A current councilmember and the current mayor face off in Seaside this Election Day.

Jon Wizard’s name will appear only once on the November ballot in Seaside.

The campaign to recall councilmember over his stance on police funding failed to submit signatures of registered voters by the Aug. 7 deadline, which means no recall proposition will appear on the ballot.

His seat, halfway through a four-year term, could still be threatened if the 2,767 signatures needed are gathered by mid-November, when a special election would be called. But by then, the whole recall campaign could be moot. Wizard might not be a councilmember anymore. He might be mayor.

Voters will have a choice Nov. 3 between Wizard and the incumbent, Mayor Ian Oglesby. In some ways, the men have similar views about issues facing Seaside. Both are acutely aware of the grievances of racial policing and police brutality highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Their understanding of the issue comes partly from their shared professional background in law enforcement. Oglesby is retired from a career with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Wizard was a sheriff’s deputy until he suffered a career-ending injury while executing a search warrant.

In the aftermath of the slaying of George Floyd, both men were seen at demonstrations on the streets of Seaside.

Oglesby boasted about the Black Lives Matter sign hung over City Hall and praised the city’s police department as a model for the rest of the country. “You haven’t seen a Black Lives Matter banner hanging over City Hall anywhere else,” he said at a Juneteenth rally. “So don’t tell me we are the same as everybody else.”

Wizard took a different tack. He became a leading local voice advocating to defund the police, by which he meant reduce its budget and reallocate the money to fund public services.

But aside from this issue – on which Oglesby prevailed securing a majority in favor of maintaining police funding levels at the last budget vote – the two candidates generally agree. They both want to focus on affordable housing and economic development.

Perhaps the most important factor separating the two campaigns, more so than the police issue, is age. With a median age of 32.3, Seaside is the youngest city by far on the Monterey Peninsula, according to data from U.S. Census Bureau. Seaside’s median age is also lower than the county (34.1) and state (36.7).

Wizard is 35, some 20 years younger than his rival, and he seems to have captured the support of generations closest to him.

Councilmembers Alissa Kispersky and Jason Campbell, for example, have endorsed Wizard, while Councilmember Dave Pacheco backs Oglesby. Kispersky is not seeking re-election; Pacheco is, and there are four other candidates for the two open seats on council, including 23-year-old Alexis García-Arrazola (who endorses Wizard), while Regina Mason, a long-established co-founder of The Village Project, supports Oglesby. Businessman Ayman Adeeb also supports Oglesby, and Tinisha Dunn has declined to publicly endorse either candidate; she is related to Oglesby and a friend of Wizard.