Myths Encinitas

Although covered elsewhere, the myths of ERGA - Encinitas Ranch Golf Authority - need to be aired in an election year where so many other financial fantasies are being unveiled.

Over the last several years the story of why the ERGA agreement needs to be diddled with changes every time these developers and players approach the podium.

And, something missing from every council meeting, local press story or blog flinging scattered bits and pieces at us all is this, what about the management of this golf course. What about J.C. Golf and their failure of management?  Isn't this a first step in assessing performance in assigning accountability?

It was and is a myth that this is a well run facility that was without financial failings.  More importantly, this myth was known and kept afloat - as all records now indicate.

One only has to look at the condition of the property and holdings and compare it to what is being charged to golf or other services.

Here is a look back at some the archived clips at encinitasyouneedus.  Original meetings can be accesses for every speaker and arguments.

May 19, 2019 - Stocks pushes hard to "re-open" a 10 year old contract, lots of fact free assurances from the crony crowd that everything is looking great. Request from Council-woman Barth and Sheila Cameron for financial back-up. (Spoiler alert for the next clips following this, doesn't happen.)

 

In June an almost comical runaround from Jay Lembach in response to Councilwoman Barth's questions about obligations to ERGA's debts.

I told you so moment. Encinitas asked to take a preemptive hit for golf course.

Some history . . . Emphasis on how the developer, Carltas benefits above all. Phony baloney stuff criticized.  Risk taken in 1996, privatized gain is now looking for a socialized cost.  It is essentially a bail out.  Why didn't they just admit the truth? Request for audit . . .

We Write Letters

Make the connection

"In several recent articles in our local San Diego County papers, the L.A. Times and the New York Times, it is claimed that natural disaster areas, because of drought and excessive heat, now affect crops in 1,297 counties in 29 states, or 61 percent of the continental U.S.

Further, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reports that 77 percent of the corn and soybean crops are in areas designated as drought-impacted. Natural disasters? Amazingly, in none of these articles has Climate Change even been mentioned. Isn’t it time to recognize the connection and start doing something about it? It’s time to accept science and discard politically motivated propaganda. There’s too much at risk."

Milton Saier, UCSD Professor of Biology, Letter to Coast News for July 27, 2012

Just imagine, we take it one step further Professor Saier and actually start insisting that weather reports begin making these connections?  Or imagine even more reality where we are at long last treated as adults who can handle the difficult subjects of life and grapple with complex issues that may take more than a couple of moments to describe or process.

Our US media has spent on 3% of air time on climate change or global warming despite the hottest year in all recorded history.  The rest of the world has no funded shut-down on rational discussions of this subject by those who profit from misinformation and skepticism, so there are excellent sources of information.  We just need to look for them.

"So the story deserves much more than 3 minutes. Here is “Inside Story Americas” from al Jazeera English with a 25-minute segment. There’s no point in summarizing it. The point is the in-depth discussion, featuring Michael Mann, Bob Deans, and Heidi Cullen."  Joe Romm, Think Progress

We Write Letters

Is change in the air?

"I was pleasantly surprised when I watched this week’s Encinitas City Council meeting. Instead of the spectacle I saw at the July 11 Council meeting when Mayor Stocks was rude, arrogant, and applied the procedural rules of speaking time limits inequitably (as he has also done in past meetings), I saw a council listening respectfully to the community speakers; a council seriously discussing various aspects of the issues without grandstanding; and I saw Deputy Mayor Gaspar running the council meeting smoothly, efficiently, and effectively without targeting disparaging remarks at Council Member Barth, as she has sometimes done in the past. In fact, I saw the kind of council many of us wish we had all the time–individuals with varying attributes and opinions working together to address concerns and solve problems. What a concept!

Why the difference this week, you may ask? Well, for one thing, Mayor Stocks was absent. The power that Mayor Stocks seems to hold over the Council majority and City staff was missing. The contempt that Mayor Stocks directs at those who disagree with him or irritate him was missing. The animosity that can arise between the council majority and the community was seemingly nonexistent because the majority did not exhibit hostility toward the public, as we have sometimes seen them do and as Mayor Stocks often does.

What can we expect when Mayor Stocks returns? Will the poisonous atmosphere return too? OR will the council majority find the inner strength of character to stand up to a mayor who acts out in ways that are not only self-destructive, but that are destructive to the successful operation of our city."
C.J. Minster, Letter to Coast News for July 27, 2012

According to Mary: Brown Act

Dots!

Remember the mapping exercise, placing 10 dots - each to represent 130 housing units - where you wanted on the map of Encinitas?
 
This General Plan Update (GPU) restart process was brought to you by the city council majority's scheme described in a whole series, start  here and here if this is new to you.

