Hotel owner seeks council seat

By: BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer | Saturday, October 23, 2004 10:46 PM PDT ∞

CARLSBAD ---- When hotel owner Norine Sigafoose announced in early August that she would be a candidate for City Council, she chose a beachfront location and invited her supporters to attend.

The location was a natural: she spends much of her time in the area. Her hotel, which she bought 10 years ago and completely refurbished, sits along the waterfront. The 59-year-old candidate has her home as well as her business inside its walls.

Her supporters ----- some 70 people attended her candidacy announcement and she's picked up some high-profile endorsements ----- back her in part because of how active she is in the city, she has said.

"Plus, I've worked very hard on my hotel," she said at a North County Times editorial board meeting earlier this month. "I bought a dump and I (now) have the nicest place on the beach."

Some of her endorsements have generated controversy. The city's mayor announced earlier this month that he was backing her, breaking his 30-year tradition of not endorsing political newcomers. That led several of the six other candidates in the race to say city leaders have lost their impartiality.

Sigafoose thinks that is ridiculous. Go look at council members' voting records, she said.

In the months before she ran for council, Sigafoose sought the council's approval to turn her hotel into a nine-unit timeshare complex. They only approved it after she reduced the number of units in order to comply with the city's parking standards.

"So," she said, "you've got to believe the integrity of the people you've got up there. I'm very proud of the fact they did that ... Those are the times that I think it's very difficult to be up there, but they take the friendship out of (it)."

A former Carlsbad School District employee, paralegal and cacti business owner, Sigafoose is chairman of the city's Beach Preservation Committee. She's active in the area's evening Rotary Club, the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce and the Carlsbad Village Business Association.

Among her key issues she lists increasing city revenue to make up for state budget cutbacks. She said she would support an increase in the area's hotel bed tax, but not a move to bring big box retail stores to town.

In addition to the mayor and two councilmen, Sigafoose's endorsement list includes the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, Building Industry Association and the Board of Realtors.

Other candidates running for the two council seats on the Nov. 2 ballot are Carlsbad Unified School board member Tracy Carmichael, Roosevelt Street market and deli owner Ofie Escobedo, banker Bill Jubb, incumbent Ann Kulchin, financial business manager John S. Gill, and industrial arbitrator W. David Wells. Incumbent Ramona Finnila has decided not to run again.

Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.