Oceanside Council Makes It Official : Government: City Manager Mamaux is ousted amid accusations that Councilwoman Bishop was meddling in promotions of firefighters.

In the wake of Oceanside City Manager John Mamaux’s firing after one year on the job, City Hall was crackling Thursday with allegations of dirty politics and predictions that other officials will be forced out.

The same City Council majority that hired Mamaux for the $107,000-a-year post last January voted 3 to 2 late Wednesday night to remove him effective today.

“It was time to move on and get someone who could work with everybody,” Deputy Mayor Melba Bishop, who voted with council members Nancy York and Don Rodee to oust Mamaux, said Thursday.

The council’s slow-growth majority had hired Mamaux to solve last year’s budget deficit, but became disillusioned by what the council members claimed was Mamaux’s leniency toward developers and over management staffing issues.

But Thursday, other factors surfaced about Mamaux’s downfall.

Mayor Larry Bagley said Bishop had been pressuring Mamaux to promote three city firefighter-paramedics who were loyal to Bishop during an unsuccessful recall campaign against her last year.

Other firefighters had angrily fought Bishop because of her support for deep budget cuts and an unpopular reorganization of the Fire Department.

Twisting Mamaux’s arm to carry out Bishop’s alleged political favor “has been the main issue for the last month, I think. (Mamaux) has certainly said that’s what they wanted him to do, and he wouldn’t do it,” according to Bagley.

Mamaux agreed Thursday that bucking Bishop over the three employees probably cost his job.

“My perception is (the council majority) became upset with me when I refused to put three paramedics in supervisors’ positions without testing,” Mamaux said.

However, Bishop denied urging Mamaux to promote the three.

“I flatly deny that I told him to promote them,” she said. “I did not order him to do that. It didn’t happen.”

She said the council majority turned against him partly over the issue of management staffing amid tough fiscal times.

“The entire management structure was an issue,” Bishop said. “We thought we were top-heavy in management. We were making serious cuts at the bottom and not cuts at the top . . . . We need to streamline.”

Asked if other city officials are on the way out, Bishop replied: “We definitely want to see trimming costs . . . . We want to look at the justification” for each management position.

By early Thursday, the implications of Mamaux’s departure were being discreetly debated in offices, hallways and around water coolers in the City Hall of the county’s third-largest municipality.

One middle-level official, who asked not to be identified, said: “John had a lot of support from the staff and we feel uneasy about what it means . . . . There’s a lot of suspicion there’s a long list” of others who may be axed.

Bagley, the archenemy of Bishop, predicted that the majority, with a more amenable manager in place, will make peace overtures to him and Councilman Sam Williamson, while “in the meantime, the slaughter will be going on below. There’ll be a lot of staff juggling and reductions going on.”

Mamaux feels that Bishop was meddling in administrative matters: “The issue was her ability to interfere with every department.”

However, Mamaux said he’s not bitter and leaves Oceanside believing in his contribution to the city’s future.

He hasn’t decided what to do next, but will receive half his annual salary as severance pay.

Mamaux has had almost as many career crises as Richard Nixon, having been fired as city manager of Carlsbad in 1967, then losing a reelection bid to the Carlsbad City Council in November, 1990, just before Oceanside hired him.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission investigated complaints that Mamaux voted on issues where he had a conflict of interest while serving on the Carlsbad council. The commission found no evidence of wrongdoing, but the probe helped spoil his chances of winning reelection.

Mamaux is the latest in a long succession of public officials to experience Oceanside’s legendary knee-in-the-groin style of politics.

Over the past 18 months, conflicts with council members have played a role in the departure of the past city manager, the city attorney, the redevelopment director, the police chief and the fire chief.

On Thursday, Councilman Rodee was reluctant to criticize Mamaux, saying only, “The mission we brought him in for was accomplished. We want a broad search for someone who covers all the bases.”

Even his detractors credit Mamaux with decisive actions that balanced the budget, including refinancing bonds that built the $33-million Civic Center at a lower interest rate, saving the city millions of dollars.

A 30-year city employee, Assistant City Manager Jim Turner, becomes interim city manager.