Despite community-wide frustration and disappointment coming out of the open houses in New Encinitas, Leucadia, Cardiff-by-the Sea, Old Encinitas and Olivenhain; there were 500 people who attended the 2 big workshops to place dots on maps to communicate where they thought high density housing development should be located.

Now, two months later the agenda item on last Wednesday's meeting included an update on this update process.  One aspect of the evening's deliberations are captured in clips below.  A public speech from Pickering regarding respect for citizen participation and clips of two different responses to the overall public participation in the mapping exercise experience, from Gaspar and from Barth.

The great chorus of voices 500 strong (albeit a few out of towners and overlapping commercial participation stuck in the mix) are a group that must not be placed in a secondary position behind ERAC as the council majority is insisting. It has already been done once, where hundreds and hundreds of community members participated in months and months of workshops and events to only have their voices silenced by Gaspar and the rest of the council majority and community provocateurs and financial players generating fear and discord instead of deliberation and problem solving. In a politically staged process at council and in the press, past community work in the GPU was declared dead under the guise of the monster from Berkley consultant takeover.  Bwaahaaa!  Not again.

Now there seems to be plenty of time and energy towards redlining and exploration of alternatives (a good thing) that for some reason was absolutely not even whispered of last September 14th.  Yes, it does indeed smell badly.  But now there are hundreds more from New Encinitas who are quick studies and dedicated activists working really hard.  Taking time, exploring things could be a real thing in the real world.  Counting on New Encinitas as the sound asleep voter base, little sacks of cash and votes, isn't as surefire as it used to be for the super majority sitting on council and running for election.

Rachelle Collier wrote a wonderful letter in April about this and it is a perfect time for a re-read, especially for the New Encinitas activists.  We are all in this together.

According to Mary: A Short of History of Encinitas Crony Capitalism

More please . . .

What a remarkable sensation to experience the calm of civility at last night's city council meeting.  Were Mark Muir and Kristin Gaspar experimenting with a break from Stocks' signature bully style? Or was it simply Jerome Stocks being absent from last night's meeting?  Nice change . . . more please.

Even though the Deputy Mayor never lost the shiny, smily television presenter persona, the interplay of all of the council members in deliberations felt so much closer to the real exchange of information.  The public was treated with civility and respect. Teresa Barth wasn't made the butt of exclusionary tactics of manipulated Roberts Rules or sarcasm. (Bond's bit of snark easy to ignore). This is exactly what the people have been asking for, well, years.

It is worth asking why Stocks needed to take a working council date for his vacation cruise directly before a 3 week hiatus began? Sabine too?  Could it be the General Plan Update's update / criticism / scrutiny on the agenda?  I guess the same could be asked of Kristin Gaspar for her vacation timing during council meeting when the agenda held the subcommittee discussion, which her accusations against Teresa Barth had precipitated?  Or, when Mark Muir's vacation cruise coincided with the council meeting discussing pay raises for fire fighters?  Barth seems to have recorded the city calendar when it comes to vacation scheduling. Just sayin' . . .

No links, no citizen investigation energy expended today.  I'm happy.  Don't ruin it. Maybe clips or more another day.

Road Trip!

Citizens elected a council of bicyclists, said the mobility coordinator in the video below. Let's take a virtual road trip to a neighboring city to see what a bike friendly approach to circulation looks like.

Speaking of bicyclist on the council, I would have loved to have seen our Mayor Stocks' face when Teresa Barth wheeled into the electric car charging event on her trusty bike - so often photographed around town and at city hall.  Councilwoman Barth is pictured here with Dave Roberts (another bike rider running for County Supervisor seat being vacated by Pam Slater-Price). Encinitas having an electric car charging station is a boon for a few (most self-promoted being Stocks), a 21st century version of car travel and a wonderful headline.

This week the subject turns more low tech and with wider implications. Wednesday council meeting is a chance to make a bigger impact at a fraction of the cost per capita with "sharrows".  The spacial ramifications of increased bike ridership dramatically reducing road congestion, parking congestion is a concept not yet grasped by the car-centric who merely feel threatened.  It is as though they fear (and some of the most vocal do) that their cars will be taken from them.  Maybe this insight can assuage some fears.



Compare and contrast Jerome Stocks' perspective on parking lots, traffic, commerce, pot holes, walkable streets, safe routes, etc. at last April's state of the city speech. This speech was directed at a car-centric approach to city planning. Wrong decade, false assumptions and giant omissions . . .

 

At the Wednesday, July 18 council meeting members are being asked to consider shared lane markings "sharrows" and "Bicycles May Use Full Lane" signs on portions of Coast Highway 101. The volunteer group, Encinitas Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee was consulted on biking issues by the city staff. This is an infinitesimally small step, but huge for our community.  For the full agenda with agenda packets.

