New Encinitas Mayor Bruce Ehlers, 66, grew up in a family where political service was a part of life.
His dad served on the town council of Deerfield, Ill., and on the planning commission, and on the school board.
“I think it was somewhat imprinted in me,” he said, adding that he’s even the “spitting image of my dad — height, everything.”
Jim Polick, who has known Ehlers since the 1970s when the two were in junior high together and now lives in Wisconsin, said both dad and son also became engineers, as did one of Ehlers’ brothers. However, he added, Ehlers isn’t your stereotypical nerdy engineer.
“He transcended groups — you couldn’t really pigeon-hole him,” Polick said, mentioning that Ehlers, an avid basketball player, is more sports-minded than people might expect.
Born in Cincinnati, Ehlers spent his childhood in Deerfield, Ill., and attended Purdue University. After graduation, he had an engineering job in Los Angeles for a while until he “thought what the hell am I doing in L.A.,” and headed for San Diego County.
“We pulled off the freeway at Encinitas Boulevard and said, ‘This looks good,’” and have stayed ever since — more than 40 years, he joked.
Over the decades since, he has worked for a variety of companies, including Cipher Data Products and General Instrument, and at one point he founded 2GIG and later sold it to Blackstone Equity. Along the way, he and his wife Beth — they eloped just like his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents — had a daughter, and then a set of twins.
And, in his spare time, he started getting involved in Encinitas politics. He managed former Councilmember Maggie Houlihan’s 2000, 2004 and 2008 campaigns; he was the author and campaign spokesman for Proposition A, the city’s growth-management initiative; he led the successful campaign against the city-sponsored housing plan ballot measure known as Measure T; and he served many roles on the Olivenhain Town Council from 1998 through 2003.
And, he twice served on the city’s Planning Commission — once from 2002 to 2004, and again from 2017 to 2022. During his second term while he was running for City Council, the council unanimously voted to remove him from the Planning Commission. The council members said they did so because he filed paperwork supporting a housing development-related court case against the city and had made public comments against the city’s housing policies. Ehlers and his supporters said the removal vote was a political stunt aimed at derailing his council campaign.
He won his campaign, becoming the representative for the city’s District 4 — the Olivenhain and much of New Encinitas region. Now, two years later, he’s been elected mayor.
“My goal for Encinitas is to get us out of adolescence and into adulthood,” Ehlers said, saying he wants to focus on improving the city’s basic infrastructure.
His childhood friend Polick said he definitely has the mental ability to accomplish what he sets out to do. “He’s as smart as can be.” And, he said, Ehlers also has a willingness to look past people’s political party affiliations — Ehlers is a former Republican who in recent years has registered as an Independent.
“I think Bruce will reflect what the community wants,” Polick said.
Carlsbad resident Bob Lombard, who once shared a cubical wall with Ehlers when they worked together at Cipher Data and also coached Ehlers’ daughters in soccer, said Ehlers’ midwestern roots show — he’s extremely friendly, with a “really solid work ethic that I’ve always admired” and a logical, engineering mind.
As mayor, Ehlers “will be an honest … straightforward guy,” he said. “I think he’ll be a great mayor.”
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