this isn’t about holding Republican or conservative values. It’s the MAGA alignment that is so concerning. Redirecting the MAGA course starts locally. Vote your conscience this November for a mayor and council that are honest about what they actually stand for.
Stephanie Wilson volunteers for the Encinitas and North Coast Democratic Club and for the campaigns of Brad Lefkowits and Arielle Golden. She lives in Encinitas.