Let's suggest a real road trip to our engineers and council members too.

Myths Encinitas

The Hall property mythologies are some of the longest running in Encinitas history - almost half of the 26 years.  Just in the last week the Jerome Stocks and Jim Bond were mouthing the same revisionist history at the big special city council meeting on July 11.

Yesterday's Our Mayor post provides 8 clips dating from 2008. Nobody is against the park or wants to delay the park.

Prior to Our Mayor blog, the Leucadia blog did some really great posts on various Hall property actions, reactions, lies and community commentary.  A search of the blog with "Hall Propoerty" brings up a non-chronological list with 32 entries, going back to 2006.

If one would read all of these posts with links, comments and view just these clips presented yesterday, you can get an appreciation for the weary sound of Jerry's Sodamka's voice in the following clip. He spoke at last Wednesday's meeting to go on video record that yet again the city was not accurately reporting history and was stretching credible limits with the financial package. We'll honor his desire to go on record by making it just a bit more public than being buried in the city video archives. Jerry is one of Encinitas finest myth busters. And his financial concerns are still valid despite the approval vote Wednesday for the finance concepts.

Hall Property Video Clips

Time to trot out years of clips regarding the Hall property.  Witness how this property has been used for campaign strategy in the past as it is now in 2012.  There are years of newspaper stories dutifully transcribing the majority decisions and the standard lines that the various citizens, councilwomen and outside agencies for the dereliction in handling this big purchase and the subsequent planning.  Sadly, video was not available to the public for the first 7 years. It was in these early years when the council was sued. 

Stocks throwing a hissy fit and changing the design(!) in 2011 another time.

Laughing Stocks

Explain to us exactly what is so delightfully comical about your Deputy Mayor acting out a kind of petulant interruption to the final vote on the long awaited and highly orchestrated event for your many promises to special groups on this momentous Hall park and Moonlight Beach financial package to proceed?  Long sentence that and I apologize.  There are simply dozens of suppositions one could stuff into those several minutes of adults acting like adolescents rather than public leaders.  What the hell . . .?

Don't for a minute think Stocks is laughing with us all.  He laughs at us, believing us stupid, blind and deaf.

This deferential treatment of shiny, smiling Gaspar isn't really new, but it seemed more obvious at this evening's venue despite more than a hundred in the audience and an estimated huge audience online.

Remember the last meeting, June 27 when Gaspar was on vacation? We stared at her empty chair at the end of the meeting when her item was pulled from the consent calendar. Via teleconference she essential challenged City Manager Vina's numbers, staff negotiations, anyone's ability to make a lease decision without her amazing financial acumen? Despite all of the City Manager's figures, Muir's confidence (as fire guy), Teresa's attempt to suggest this as a future agenda item the Deputy Mayor was having none of it. Up to and through the voting she was a petulant brat. She is only too aware that there is a ME in team, despite her hypocritical attack on Barth at that very meeting, saying sanctimoniously there was no I in team.  You can't make this crap up!

Here is the clip of the entire festival of indulgence and time wasting brought to us all by Deputy Mayor Gaspar, the financial wizard.

The Mayor's and Deputy Mayor's  tête-à-tête is the highlight here. And, Gaspar's demand that her wishes and comfort level be honored DESPITE the majority decision and Stocks ingratiating explanatory contortions to appease her are equally gag worthy.

Get a room . . .

Oh, and just for context to the first clip, note the more common demeanor of Mayor Jerome Stocks at the very opening, the onset of this Special Encinitas Meeting.

 

Throughout the meeting he cut some people off, allowed others to ramble, censored some, charmed others.  Bully. Crony. Bully Crony. Every Encinitas citizen needs the visceral political experience of attending one of the 9 meetings left before the election.  The opinions are not unanimous - even among us all here.  But the actual meetings, and the actual words and behaviours in the clips are plain enough to see.  Please pass along links to all of our neighbors, coworkers and friends.  We can do so much better for our community than this.  We have such talent and ethical individuals who actually want to serve. 

According to Mary: Pension Debt Devil

You Can't Get Along

 

"Where is the outcry for this issue?" She answers simply, "This is an issue because you can't get along."  Kathleen Lees attempts to make a centrist, non-confrontive series of statements regarding the last minute agenda item tacked onto the July 11, 2012 Special City Council Meeting, the proposed ballot initiative for an elected mayor in Encinitas.  At the core she was naming the problem.

