Place Making and Attracting Value - Rethinking Encinitas

Let's put a face to the engineer who gave us his confession in yesterday's post, Charles Marhon of Strong Towns. 

Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

Pay Attention Rob Blough! and all the Encinitas Engineering Department.  This is also dedicated to the council majority and the people who refuse to question the status quo for any reason . . . just because.

This reprint from Strong Towns blog by Charles Marohn (in its entirety) is for you.

It is also in vindication of the hundreds of citizens who have attempted to be heard by engineers at city hall.

After graduating from college with a civil engineering degree, I found myself working in my home town for a local engineering firm doing mostly municipal engineering (roads, sewer pipe, water pipe, stormwater). A fair percentage of my time was spent convincing people that, when it came to their road, I knew more than they did. 

And of course I should know more. First, I had a technical degree from a top university. Second, I was in a path towards getting a state license (at the time I was an Engineer in Training, the four-year "apprenticeship" required to become a fully licensed Professional Engineer), which required me to pass a pretty tough test just to get started and another, more difficult, exam to conclude. Third, I was in a profession that is one of the oldest and most respected in human history, responsible for some of the greatest achievements of mankind. Fourth - and most important - I had books and books of standards to follow. 

A book of standards to an engineer is better than a bible to a priest. All you have to do is to rely on the standards. Back in college I was told a story about how, in WW II, some Jewish engineers in hiding had run thousands of tedious tests on asphalt, just to produce these graphs that we still use today. Some of our craft descends from Roman engineers who did all of this a couple of millennia ago. How could I be wrong with literally thousands of years of professional practice on my side? 

And, more to the point, what business would I -- let alone a property owner on a project I was working on - have in questioning the way things were done? Of course the people who wrote the standards knew better than we did. That is why they wrote the standard. 

When people would tell me that they did not want a wider street, I would tell them that they had to have it for safety reasons. 

When they answered that a wider street would make people drive faster and that would be seem to be less safe, especially in front of their house where their kids were playing, I would confidently tell them that the wider road was more safe, especially when combined with the other safety enhancements the standards called for. 

When people objected to those other "enhancements", like removing all of the trees near the road, I told them that for safety reasons we needed to improve the sight distances and ensure that the recovery zone was free of obstacles.
When they pointed out that the "recovery zone" was also their "yard" and that their kids played kickball and hopscotch there, I recommended that they put up a fence, so long as the fence was outside of the right-of-way. 

When they objected to the cost of the wider, faster, treeless road that would turn their peaceful, front yard into the viewing area for a drag strip unless they built a concrete barricade along their front property line, I informed them that progress was sometimes expensive, but these standards have been shown to work across the state, the country and the world and I could not compromise with their safety. 

In retrospect I understand that this was utter insanity. Wider, faster, treeless roads not only ruin our public places, they kill people. Taking highway standards and applying them to urban and suburban streets, and even county roads, costs us thousands of lives every year. There is no earthly reason why an engineer would ever design a fourteen foot lane for a city block, yet we do it continuously. Why? 

The answer is utterly shameful: Because that is the standard. 

In the engineering profession's version of defensive medicine, we can't recommend standards that are not in the manual. We can't use logic to vary from a standard that gives us 60 mph design speeds on roads with intersections every 200 feet. We can't question why two cars would need to travel at high speed in opposite directions on a city block, let alone why we would want them to. We can yield to public pressure and post a speed limit -- itself a hazard -- but we can't recommend a road section that is not in the highway manual.  

When the public and politicians tell engineers that their top priorities are safety and then cost, the engineer's brain hears something completely different. The engineer hears, "Once you set a design speed and handle the projected volume of traffic, safety is the top priority. Do what it takes to make the road safe, but do it as cheaply as you can." This is why engineers return projects with asinine "safety" features, like pedestrian bridges and tunnels that nobody will ever use, and costs that are astronomical.  

