Blink, and you might have missed the appointment of Imperial Beach’s next mayor.
With uncustomary speed, the Imperial Beach City Council on Wednesday elevated one of their own to the city’s top job after just a few minutes of deliberation.
Councilmembers voted 3-1 to appoint District 3 Councilmember Mitch McKay to replace outgoing Mayor Paloma Aguirre, who stepped down last month after winning a special election to fill a vacant seat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
After McKay is officially sworn in on Aug. 20, Councilmembers will make a similar decision about whether to appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of his four-year term or schedule a special election in his Council district.
McKay now will serve the remainder of Aguirre’s mayoral term, which ends next year. McKay said he currently has no plans to run for a second term. But he didn’t rule it out.
“If at the end of that time frame I don’t feel like this is what is meant to be or it’s having adverse effects on me or my family, I won’t run,” he said.
Though many of the nearly two dozen residents who addressed Councilmembers before Wednesday’s vote demanded a special election or at least a public application and interview process to select the city’s next leader, Councilmembers moved to appoint McKay almost immediately after residents finished speaking.
“I don’t see the value in spending money on a special election,” Councilmember Jack Fisher said shortly before voting to appoint McKay. “I prefer [the new mayor] be someone on this Council.”
McKay, a low-key, pragmatic retired aerospace project engineer, said he felt humbled by the appointment and pledged to maintain his predecessor’s focus on solving the ongoing sewage crisis in the Tijuana River. The crisis has shuttered city beaches and depressed the local economy.
“My commitment is to this community, to make it the best I can,” he said.
McKay himself seemed taken aback by the speed with which his fellow Councilmembers promoted him to his new job.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” he said after the vote. “I’m not looking to undo anything the past administration has done.”
Elected officials in Imperial Beach are nominally non-partisan. Still, Democrats in the packed Council chamber Wednesday evening said the swift appointment of McKay, a registered independent who leans conservative, represented an effort by conservative members of the Council to wrest control of city government from ascendant Democrats in Imperial Beach.
Aguirre is a progressive Democrat whose 2022 election as Mayor continued a leftward trend in city politics initiated by former Democratic Mayor Serge Dedina.
In addition to Fisher, who is registered as an independent, Republican Mayor Pro-Tem Carol Seabury and McKay himself (who is allowed by state law to vote for himself in mayoral appointments) supported Mckay’s appointment. Matthew Leyba-Gonzalez, the Council’s lone Democrat, voted no.
“I’m really disappointed,” said Sandy Brillhart, a member of the Imperial Beach Democratic Club who attended the meeting bearing a sign that said, “Government of the people, by the people and for the people – not 4 people,” referring to the four sitting Councilmembers.
“They could have involved people and had a more transparent and open process,” said Brillhart. “This sounded planned in advance. I’m disappointed there was so little discussion. They just appointed one of their own.”
Not all residents at Wednesday’s meeting echoed Democrats’ calls for a longer selection process. Many praised the current Councilmembers’ work and said the cash-strapped city couldn’t afford a special election, which city staff estimated could cost up to $400,000.
Some urged the appointment of McKay, who they said had the engineering experience and even-keeled temperament to address the sewage issue and lead a politically diverse community.
“There was no reason to wait,” Seabury said after the vote. “I’ve had people calling me and saying what they wanted. The majority in the room tonight wanted an election. But not a majority in the city…We [on the Council] represent all of Imperial Beach. Left, right, we don’t differentiate.”
Meet Mitch McKay: McKay, 67, grew up in the South San Diego community of Nestor, just outside Imperial Beach city limits. His father was in the Navy. “I always thought I lived in Imperial Beach,” he said.
He graduated from Imperial Beach’s Mar Vista High School and attended San Diego State University without graduating. He landed an internship at the aerospace company General Dynamics in 1984 then spent most of his career doing various customer support and engineering jobs at Rohr Industries in Chula Vista, now called Collins Aerospace.
Prior to joining the Imperial Beach City Council in 2022, McKay served three years on the citizens forum board for the International Boundary Waters Commission, which oversees a major sewage treatment plant on the Tijuana River. He also served on Imperial Beach’s Design Review Board and on the board of directors of the city’s Little League.
He is married with three adult children from a previous marriage.
“I look at things from a pragmatic viewpoint,” he said. “If there’s a problem, how do I solve it? What skills and tools do I have at my disposal?”
He said in addition to keeping up pressure on federal officials to address the sewage crisis, he would seek to support Imperial Beach’s business community, which has struggled amid a drop in tourism.
“Paloma always used to say we fight above our weight. And I think it’s true,” he said. “We’re willing to protect what we have because it’s worth it.”
The lightning bug solution: McKay will have no shortage of suggestions for solving his city’s problems. Among the many speakers at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, one had a unique idea for boosting the city’s flagging image: Milkweed.
Longtime resident Edward Brakmanis, who walks with a cane and seems to wear a perpetual smile, told Councilmembers he is a devotee of the butterfly-attracting plant and has cultivated a garden designed to invite a wide variety of local insects.
Imperial Beach, he said, could become known for its hospitality to butterflies, lightning bugs and other charming flying creatures.
Indeed, Brakmanis was so enthusiastic about his idea (which he has made to the Council before), he followed this reporter out of the Council meeting to describe his work in granular detail, eagerly chatting away about his efforts to persuade local park rangers to incorporate bug lessons into their work with local children.
“This could really boost our city’s image,” he said.
As far as I could tell, he was the only attendee of the Council meeting who seemed genuinely pleased after the evening’s proceedings and totally unaffected by the partisan divisions on display.
“I just love lightning bugs,” he said.
He grew even happier when I mentioned I might include his insect advocacy in this newsletter.
“You have made my day!” he exclaimed. “I feel just like Guy Smiley on Sesame Street.”
Speaking of Mayoral Contests: Here’s something you don’t see every day: A politician taking to the airwaves to announce he’s not running for anything.
Chula Vista City Councilmember Michael Inzunza did just that in a recent appearance on the Emo Brown Podcast, where he informed listeners that, contrary to widespread speculation, he has no plans to run for mayor next year.
Mayor John McCann already has filed paperwork to run for re-election in November 2026. Everyone in Chula Vista is asking: Who will oppose him?
Not Inzunza, even though his vocal presence on the Council since his election last year has prompted some political observers to wonder whether he’s gunning for the top job.
“I promised the residents of Chula Vista stability after we had two appointed Councilmembers,” Inzunza said in a brief text exchange earlier this week. “I’m keeping my word in fulfilling my full term.”
Of course, he made no promises about the future. “I will absolutely consider running for mayor in 2030,” he said.
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Perhaps a better picture of Mr. McKay would be suggested for next time? Great article.