One of the reasons a series of complex posts were presented this last week was this very comfortable, simplistic rendering of the majority's unacceptable treatment of their elected colleague, Teresa Barth, for years.  This is a kind of incivility that millions of people around the country witness each and every day in our culture. It has become a culture of bullys and bigots.  Right here in our council the regular attendees, advocates for their own neighborhoods and interest groups (like last nights skateboarders, dog owners, scientists, traffic critics, sports enthusiasts and league businessmen) all want their voices heard and documented. Even the most outspoken, the bossy, the curmudgeons, the preachers and the politically wonky are supposedly given that right in a democratic system's bill of rights.

The posts on this blog, the clips here and the archived hundreds all show a majority council made up of those who would deny a fully open government, who show intolerance for dissenting opinions, make false acusations and manipulate the process for political gain. The political goal of a zero sum game means a complete blackout of their opposition.

As the clip text states:

Jerome Stocks and the majority on the council over the last six years have shown over and over again their utter contempt for Teresa Barth. Yet even today, with the simplistic "he said, she said" model of reporting by  local news it is all too easy to see controversy and a parity in viewpoints that just doesn't exist. Stocks simply refuses to allow Teresa Barth any position, any voice or any credit as a colleague. She has been "othered" since the day she was elected. That is reprehensible, but even more unacceptable is that Teresa Barth represents the voices of the thousands and thousands of Encinitas voters who have had their votes erased by disenfranchising their choice, their elected official.

We must demand to be heard.  Moreover, it is our moral duty to stand up to the bullying that our elected official is made to endure, despite her consistently respectful demeanor and robust support of the entire community.  If we are attacked for supporting our own right to voice our opinions our defending our public servant we simply don't have to play along.  Confrontation is our right, despite what Mayor Stocks or Deputy Mayor Gaspar may label it this week.

You New? Fresh Perspectives . . .

At a loss this morning for how to best characterize last night's special council meeting and the performance success of City Manager, Gus Vina and Parks and Recreation Director, Lisa Ruloff I found City Council Candidate's Lisa Shaffer's Facebook entry says what many of us were thinking. I for one reject the tired cliche of lemons to lemonade, but find Shaffer's perspective thoughtful and visionary. Such a truthful take compared to the local stenographers reporters for the council in the local news stories here, here or here .

Last night the City Council approved borrowing $8 million, reprogramming another $7 million, and spending over $19 million to build what is called the "full park" (ie, skatepark, dog park, and ball fields) at the Hall property off Santa Fe, as well as improvements at Moonlight Beach. The vote was unanimous, and if I had been on the Council and presented with the same question, I would have said yes, too. The community has waited long enough for a dedicated dog park, a public skate park, and additional playing fields. I strongly support organized sports, having played myself, and with 3 of our 4 girls having been on soccer and softball teams growing up.

There are many things that might have been done differently that might have enabled us to make these investments with less debt, with the ability to consider other financing options or phasing.

But the new team, led by Gus Vina and Lisa Rudloff, made the best of what they inherited, and fortunately interest rates are low, so lemonade is being made from some lemons and some sugar. I look forward to joining the rest of Encinitas in enjoying the new park.

Question: Am I the only one confused here? what happened to concern over funding etc.? I had to leave early, perhaps I missed something....like windfall grants or....?

Lisa Shaffer for Council 2012 Yes, there are concerns over financing. The City Attorney, selected and empowered by the Council majority (who we can change in November), assured the Council that the financing strategy was legal. Does that mean we should incur debt without a public vote? NO. Not in my view. But that was not offered as an option because continued City delays put us up against a funding deadline from the State for the Moonlight Beach money. By bundling Moonlight Beach and the Park, the degrees of flexibility on the overall vote were severely limited. It shouldn't have been presented that way, but it was. The new debt puts us at risk of not being able to address future needs such as stormwater drainage adequately - if we wanted to undertake a major capital project to address flooding, we don't have the borrowing flexibility.

The issues were not discussed and debated the way they should have been. The reality is that the way the package was presented and the way promises have been made to many important constituents for many years, the Council had no good options. The problem needed to be fixed long before we got to this City Council performance.

That's why I said that if I had been presented "with the same question" I would have said yes. But I would have tried hard before getting to this point to have provided opportunities for more open discussion of options; for planning that gives time for consideration of new questions that arise; and for including ordinary community members in stakeholder discussions, since we are all stakeholders in the Park.

Question: Ok, but bottom line Stocks gets to say to the voters "I built this park"...no?

Lisa Shaffer for Council 2012 Yes, you're right. Everyone on the Council said yes - we are ALL building this park. Of course there's no doubt there will be a groundbreaking with photo ops for all the Council members who are running this year. Absolutely. And all of us in Encinitas will be paying for it. But don't forget the other bottom line, which is that our kids and our dogs and our families will ultimately have a nice park, even though it comes at quite a high price financially and otherwise.