An engineer designing a street or road prioritizes the world in this way, no matter how they are instructed:

• Traffic speed
• Traffic volume
• Safety
• Cost

The rest of the world generally would prioritize things differently, as follows:
Safety

• Cost
• Traffic volume
• Traffic speed

In other words, the engineer first assumes that all traffic must travel at speed. Given that speed, all roads and streets are then designed to handle a projected volume. Once those parameters are set, only then does an engineer look at mitigating for safety and, finally, how to reduce the overall cost (which at that point is nearly always ridiculously expensive). 

In America, it is this thinking that has designed most of our built environment, and it is nonsensical. In many ways, it is professional malpractice. If we delivered what society asked us for, we would build our local roads and streets to be safe above all else. Only then would we consider what could be done, given our budget, to handle a higher volume of cars at greater speeds. 

We go to enormous expense to save ourselves small increments of driving time. This would be delusional in and of itself if it were not also making our roads and streets much less safe. I'll again reference a 2005 article from the APA Journal showing how narrower, slower streets dramatically reduce accidents, especially fatalities. 

And it is that simple observation that all of those supposedly "ignorant" property owners were trying to explain to me, the engineer with all the standards, so many years ago. When you can't let your kids play in the yard, let alone ride their bike to the store, because you know the street is dangerous, then the engineering profession is not providing society any real value. It's time to stand up and demand a change. 

It's time we demand that engineers build us Strong Towns.

 Strong Towns blog and website have dozens of good posts and resources. And BTW, engineers, you can console yourselves that you don't suck as bad as the economists.

Today's Perfect Image

In Encinitas, in our council chambers, we know the kind of sulking child-like public 'servants' . . . yes, we do.  Last night's meeting's last half hour was filled with childish foot stamping intransigence. Gaspar's pout wasn't just tolerated, it was indulged. Gag.  Clips will come when we can find someone to suffer through the process of preparing it for submission.

Surfing Madonna: Graciousness and Not Gracious

This week Leucadia's Café Ipé next door to Surfy Surfy became the new home for Surfing Madonna - the Ocean's activist in art. Great photos and background stories at both links and here.  Be warned, Surfing Madonna online post at North County Times slimed by troll patrol as usual in the comment thread.

Here are council meeting clips from last January 2012 at City Hall when artist, Mark Patterson offered the famous art piece for free (covering all costs of installation and maintenance) as an art loan to Encinitas. 

*sigh* Stocks really did ask the artist his name after he spoke. Yes he did. Anyone who followed the blundering of the council majority broadcast nationally for months on end in 2011 knows that the mayor must have been really embarrassed at the Republican establishment praising the artist at this very council meeting. Oh, wait . . .

Stocks' lack of perception is the stuff of town legends. Kristin Gaspar seems to have a vocabulary that includes concern sounds and she uses them a lot for what is called concern troll behavior. The definition below was coined to the virtual world, but it applies to real world polit-speak as well. For Gaspar it is the go-to approach to argue against most things related to the public good.

"A person who posts on a blog thread, in the guise of "concern," to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, control, the dialogue. It is viewed as insincere and condescending."

Beneath the patina of praise and thanks for the gift of art, the council majority is rather insistent about hypothetical risk factors in the future and require legal assurances that the artist will carry all of the liabilities. Classy. (/snark)

Myths Encinitas

There is a false sensibility promoted over the last 30 or 40 years in the dismantling and takeover of US media - even to most every local television, radio and newspaper of false equivilencies.  Even the most progressive thinkers get trapped in this formula. Not every issue has two opposite and equal sides or perspectives.

That is nonsense on it's face that there is some sort of parity for each and every argument.  The idea that there is some sort of balanced conversation about everything is a false idea.

