Bob Nolan spent 30 years working for the city of Marina, ultimately retiring as a police commander earlier this year, and he already wants to get back to work.
Nolan announced his campaign for mayor Aug. 6, pitting himself against popular incumbent Bruce Delgado, who has been Marina's mayor since 2008.
"I was once a big supporter of Bruce," Nolan says, then adds that he thinks Marina has "got off the path" for what's best for the city.
"Having worked for the city 30 years, I understand how the city works," Nolan says. "I want to be more responsive to the citizens than what’s going on right now."
Nolan also wants to help rebuild the city's fire and police departments, the latter of which, according to a statement from Nolan, has lost a third of its officers "over the last several years…because they became demoralized and distrustful of the direction in which the city was heading."
Nolan says he has already gained the support of three of Marina's city council members: Frank O'Connell, Gail Morton and Nancy Amadeo.
Morton, who has nice things to say about Delgado as a person, feels some of his decisions as mayor have the cost the city money, and was disappointed that in 2014 he voted to allow Cal Am's test slant well on a beach in Marina (the council's majority voted against the well).
More recently, she took issue with Delgado's inclination to forgive a $634,000 debt that hotel developer Harvey Dadwal owes the city (Dadwal claims it will allow him to build a second hotel on his property in The Dunes development).
But even if Nolan has the support of three councilmembers, Delgado will be tough to beat: Since winning the 2008 election with 53 percent of the votes, Delgado has garnered an increasing percentage of votes in every election since, and earned 76 percent of the votes in the 2016 election.
He is also extremely active in the community, and Weekly readers voted Delgado the "Best Local Do-Gooder" in the Weekly's 2018 Best of Monterey County Readers' Poll.
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