I don't want to be misrepresented as being against any of the important constituencies that the park will serve. I'm for a better process for making big public investments in a way that brings the community together rather than being divisive as this has been for the last 10+ years.

Bamboozled!

FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

·         The Hall property park will cost $19.3 million to build. The existing funds are only $7.8 million eleven years after purchase of the property.  Last year these funds were said to be $8-$9 million.

·         The Moonlight Beach renovation will cost $4.8 million. The existing grant funds are $1.9 million.

·         There isn’t sufficient funding to build the Hall property park and renovate Moonlight Beach.

The City has cobbled together a scheme that pushes fiscal limits and will place your City in a precarious financial position. The City proposes to do the following:

·         Reallocate funds from 15 other capital improvement projects and two other fund balances.

·         Borrow money using Lease Revenue Bonds that require a revenue stream.

FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT REALLOCATION

·         Reallocation will strip other project funds bare with no easy way to replenish them.  Open space acquisition, drainage systems, fire stations, and other civic projects will all be imperiled. 

·         Shifting of priorities will yield an additional $7 million for the Hall Park. A shortage of $4.5 million for the Hall Park and a shortage of $2.9 million for Moonlight Beach renovation will still remain.  THE REMAINDER WILL HAVE TO BE BORROWED.

FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT USING LEASE REVENUE BONDS

·         They only require a council majority to approve and release. The public has no vote.

·         Projects must generate a revenue stream to make the yearly bond payments.  Neither project produces a revenue stream.  In fact, the Hall property park will cost an extra $0.5-$1 million in maintenance per year.  WHERE WILL THE MAINTENANCE MONEY COME FROM?

·         The bond repayment can only come from the General Fund.  IS PUTTING ADDED STRESS ON THE ALREADY TIGHT BUDGET A WISE THING TO DO?

FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT USING THE OPTION OF GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS

·         Yearly assessment on every property tax bill in the City

·         Lower interest rate and guaranteed funding

·         No strain on the General Fund and no stripping of funds for other essential projects

·         Voters would decide the prudence of the projects.

ADDITIONAL VITAL FACTS

·         Toxic Soil: The County of San Diego Department of Environmental Health has mandated the City excavate the Hall property and bury on site approximately 46,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil with continual testing to make sure the land will be safe to play on.  The County WILL NOT be sending any inspectors to ensure compliance. WHO WILL ENSURE THE SOIL IS SAFE FOR OUR CHILDREN?

·         Air Contamination:   Recent research on air contamination indicates that fine particulate matter from the adjacent freeway to the Hall property can be a serious health hazard, especially to young children engaged in strenuous activity.  Air monitoring equipment should be installed for everyone’s safety after park completion.  WHY HAS THE CITY REFUSED TO EVEN DISCUSS THE MATTER?

ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS:

·         SHOULD WE JEOPARDIZE THE FUNDING OF OTHER VITAL PROJECTS?

·         WILL THE CITY HAVE SUFFICIENT FUNDS FOR UNEXPECTED EXPENSES?

·         SHOULD WE BORROW ON OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE?

CORRECTION: 46,000 cubic yards not 46,000 cubic feet as initially posted

They're still Terrified of Teresa Barth

They are nothing if not relentless in their goal to completely silence Councilwoman Barth and the large number of voters who she represents. The goal in repeatedly bringing back and attacks on Barth seems to aim at destroying her opportunity to come out of exile as the Encinitas preferred mayor. What the hell scares them so much?  Like clockwork every 6 weeks there is some sort of Stocks led power play, masked as a kind of populist move to legitimatize the selection of mayor as fair and civil. 

Review following 2011 mayor selection evening when people turned their backs as Stocks and Gaspar ensconced themselves in the positions of leadership.  

At February 15, 2012 these two acted in concert to introduce a 2 year mayoral scheme that would make Gaspar mayor. This Mayoral Mambo was out of the blue and thankfully didn't get enough votes from their own team. 

Here is what Teresa Barth said at that meeting.  Even now, five months and two council attempts later to get questions answered by staff go ignored.  This is also revealed in the post that follows this clip.

This post from Encinitas You Need Us Blog is a reprint.  It is one of the popular posts on the blog.

They're Terrified

It was highly entertaining in these last few days to read all of the comments following Jerome Stocks embarrassing letter in responding to Teresa Barth's letter in Encinitas Patch.   First, it was appropriate for Barth to publish her perspective as her voice on the council is so consistently ignored, dismissed or drowned out by four others of the super majority. On the other hand Jerome Stocks gets his bully pulpit on the dais, control of the agenda, a North County Times (NCT) reporter who acts practically like his publicist and other media focus and framing.