Have we ceded the principled conversation to the troll patrols and haters on the right who use the words principle or ethics to stick to whatever they are doing? It is as if you would see a guy driving drunk on the wrong side of the road hitting parking meters and people and not slowing down and you go, "Well you gotta' give him credit he's consistent."  Hal Sparks

Words like principle and ethics have real meanings.  If we've learned nothing, we need to recognize the futility of talking to those on the right who will refuse to acknowledge fact or reality or simply treat the dictionary as an etch a sketch. 

Sure, start a dialog with even the most obtuse teabagger sort…attempt to convince him that the views he clutches are self-defeating…try to disabuse him of his calcified bigotry -- but don't be optimistic about the outcome of your efforts. Trouble is: Depressingly large numbers of people have invested a great amount of time, energy and identity in the maintenance of their reality-defiant attitudes…There is just too much fragile self-esteem, bulwarked by brittle pride, at stake. 'Often, a journey towards self-knowledge and an attendant awakening to the nature of one's condition can be unnerving and painful.'

When conversations are only about fear and hate, we liberals lose the plot.  Making connections about potholes, speed limits, the right to speak at meetings or wanting open records are the kinds of things we can and do work towards community.  But, hate and fear don't necessarily go away allow an opening for more.  Always standing by are the grifters who revel in the sewers of human emotion and every couple years they feed on and feed into the campaign horse race atmosphere.  These are the true jackass whisperers who herd and work into a lather the completely misinformed (who sadly believe they are the only ones in the know). Real scrutiny triggers rage and ugly attacks because the myths don't . . . can't undergo questioning.  It's a toxic mix of myth, fear and intolerance.

Myth busting for progressive community activists means relentless conversations, use of analysis, facts, actual videos, truth telling at council meetings, letters to editor, blog posts and online comments.  But this isn't directed towards the audience described in the above paragraphs.

This summer will mean a great upsurge in people in neighborhoods all over town.  The people who have never been exposed or those who can and do want reality-based information or those have simply drifted or gotten discouraged outnumber the haters.  We need to tell our stories, to encourage and nurture people to question the political status quo because it won't stand up under honest scrutiny.

According to Mary: Tale of the Tree

All or Nothing

It's the ugliness of bullies taunting because they can, not because they gain anything of value from it except admiration from other bullies. How else to describe taking something simple and basic and turning it into mocking, marginalizing or silencing?

Encinitas super majority council headed by Mayor Stocks and Deputy Mayor Gaspar continually show their unwillingness to act on behalf of the entire community.  They don't just speak, vote and act on behalf of their backers in the community and outside the community, they silence other opinions and attack dissenting views.

During the Norby contract deliberations Councilman Bond was determined to play his assigned role of distraction and confusion as he trotted out baloney like this gem, "If you happen to be someone who supports the direction of the council you are special interests." This was part of a 7.5 minutes of reductive muddled opinions from a man who claimed his old bladder needed to be emptied.  After the break for Bond to pee, Stocks allowed the public speaker, Tony Kranz his 3 minutes at the very end of the meeting. Again, bully behavior defended at the last meeting with Stocks self-righteous speechifying about the distraction from the "people's business" of agenda items in favor of oral communications minutes.

Earlier it had been Deputy Mayor Gaspar's turn. Not new for her (see BARF and Poutrage)

And by the way, none of the super majority will tolerate any criticism from the public. This meeting had several speakers who confronted the council (Stocks in particular) and Norby. This was not handled with any grace or tolerance from the majority (Stocks in particular). All or nothing.

ERAC = The Big Lie

What makes ERAC, Element Review Advisory Committee, the big lie is the premise that this is a citizen participation group.  This is a hand picked group to bring the council majority the alternatives to housing and land use preferred by the financial backers they represent.

This is business under the guise of public participation. And the formation of this group has nothing to do with the legislative directives to update the General Plan to reflect the sustainability criteria for economic, resource, climate and other future stresses on our community.

This is politics.  Everything Jerome Stocks does is about politics of winning.  And governing?  You must spend many hours reviewing city council minutes and archived videos to find actions in support of the public good versus someone's profits or personal property rights. The entire offensive move of blowing up the General Plan Update is fairly obvious if you track the history. From the consultant interview committee, to the General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) selection and presence at the many public workshops, there are layers of half-truths and flip-flopping declarations.

