Newly appointed Encinitas City Councilmember Marco San Antonio, 49, initially arrived in San Diego County in the manner that many other longtime residents have — he came through a connection to the military.
His dad, a native of the Philippines, served 22 years in the U.S. Navy, and then founded a sign shop in Encinitas in 1989 after retiring, he said.
“And, we’ve been doing (the business) ever since,” he said.
The family company — One Day Signs on Coast Highway 101 in downtown Encinitas — makes large vinyl banners and many other types of signs, except electrical ones and campaign stake-based signs. One Day Signs probably has done “everything you’ve seen from lower Oceanside through to Del Mar,” San Antonio said.
These days, since his dad retired, it’s a one-man operation and that may prove a little challenging in his new role as a council member.
“I’m used to having my dad here,” he said, adding, “Now, I just have to be really good about managing my time.”
The former Olivenhain Municipal Water District board member was selected by the council to fill the District 4 seat, previously held by the city’s newly elected Mayor Bruce Ehlers. He’ll be formally sworn into office at the council’s Feb. 12 meeting, and he’ll be representing an area that covers Olivenhain as well as parts of New Encinitas.
Going into the sign-making business was a family tradition, beginning when his relatives lived in the Philippines, San Antonio said. Various family members currently own nine sign shops, with eight of them in Hawaii, he added.
And, there’s even the possibility of another sign-making generation. San Antonio and his wife, Noelle, a former nurse, have two children — a 4-year-old boy, Ryder, and a 20-month-old girl, Georgia Saylor. He also has plenty of other relatives in town; his sister lives in Olivenhain and his parents live in Encinitas Ranch.
Longtime friend David Forester met San Antonio when they both attended what was then called San Dieguito High School.
“For the life of me, I can’t tell you how we met, (but) once we did we were inseparable,” Forester recalled.
Forester later joined the U.S. Army, while San Antonio attended various colleges. He received an associate degree in fine arts from the Art Institute of California’s San Diego campus, and also later took classes at Palomar College and Santa Barbara’s City College. When San Antonio took classes at Cal State San Marcos in the early 2000s, he and Forester shared housing for a while, Forester recalled. They also both share a connection to the Orange County Fire Authority — Forester has worked there since 2006, and San Antonio was a volunteer reserve firefighter with the agency until 2021, doing weekend and evening shifts for a small fire station in Emerald Bay.
He’s a close enough friend that he was one of just a few people that Forester celebrated his 50th birthday with earlier this year.
“He is one of the most genuine, caring guys that I have known,” Forester said, adding that he expects that as a council member San Antonio will be good at listening to other people’s viewpoints.