Yet the Stocks letter is a gigantic overreaction to Barth's statement of her experiences.  He and his cronies have treated this woman's minority voice on the council with irrational fear.  What kind of power toppling abilities does she have that motions, agenda item requests, counter arguments, insights from other California cities, advocacy for residents, (even a vote for the mobile home tenants for God's sake) might she bring down for them?  These mighty majority act like theirs is very fragile platform. They may be correct. There are hours of meetings which are pretty fact-free or so orchestrated for confusion it is difficult to mount rational responses. There is not a lot of 'there' there.  We know its been years since anything has been built or accomplished.  Even the General Plan Update (GPU) is being sold as a hoax by the council who brought it to life.

Undeniably there is a great deal of money behind these big boys.  Nobody needs to be told that, although it would be helpful if we could be reading in the press the names behind those who back this cabal at city hall.  It is well past time for that preliminary investigation.

Yet, these comments in the letters here and here are a wonderful sign that there are so many articulate, informed and savvy people paying close attention to these (mental and emotional) lumbering brutes who think the city is theirs and the inhabitants are all asleep or imbeciles.  Wide awake comments at NCT's, A"So Much For Democracy" Raspberry discussion thread brought another batch of insight and resistance, though the regular majority's gang were still there crying about that mean (how dare she) Barth and anyone who would attack poor Stocks and Co.

If you wrote a comment speaking out for Barth, against the Crony Club - give yourself a pat on the back.  Several comments were inexplicably deleted.  I hope they might be recovered as they belonged with the rest.  Imagine if 40 people responded rapidly to an engaging story for challengers to the monopoly or to a hit piece.  This would be a revitalized, engaged community before the election was even under way.

6 weeks later . . . 

Mayor Stocks argues again and Deputy Mayor Gaspar has full blown Poutrage

following Councilwoman's speech and the many remarkable speakers in support of democratic process, dissent and Teresa Barth personally.

Activists / Advocates Speak Out - A Sampling of the Dozen

2012 Council Candidates also speak out. 

Lisa Shaffer published her statement prior to the this March 28 meeting and EYNU captured it. And Tony Kranz spoke out at this meeting with his own unique experience and perspective on the faux populist and criteria arguments.

Wed. night - Now 16 weeks later (whoops their skipped opportunities). This winner take all crowd in the majority again can waste time - supposedly on the people's business - to distract and abuse the public on this political attempt to garner complete control of the city council process in Encinitas.

This ordinance is STILL poorly written, still without answering repeated questions for more detail and still politically driven, and not much more. Nothing is broken here, it's fixed. The personal grudges of this majority are frightening in their relentlessness and viciousness. What do they fear? And a special note to the old guy who has vowed to bow out and vowed to change the mayoral selection to an elected option. Sometimes you just don't get what you want. Please let go of your grudge from years ago. You and Muir can take the higher ground.

ATTENTION:  All hands on deck for Wednesday, July 11, 6 pm special council meeting to be held at Encinitas Community Center.  The financial bamboozlement of the Hall Property park and the Moonlight beach improvements will be item #1,  this mayoral grab action is #2 on the agenda.  Bring your cameras and enthusiasm.

Myths Encinitas

The myth of unlimited growth as fiscal strength  is directly related to the crash course, The Growth Ponzi Scheme featured these last four days at Encinitas You Need Us.  Tomorrow will be the final part 5. This guest series gives a narrative that people without financial expertise can use to be able to talk about city finances.

Part 1: The Mechanisms of Growth - Trading near-term cash for long-term obligations.
Part 2: Case studies that show how our places do not create, but destroy, our wealth.
Part 3: The Ponzi scheme revealed - How new development is used to pay for old development.
Part 4: How we've sustained the unsustainable by going "all in" on the suburban pattern of development.
Part 5: Responses that are rational and responses that are irrational.

The Growth Ponzi Scheme 

by Thomas Marhon

We often forget that the American pattern of suburban development is an experiment, one that has never been tried anywhere before. We assume it is the natural order because it is what we see all around us. But our own history — let alone a tour of other parts of the world — reveals a different reality. Across cultures, over thousands of years, people have traditionally built places scaled to the individual. It is only the last two generations that we have scaled places to the automobile.

How is our experiment working?

At Strong Towns, the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization I co-founded in 2009, we are most interested in understanding the intersection between local finance and land use. How does the design of our places impact their financial success or failure?

What we have found is that the underlying financing mechanisms of the suburban era — our post-World War II pattern of development — operates like a classic Ponzi scheme, with ever-increasing rates of growth necessary to sustain long-term liabilities.