From the very beginning Stocks has maintained his position of plausible deniability by staying far away from involvement at the local level and uttering next to nothing of his deeply embedded position within the SANDAG plans as a member, then as chair, when at the end of each city council meeting he'd give glib, condescending or unsubstantial reports if he reported at all.

"Plausible Deniability - A condition in which a subject can safely and believably deny knowledge of any particular truth that may exist because the subject is deliberately made unaware of said truth so as to benefit or shield the subject from any responsibility associated through the knowledge of such truth."

Three months ago Mayor Stocks made it clear he is looking at ERAC for the alternatives that best serve his interests.  Despite any previous language of just another arm or citizen outreach, the group was designed to serve the council majority.

As with the original inflammatory rhetoric Stocks used last September to blow up the General Plan Update, his arguments are specious.  There is no logic.  Any complaints could have, should have been handled within the contracted process.  Citizens were given false choices when there were solutions at hand.  The need for ERAC was and is a lie.  Everything about it is a lie.  Citizens who have dutifully attended every meeting and schooled themselves know it is a lie.  ERAC is Encinitas newest, biggest lie created for political capital.

This week the ERAC facilitator Peder Norby's contract is on the agenda.  Norby is a vitally important scapegoat for Stocks et al.  Whether Peder Norby is your best friend or he eats kittens for breakfast, he is clearly serving the agenda laid out by those in charge.  He should go. 

We all still have our facts, our research, our issues and our feelings for our community.  We need to find the real answers and solutions, but to trust the mayor or the council majority to provide this is a big mistake.  They made the problem, they can't fix it.  And, they don't intend to fix it anyway.  Do we have a park yet on the Hall property?

Note: The big lie does not mean that there are no citizens sitting in earnest on this committee.  This is by no means mean as personal attack on individuals.  Even Stocks best friends my believe they are right in their opinions.  What is critical is the silencing of any dissent outside of the majority favored views and goals.  That isn't citizen participation, it's manufactured consent and it's a big lie. 

According to Mary: Second Oldest Profession in the World

Instead of Jerome Stocks, Good Governance Principles

This piece from candidate for city council, Lisa Shaffer, was published in both the Patch online and The Coast News June 14, 2012.

"As I look forward to the November Encinitas City Council election, I think about the meaning of good governance, which I see as a nonpartisan goal that serves our community. The following are some principles that reflect what I want in an elected official."

1. You Work for Us: Expenditure of public funds, provision of public works and city services that derive from our taxes and other fees should be carried out on behalf of the residents of Encinitas for the primary purpose of protecting and enhancing our quality of life.
2. Open the Books and Use 21st Century Technology: Taxpayers are entitled to full and open accounting of expenditures, commitments and activities by the City Council, public employees and contractors. Citizens are also entitled to easy electronic access to city documents, including permit applications, appeals, the latest applicable general and specific plans, budgets, and assessment reports. The City should use current information technology to increase transparency and access.
3. Speak with Us Before You Speak for Us: Elected officials who represent the citizens of Encinitas in local and regional bodies like SANDAG, NCTD and the water districts should inform the public of significant issues before making commitments on our behalf and should seek public input whenever possible.
4. Run Meetings Properly: Public meetings should adhere to standard parliamentary procedure and conform to the Brown Act so citizens who have an interest can be well-informed about when such issues might be discussed in a public forum. Last minute changes to the agenda without explanation or consent should be avoided. A list of issues that the Council has agreed to put on the agenda should be publicly available with periodic reports on when such items will be addressed.
5. Tell the Truth: If we have more obligations than we have money, be honest about it. If we can’t deliver on services we promised, let us know so we don’t expect more than is possible. We’re on the same team — all working for the good of Encinitas.
6. Look at Options: Staff reports should include relevant background, data and evaluation of alternatives so we all can understand more fully what options might be available and can make informed decisions. Any presentations made by staff must be on the agenda and provided in advance.
7. Listen to Many Voices: Appointees to ad hoc and standing committees should be residents of Encinitas unless there is a compelling reason why a non-resident individual is needed. Criteria for appointment to ad hoc and standing committees and commissions should be spelled out and Council members voting on such appointments should be required to evaluate candidates against such criteria and justify their votes. This will ensure the city benefits from a diversity of qualified opinions, not just representatives of a particular segment of the community.
8. Protect Nature: Priority should be given to preservation of existing open space and protected habitat. Public land should not be sold to finance capital-improvement projects elsewhere.

