november2011

NC8SanDiegoMagazine.comNovember2011

❯❯ NORTH COUNTY | Personality

moving her young son, Chris, and pets

to Encinitas where she spent weekends

surfi ng at Beacons and Stone Steps. She

worked multiple jobs as a teller, house-

keeper, seamstress, jewelry maker, and

country-western dance teacher. At times

she’d collect welfare. A er graduating

from UCSD with high honors, she forged

a distinguished career working for the

library. She was named UCSD Employee

of the Year 1993-94.

In 1981, Houlihan met Ian Thomp-

son, a surfboard glasser from England,

through friends. It was a green-card wed-

ding that took place on Sunset Cliff s on

Oct. 8, 1983. Six months later they fell

in love.

Concern for animals led to co-found-

ing the Spay Neuter Action Project

(SNAP) and Wee Companions, a rescue

group for hamsters and guinea pigs.

Supervisor Pam Slater-Price inter-

viewed Houlihan when she applied to be

on the Encinitas homeless taskforce.

“She came into the room ebullient, full

of energy and full of smiles,” she recalled.

“Maggie’s hair was bright, flamboyant

red and she was so enthusiastic about

the task at hand. She shared her person-

al story about how she came here with

nothing at 22, with an 18-month-old son,

and eventually fi gured out a way to make

it work for her.”

Houlihan ran for city council in 2000

vowing to preserve the character of the

city that had drawn her years earlier.

She’d often smile and say, “Encinitas:

Where reality meets magic.”

“When she ran she was such a magnet

for people,” Slater-Price remembers. “It

aroused a great deal of envy as propo-

nents for big projects and large landown-

ers felt threatened because they couldn’t

count on her as a ‘yes’ vote. They had to

prove the viability of a project.”

She added, “Maggie was politically in-

dependent, but she was fi scally conserva-

tive and she believed in compassion for

all living things.”

Slater-Price reported that Houlihan

SAM HODGSON

THE SCENE AT ENCINITAS CITY

HALL the evening of Sept. 26 could

have been from a Frank Capra movie as

the city council convened to discuss the

vacancy le by Councilwoman Maggie

Houlihan who succumbed to cancer on

Sept. 16.

Houlihan’s followers, environmental-

ists, and animal activists, staged a show-

down with their nemeses, Jerome Stocks

and Mayor Jim Bond.

Houlihan’s absence left supporters

mourning the loss of the California girl

who never ventured far from the ideal-

istic values she cultivated as a child in

Long Beach during the 1950s. A lifelong

vegan and rescuer of animals, she was

an excellent student and avid reader of

animal books by Marguerite Henry.

In 1970, Houlihan fulfi lled a dream by

Remembering former Encinitas mayor,

civic leader, and animal lover Maggie Houlihan

California Girl

“She would

o en smile and

say, ‘Encinitas:

Where reality

meets magic.’”