Cody
Mystery Solved
In late October of 2015, near the end of the successful signature gathering campaign, the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce put on its traditional training class for would-be candidates for local office. Both Cody and I attended weekly 90-minute class sessions for four weeks. By that time, I had decided run for Carlsbad City Council, and from brief and friendly conversations with Cody, I understood that she was also running. Remarkably, she also confided in me that she planned to run her own campaign and not hire a campaign manager. She said she would not cede control of her campaign to anyone. I had similar ideas, and her plan seemed to validate them (we both would spend thousands on consultants and would have campaign managers).
The last class session was a “Graduation Reception” for attendees plus one. Cody’s plus one was Helen. That solved the mystery. Cody enthusiastically introduced me to Helen, and she and I had a friendly, casual conversation. From that point on, Helen would always say hello to me whenever we happened to be at the same meeting or event.
A couple of weeks later, Helen sought me out at a regular meeting of No on Measure A volunteers. She told me Cody wanted to meet with me to discuss NCEC. I agreed. Since I didn’t know why Cody wanted to meet, I didn’t bother telling Jody.
The meeting was at the Starbucks on Carlsbad Boulevard. It was a Wednesday afternoon, so I brought a grocery bag intending to walk to the Farmers Market afterward. Cody and Helen were already seated when I arrived. The condition of the table told me they had been there for a while working. I did not expect Helen to be there.
The Meeting
Cody told me she knew Jody was frustrated with NCEC and was planning to form a new organization. She asked, “What would it take to bring Jody back into the No on Measure A fold?”
I told Cody, carefully, that I couldn’t speak for Jody but would be willing to convey the question. Jody could respond directly, or I’d act as an intermediary if she preferred.
That was it.
Cody seemed satisfied with my answer. She smiled, thanked me for the meeting, and left. Helen said nothing during the conversation but didn’t leave with Cody.
As Helen gathered her things into her shoulder bag, she turned to me and asked, “Want to walk to the Market? I need a baguette.” I said yes without thinking, as if we did this every week. We walked in step but didn’t say much—just the usual small talk. Weather. Bread. We bought our bread at Prager Brothers, said goodbye, and drifted off in opposite directions.
My immediate thought was, "What was that about?" Nothing, I guessed. But I drove it around the block a few times.
I knew my next conversation with Jody would be awkward. She wasn’t the type to interpret my “secret meeting” with Cody as anything other than a betrayal. I decided to call her and tell her about it. It was a short, strained call. Jody gave me no quarter. She called it a “secret meeting” and suggested I had involved myself in a conspiracy against her. I ended the call and followed up by email to avoid being derailed by her accusations of disloyalty.
My email was brief: the meeting surprised me, and I hadn’t known what it was about. I gave her a three-sentence description of what was said.
Jody’s reply was lengthy and less angry. She detailed her grievances and plans. She wrote someone “with a law degree” had confirmed Dee’s plan to keep the Let the People Vote data was illegal. The email said one of the four women leading NCEC (not Helen) told Dee that Jody was leading dissension within the group. That was an outright lie and deeply disrespectful, she wrote, ending the sentence with double exclamation marks.
She repeated her core grievances: NCEC appeared leaderless, didn't communicate with volunteers much, and made her feel like she was being pushed out. She concluded that she “wouldn’t be working with NCEC from here on out.”
The Aftermath
I emailed Cody to say that Jody would not be returning to NCEC.
Cody’s response surprised me. She agreed there were real problems with communication and ambiguity in leadership. She also acknowledged that these issues were hurting volunteer morale. She agreed that continued collaboration between Jody and Dee was unlikely and described the whole affair as “a mess.”
I came away thinking Cody was more concerned with preserving the volunteer network for her coming City Council campaign than mending fences between Jody and Dee. I also realized she was keeping a careful distance from NCEC. Even as she emerged as a prominent voice against Caruso, she never spoke on behalf of NCEC and was never part of its leadership. In our conversation, Cody represented Dee and I represented Jody. No more, no less.
Soon after our meeting, Cody independently organized a rally on the shore of Agua Hedionda Lagoon. It took place at sunrise on the Sunday before the Measure A vote. When I heard about it, I assumed it would be a modest gathering of a few of Cody’s followers. I was wrong. Almost a hundred people showed up—which is astounding for a local political rally, let alone one scheduled at dawn. The event was covered in The Coast News, complete with a photo.
I didn’t attend, but someone who did told me Cody spoke about the beauty of Agua Hedionda Lagoon and the reasons to oppose Caruso’s development. She didn’t mention her upcoming City Council campaign—she hadn’t even announced yet. She didn’t need to.
That rally made one thing clear: Cody had carved out her own lane—parallel to NCEC but not tied to it. Jody was out, and I had become a reluctant middleman between two competing orbits. The politics of opposition splintered Jody and Dee, stitching them back together didn't seem useful for either side.
We all just moved on—some of us more visibly than others.