Myths Encinitas

This Monday's edition is from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, with thirty-five years of community strengthening research behind them. Fact sheet presented in full. This refutes the myths our mayor and the council majority and all city planning has bought and promoted as fiscal strength. It can't undo the reality of a Wal-Mart opening this week, but it can change some thinking for our fiscal planning with a new council after November.

Five Myths About Big-Box Retail

MYTH: Big-Box Stores Create Jobs

FACT: Studies by independent economists show that big-box stores eliminate more retail jobs than they create.

A recent study examined 3,094 counties across the U.S., tracking the arrival of new Wal-Mart stores between 1977 and 2002. The study, conducted by Univ. of California economist David Neumark, found that opening a Wal-Mart store led to a net loss of 150 retail jobs on average, suggesting that a new Wal-Mart job replaces approximately 1.4 workers at other stores. (The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets, January 2007).

The reason for the overall decline is that a new Wal-Mart store does not increase the amount of money that residents have to spend. Sales gains at these stores are invariably mirrored by a drop in revenue at existing businesses, which then must down-size or close. The job losses are larger than the gains because Wal-Mart accomplishes the same volume of sales with fewer employees.

Although similar studies have not been done of other big-box retailers, it's likely that they also have either a negative or no impact on employment because the underlying dynamics (i.e., no increases in consumer spending) are the same.

MYTH: Big-Box Stores Boost Tax Revenue

FACT: The tax benefits of big-box stores are negated by the cost of providing public services to these developments and declining tax revenue from existing commercial districts.

Big-box development creates substantial public costs. These sprawling stores are not efficient users of public infrastructure. Compared to traditional, compact business districts, they require longer roads, more road maintenance, additional miles of utilities, and more fire and police time.

One case study in Barnstable, Mass., found that the annual cost of providing city services to traditional downtown and neighborhood business districts was $786 per 1,000 square feet. Big-box stores were 30% more costly, requiring $1,023 in services per 1,000 sq. ft. (Tischler & Associates, Fiscal Impact Analysis of Residential and Nonresidential Land Use Prototypes, prepared for the Town of Barnstable, Jul. 1, 2002.)

In addition to incurring new costs, cities that approve big-box development often experience a decline in property and sales A project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance tax revenue from existing neighborhood and downtown business districts, as well as older shopping centers. As these areas lose sales and experience vacancies, the value of property declines and with it, the property tax revenue. Sales tax revenue also falls. One study of 116 cities in California found that, in all but two cases, the presence of a big-box store did not correspond to increased sales tax revenue. (Bay Area Economic Forum, Supercenters and the Transformation of the Bay Area Grocery Industry: Issues,Trends, and Impacts, 2004, 74-81)

MYTH: Big-Box Stores Grow the Economy

FACT: Trading independent retailers for big-box chains shrinks the volume of activity in the local economy.

For every $100 they receive in revenue, locally owned businesses hire more local workers, purchase more goods and services from other local businesses, and contribute more to local charities than their big-box counterparts. When chains displace local businesses, it results in an overall loss of economic activity, not a gain.

