Left to Right: Back Row – Council Member Jerry Slusiewicz, Council Member Fred Minagar,
and Mayor Pro Tem Elect John Mark Jennings
Left to Right: Front Row – Mayor Elaine Gennawey and Council Member Laurie Davies
Jerry Slusiewicz abruptly resigned from the Laguna Niguel City Council, saying he feared for his family’s safety after a window of his office appeared to have been pierced by a bullet over the weekend.
Slusiewicz, who’s been butting heads with city staff and the rest of the council over the past several months and stepped down as mayor in August, sent a resignation letter to City Clerk Eileen Gomez around 6 p.m. Tuesday, an hour before the start of the regular City Council meeting, the Orange County Register reported.
“Serving the citizens of Laguna Niguel has been a tremendous privilege and I am grateful to the taxpayers who twice elected me their advocate,” Slusiewicz wrote. “Yet, my greatest commitment has always been to my family and my highest honor serving as a husband and a father. Their safety is my top priority, and this has shaken us to the core. Considering the events of the last 48 hours, we have decided as a family that it would be unwise for me to remain on the City Council.”
According to his letter, Slusiewicz arrived Monday morning at his office — inside a business complex across Alicia Parkway from Laguna Niguel City Hall — and found someone had fired a gunshot through the window. Slusiewicz is a manager for Pacific Financial Planners.
Orange County sheriff’s Lt. Matthew Barr, who serves as the city’s chief of police services, said he received a call from Slusiewicz around 8:30 a.m. Monday and sent a deputy to Slusiewicz’s office. There was a hole in the window, but the deputy didn’t find a bullet, Barr told the Register. Investigators are looking into the case, and there was no suspect as of Tuesday night, he said.
—City News Service