Since the end of World War II, our cities and towns have experienced growth using three primary mechanisms:

• Transfer payments between governments: where the federal or state government makes a direct investment in growth at the local level, such as funding a water or sewer system expansion.
• Transportation spending: where transportation infrastructure is used to improve access to a site that can then be developed.
• Public and private-sector debt: where cities, developers, companies, and individuals take on debt as part of the development process, whether during construction or through the assumption of a mortgage.

In each of these mechanisms, the local unit of government benefits from the enhanced revenues associated with new growth. But it also typically assumes the long-term liability for maintaining the new infrastructure. This exchange — a near-term cash advantage for a long-term financial obligation — is one element of a Ponzi scheme.

Encinitas Illustration 

Jerome Stocks State of City, 4/18/12 clip

Returning to guest post . . .

The other is the realization that the revenue collected does not come near to covering the costs of maintaining the infrastructure. In America, we have a ticking time bomb of unfunded liability for infrastructure maintenance. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates the cost at $5 trillion — but that's just for major infrastructure, not the minor streets, curbs, walks, and pipes that serve our homes.

The reason we have this gap is because the public yield from the suburban development pattern — the amount of tax revenue obtained per increment of liability assumed — is ridiculously low. Over a life cycle, a city frequently receives just a dime or two of revenue for each dollar of liability. The engineering profession will argue, as ASCE does, that we're simply not making the investments necessary to maintain this infrastructure. This is nonsense. We've simply built in a way that is not financially productive.

We've done this because, as with any Ponzi scheme, new growth provides the illusion of prosperity. In the near term, revenue grows, while the corresponding maintenance obligations — which are not counted on the public balance sheet — are a generation away.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, we completed one life cycle of the suburban experiment, and at the same time, growth in America slowed. There were many reasons involved, but one significant factor was that our suburban cities were now starting to experience cash outflows for infrastructure maintenance. We'd reached the "long term," and the end of easy money.

It took us a while to work through what to do, but we ultimately decided to go "all in" using leverage. In the second life cycle of the suburban experiment, we financed new growth by borrowing staggering sums of money, both in the public and private sectors. By the time we crossed into the third life cycle and flamed out in the foreclosure crisis, our financing mechanisms had, out of necessity, become exotic, even predatory.

One of humanity's greatest strengths — our ability to innovate solutions to complex problems — can be a detriment when we misdiagnose the problem. Our problem was not, and is not, a lack of growth. Our problem is 60 years of unproductive growth — growth that has buried us in financial liabilities. The American pattern of development does not create real wealth. It creates the illusion of wealth. Today we are in the process of seeing that illusion destroyed, and with it the prosperity we have come to take for granted.

That is now our greatest immediate challenge. We've actually embedded this experiment of suburbanization into our collective psyche as the "American dream," a non-negotiable way of life that must be maintained at all costs. What will we throw away trying to sustain the unsustainable? How much of our dwindling wealth will be poured into propping up this experiment gone awry?

We need to end our investments in the suburban pattern of development, along with the multitude of direct and indirect subsidies that make it all possible. Further, we need to intentionally return to our traditional pattern of development, one based on creating neighborhoods of value, scaled to actual people. When we do this, we will inevitably rediscover our traditional values of prudence and thrift as well as the value of community and place.
Strong Towns   www.strongtowns.org

This Wednesday - Encinitas Financial Model as spelled out above.

The timing of this relates to the upcoming council meeting this coming Wednesday, July 11, being held at Encinitas Community Center (Senior Center) at Oakcrest & Balour. The agenda available here includes the agenda packet prepared by city staff.

The financing schemes to pay for major capital improvement projects, Hall property park and Moonlight beach is a real shuffle. There is a lot of Peter paying Paul switches and big debt commitment in these staff recommendations:

1. Reallocate General Fund Capital Improvement Project Funding - 7.0 million to projects.
2. Authorize proceeding with financing up to $8.0 million for projects.
3. Adopt Resolution amending the Capital Improvement Program Budget.
4. Award of contracts for Hall: $2,258,767.85 for the project.
5. Award of contract for Moonlight State Beach Improvement Project: $595,209.

Did we forget to mention how important it is to go to this meeting? Also, stay for item #2 - the great mayoral robbery - an ongoing fetish for Mayor Stocks.

Boundaries

Some things can really send me around the bend.  Even with yesterday's musical interlude and Mary's cartoon, this week's two posts on city council subcommittees and how Teresa Barth had to take a stand to emphatically refuse any subcommittee assignments keeps going through my mind.  It is so very difficult to say no in our social culture of white, middle class suburbanites.  It is considered rude.

It is a real nightmare for anyone trying to rely on volunteers let me tell you.  Here's something I forget over and over again. When you request someone's assistance or presence and they answer yes, you'd better not take them at their word.  You may well be disappointed.  These people who fear being considered rude if they would say no don't seem to make the connection that the false promise is far worse for the person planning on them than to have simply said no in the first place.  Crazy making stuff . . . so you polite white liars need to pay attention.  Saying no is okay.