A 2004 study conducted in Chicago analyzed ten locally owned restaurants, retail stores, and service providers and compared them with chains competing in the same categories. The study concluded that every $100 spent at one of the independent businesses created $68 in additional economic activity in the city, while spending the same amount at a chain only generated $43 worth of local impact. (Civic Economics, The Andersonville Study of Retail Economics, 2004.)

One of the main reasons for the difference was that the local retailers bought more goods and services from other local businesses. They did their banking at a local bank. They hired local accountants, web designers, and other professionals. They turned to a local print shop for their printing, and they advertised in local publications. The chains had almost no need for these local services and spent relatively little in the city.

A consequence of this is that even modest shifts in the mix of local and non-local businesses in a community can have significant economic ramifications. A case study in Kent County, Michigan, estimates that the region would gain 1,600 new jobs, $140 million in new economic activity, and $53 million in additional payroll if residents shifted 10% of their spending from chains to local businesses. A shift in the opposite direction — more spending at chains — would cause equivalent economic losses. (Civic Economics, Local Works: Examining the Impact of Local Business on the Western Michigan Economy, 2008.)

MYTH: Big-Box Stores Bring Competition and Consumer Choice

FACT: Big-box stores often displace numerous small and mid-sized stores, leaving fewer shopping options and less competition. 

An average Wal-Mart or Target supercenter is nearly four football fields in size (190,000 square feet) and captures about $80 million a year in spending. To understand how large that is, consider that it would take 35,000 people making 25% of all of their retail purchases, from groceries to appliances, at that one Wal-Mart store. To take another example, the average 120,000-square-foot Lowe's captures $35 million a year in sales. That's equal to the total hardware/building materials spending power of 37,000 people.

Most communities, even fast-growing ones, cannot absorb a store of this scale without sizable revenue losses to existing businesses, including both locally owned stores and competing supermarkets and shopping centers. Part of the reason these companies build such large stores is that they leave little room in the market for other businesses. As competing stores close, residents are left with fewer choices. Many towns and neighborhoods now depend on a single big-box store for many types of goods, virtually eliminating competition. Once they attain a dominant share of the market, these retailers may raise prices. One study compared the cost of 54 grocery items at 11 Wal-Mart supercenters in Nebraska and found that the total varied by more than 13 percent. Some of the stores with the highest prices were in areas that lacked competing grocery stores.
(Hometown Merchants Association, Impact of Supercenters on Nebraska Economy, April 2004.)

A growing number of communities are deciding that a better way to ensure competition is to have numerous small and mid-sized stores, rather than one giant superstore. One way to achieve this is to place a cap on the size of stores (for more on this see our Store Size Cap Policy Kit at bigboxtoolkit.com).

MYTH: Big-Box Stores are the Only Option

FACT: More cities and towns are saying no to additional big-box development and finding better ways to grow by creating and expanding local businesses.

Nearly 300 communities have rejected big-box proposals in the last few years, and many have adopted policies that restrict or prohibit this type of development altogether.

Far from impeding growth, these policies often attract new small businesses investment as entrepreneurs seek out viable locations. Communities can spur more small business development by revitalizing their neighborhood and downtown commercial districts, launching programs to train and finance new entrepreneurs, and developing a strong Buy Local campaign to encourage more public support for locally owned businesses.

(For more information on these strategies, see the Building Alternatives to Big Boxes section at bigboxtoolkit.com.) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

According to Mary: Legless Lizard

Great reminder for Environmental Day, Sunday at Cottonwood Creek Park, and you don't have to tell bloggers or blog readers that there is critically important work going on underground for those who can stomach the creepy things of politics.

Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing

Encinitas Walmart slipped in through the back door.  The official date is June 13th.  Local citizens, budding activists all, kept up their pursuit of information and were given false or partial information from city planning staff over and over.  Speakers at city council meetings would voice concerns and ask about rumors at oral communications.   Patrick Murphy would repeat his usual denials that nothing was going on with Walmart. Don't you believe it.

