Ex-City Clerk Rejects Calls to Relinquish Her New Post : Oxnard: Mabi Covarrubias Plisky says she followed established steps to become crime-prevention coordinator.

Lashing back at critics who accuse her of using political contacts to land a new city job, former Oxnard City Clerk Mabi Covarrubias Plisky said Friday she has no intention of abandoning her new post and wants to end the ill will that has followed her failed reelection campaign.

The normally low-key Plisky finds herself at the center of controversy, just days after leaving the elected office she held for 12 years.

The City Council on Wednesday ordered a report on the city’s hiring of the 39-year-old Plisky after complaints that she sidestepped established procedure when she joined the Police Department’s crime-prevention unit.

Critics charge that she received preferential treatment because of her years of city service and because her husband is Councilman Michael Plisky.

But in an interview Friday, Mabi Plisky said she applied like any other employee and won the new position, which amounts to a voluntary demotion.

“I feel very qualified to fill the position and the city of Oxnard was my first love.”

Then there is her other love, Plisky’s politically conservative husband--an Anglo who narrowly lost to fellow Councilman Manuel Lopez in the Nov. 3 mayoralty election--who many say is partly, if not mostly to blame for her defeat.

“She was the darling of the Mexican-American community, the first lady of Mexican politics,” said Juan Soria, an activist who led an aborted attempt to force the city to elect council members by district rather than the current at-large system. “But all that ended when she married Plisky” in 1985.

Plisky, a Republican and pro-growth businessman, has long been considered at odds with more liberal council members who have advocated more programs for the poor.

“She became more conservative because she married Plisky,” Soria said of Mabi Plisky. “I think what shot her down was her association with her husband.”

“She went down with Mike,” said Santa Barbara political consultant John Davies. “Mabi has always run an aggressive campaign to win, but this time all the money and all the effort went into Mike’s mayoral campaign.”

Even Michael Plisky, a day after his second-place showing in Oxnard’s mayoral race, agreed that his campaign probably worked against his wife’s reelection.

“Maybe I was paying too much attention to my own campaign,” he said at the time. “Maybe I was being selfish.”

Latino activists and others confirm that Mabi Plisky had become a political target for those who wanted to usher in a new shift of Latino power.

In five primarily Latino precincts targeted for voter registration, Mabi Plisky lost to Daniel Martinez by nearly 500 votes. Some considered Martinez the “Latino” candidate, even though Plisky is a Latina and a longtime member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Such talk angers Mabi Plisky, who as a girl spoke English only outside the home. She said her parents are from Jalisco, Mexico, and she still clings to her Mexican roots and the traditional teachings of conservative family values.

“I can’t believe people would be that bigoted,” she said. “I’m a conservative, but it doesn’t make me any less of a Hispanic.”

Plisky went to work in the city clerk’s office in 1976 and worked her way to deputy city clerk before she was elected to fill the vacant position in April, 1980.

She and Michael Plisky started dating in 1983 and married in 1985, a year after he won election to the City Council.

Before marriage, Plisky said she checked with the city attorney, the Fair Political Practices Commission and even the state attorney general to see if their union would constitute a conflict of interest.

The answer came back that there would be no conflict as long as the councilman abstained from matters having to do with his wife’s salary.

But despite those opinions, conflict-of-interest questions have dogged the couple. Martinez used the phrase often in his successful attempt to unseat Plisky.

“There was at least the appearance of a conflict of interest,” Martinez said recently. “I thought that was a good enough reason to jump into the race, and apparently voters agreed.”

No matter how she has tried, Plisky has been unable to shake the issue. And even now, it is apparent that her husband’s politics continue to play a role in her life after elected office.

“I think the voters spoke to her and her husband and they just don’t get it,” said Carlos Aguilera, president of the La Colonia Neighborhood Council. “I think she should leave public life. It would be the honorable thing to do.”

Plisky has given much thought to the prospect of private employment, but in the end said she feels at home at Oxnard City Hall. She is taking a pay cut of about $20,000 as crime-prevention coordinator, where she will head the city’s neighborhood watch program and make crime-prevention presentations.

“People have always been so interested in our married lives,” she said. “Michael and I feel very comfortable in how we’ve conducted ourselves.”