Even though Sheres is a brand new council member -- having just taken his oath of office at the Dec. 5 meeting -- custom dictates that he will be in order behind Smerican because he was the top votegetter in the Nov. 7 election for three positions on the City Council.

Smerican gave Sheres high marks for his first night as a city councilman, noting that he handled himself well as the council dealt with two controversial issues on the agenda: whether to permit a Texaco service station at the Lomas Santa Fe exit of Interstate 5 to sell beer and wine and toperate a car wash, and whether to permit construction of a one story residence which neighbors said would block their views of the horizon.

Smerican said the council rejected the service station's proposed liquor sales, but still has the car wash under consideration. The council also permitted the home to be built because the applicant had modified the home's design so as to have less impact on the neighbors' views.

Sheres said his first night as a councilman was "exciting and a very different experience" but not without its problems. A couple of times he had difficulty casting his vote electronically because, he said, "the apparatus is archaic, and kind of complicated--not as simple as you might think."

The new councilman said he can tell after just one meeting that the job will have both its good and bad points. "It's great that you can really make a difference and do some good things," Sheres said. But the downside is that one realizes quite quickly that "you're never going to make all the people happy all the time."

Smerican was first elected to the City Council in November 1998, and thus will be running for reelection while she serves as mayor during most of 2002. Her first involvement in Solana Beach affairs was as a member of a citizens committee developing Solana Beach's general plan. She dropped out of public life and went into mourning after her brother, Stephen Robinson, was the victim of a robbery and murder in a suburb near Philadelphia.

After several years, however, Smerican accepted appointment to Solana Beach's crime commission because "I wanted to make lemonade out of a lemon. I was chair of that for two years, and then four council members suggested that I run for the Council." Since that time the city's Crime Commission has been renamed the "Public Safety Commission," with its duties expanded to include traffic safety.

"I have a close relationship with the sheriff's department," Smerican said, noting that Solana Beach contracts with the county Sheriff's Department for its police needs. --Donald H. Harrison