The Walmartization of America Redux: How the Relentless Drive for Cheap Stuff Undermines Our Economy, Bankrupts Our Soul, and Pillages the Planet by John Atcheson states,

"In his excellent documentary, Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, Robert Greenwald carefully documents how Walmart’s giant box stores lower wages across the entire retail sector, impose high social and economic costs on the states and communities in which they operate, and destroy local businesses."

When it was altogether clear last September that Walmart officials and city planners had done an end run around public opinion and open government precepts, Teresa Barth spoke openly about the weaknesses within the General Plan that would allow for this kind of action being considered legal because it is re-use not new construction.

Teresa Barth's words and the critics of Walmart don't argue the increasing economic insecurity. The point is to be truthful about what we are really paying for cheap things. There are similarities it seems between this Oscar Wilde quote of people "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing" and "just because it's legal doesn't make it right." Both entail loss of humanity, the loss of soul.

I'm Dizzy!

Sometimes thinking about our mayor and the council super majority just gets a person down. Need to laugh - hard. A couple of us have watched it a half a dozen times and still laugh every time. Bless his little heart.

Watch on YouTube

Myths Encinitas

May we please, my dear neighbors, finally once and for all bury the trope that the council majority is fiscally conservative? And as this whole clip and many more demonstrate we have a pretty clear indication the council majority is not now and maybe never was fiscally responsive.

The opening of this February 17, 2010 video clip includes Councilwoman Barth's actual example of fiscally conservative governance with her motion to freeze all pay raises for the council members at the onset of this nation's economic recession that began the previous year. In a rare win, this motion carried despite Houlihan's puzzling vote switch.

Beginning at 1:18 is the discussion of then City Manager Phil Cotton's more than 10% raise. Remember, Phil Cotton is retired military drawing a pension and is over retirement age.

Judge for yourselves. Is Jerome Stocks' argument one of a fiscal conservative or even a fiscally responsive leader?

Fighting Big

Update below
Even billions in profit don't stop giant US employers from demanding workers give up pay or benefits. We are familiar with the wage slaves in the retail industry, restaurant, agriculture and food distribution.  But, industries that traditionally paid workers respectable wages, thanks to labor unions, are now trying to destroy these unions.  Councilman Jim Bond made his wealth in the telecommunications field working his way up the ladder.  No doubt he was a part of unions on that ascent.

Fast forward to the present. Millions of jobs have been taken from the workers of the US for corporations to pay less abroad. And, those that remain are under constant duress to remove securities, benefits and advancement.  Our community is filled with households struggling with these very issues in their own workplaces. At minimum, our city council should be cognizant of how many are struggling, where they live and how our community government can assist.  This is happening in city councils all over the country, with this Encinitas city council majority?  Not so much . . .

It's a culture more about pillage the village than support the people. Our Council majority believe in trickle down economics despite the evidence of its failure.  Even for the "I've got mine, the hell with you" crowd must realize that neighborhoods filled with foreclosed, neglected or abandoned properties, closing businesses, high unemployment, increased drug / booze or other self-medicating behaviors are all antithetical to a thriving community.  Punishing, fining or stigmatizing victims of a recession that the people aren't responsible for isn't just reprehensible, it's bad business.

Here's a challenge to all the candidates - even before sitting council members or their friends have declared - Is your first responsibility to the people of this community or to tax revenues they represent?

Think Progress Update on Verizon 6/4/12:

America’s largest wireless service provider plans to cut 1,700 jobs by offering its technicians and call center employees buyouts. Verizon Communications announced last week that it would reduce its nationwide workforce by 1 percent, and if enough workers don’t accept the buyouts, it will resort to involuntary layoffs. 

Verizon paid chief executive Lowell C. McAdam more than $22.5 million in 2011, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of executive compensation. The company has paid its top five executives more than $350 million in the last five years, according to the Communications Workers of America, the union that deals most directly with Verizon.

According to Mary: The Housing Element Mapping Exercise