And, on a different track closer to what Councilwoman Barth experienced,  there seem to be all kinds of rules against having boundaries in our culture.  There are all kinds of bullies out there and not just at city council. From a recent article this excerpt:

"How often do we teach people that they have the right to take care of themselves? Why don’t we teach that it’s okay to set boundaries? And why the hell don’t we teach people to respect them? 

You have the right to set boundaries. You have the right to have those boundaries respected.

• Not “You have the right to say no as long as you’re nice enough.”
• Not “You have the right to say no but I’m gonna try to change your mind.”
• Not “You have the right to say no unless I think you’re wrong.”
• Not “You have the right to say no once you can give me a satisfactory explanation as to why you’re saying no.”

When someone says no, the correct response is “Okay.” If you don’t understand, that’s fine. You don’t have to understand. Maybe the other person will be willing to explain. Maybe not. But they don’t owe you an explanation. 

You have the right to say no, period. And if someone can’t accept that, then the hell with them. The problem isn’t you."

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

According to Mary

History of Rock and Roll - 100 Riffs - 1 Take

Did you miss the musical weekend in Leucadia's Summer Fun on the 101 last week? Me too.

Via Mock Paper Scissors, The Chicago Music Exchange

Myths Encinitas - People's business continued . . .

This week's second major myth is that this council majority primary interest is to conduct the people's business.  This is a continuation of Monday's Myths Encinitas.  The Deputy Mayor, in her role as Gaspar the Willing Host (variant of Casper the Friendly Ghost, a favorite here at Our Mayor and Gaspar the Empty Boast) again shows she is more than willing to be the presenter or hostess on behalf of the cronies. This includes the majority team and the people they are serving - a very short list who will benefit directly from an unchallenged status quo in all things. 

A subcommittee set of constraints is just the latest in the council administration policies being reshaped and rewritten over the last few years to keep the public tightly controlled and gagged if possible. But for context, it is important to show a whole series of acts to waste the people's time, the public's money for staged antics to silence dissent, marginalize minority decisions and control outcome at council meetings. All of these things are to codify, make legal, injustice and bullying behavior of the majority. Hours and hours of council time, public backlash, council "deliberations" (read: rationalization) is used to create controversy and confusion.  People's Business my ass - that is a joke.

This subcommittee business started with the strategy to take the offensive with a big emotional topic to mine votes in the upcoming election year  - the General Plan Update.  September Stocks ranted and raved fact free for about a minute and a half. His rudeness and ugly baby image gave the trigger point for, step 2 the outraged citizenry / businessmen. The next step was to position Kristin Gaspar to present the scripted plan to introduce a new council advisory body.  What followed this elaborate attack on the General Plan process was volunteering Teresa Barth to sit on a subcommittee with Gaspar to flesh out this newly scripted plan as the video clip below shows. 

Subcommittee Ambush for Super majority Goal. 

Just 2 weeks later the majority volunteers Teresa Barth to the subcommittee appointed to decide how to fill Maggie Houlihan's seat despite Maggie's videotaped wish that Lisa Shaffer be considered her successor and many public speakers questioning why the next highest vote getter at the last election, Tony Kranz.  Barth was clearly in favor of either of these options, yet she was ambushed again into legitimatizing the majority nonsense. We are to infer (or to read in minutes) that Barth was a full and equal member of the subcommittee. What do you think? 



 Back to the General Plan Blow Up offensive plan where Councilwoman Barth was roped into being a volunteer on the ERAC subcommittee meeting.  In this tirade by Councilwoman Gaspar which was illegally allowed to be presented by Mayor Bond as an non-agendized speech, unchallenged by the city attorney, unanticipated by Barth and on top of all that . . . Bond disallowed any rebuttal from Barth.  This is an ambush, an attack clear and simple.



By this time it was clear that Barth was being set up to appear as a traitor to the Maggie Houlihan constituents, unworthy as a potential mayor (with that procedure coming up soon) and virtually silenced to present her own case or mount an effective counter balance to an all-consuming super majority.  Teresa Barth remained and continues to hold stead as a community treasure in the eyes of the public  - despite these attacks. 

Over a period of a few critical weeks at the end of 2011 the people's business was ignored in favor of blowing up General Plan Update and creating a super majority on the city council. They also were able to kick Teresa Barth to the curb when selecting a new mayor based on fabricated nonsense from Gaspar's she-said, she-said presentation of undocumented subcommittee work.

On March 21 of this year Teresa Barth was able to make it clear she would no longer serve on any subcommittee until rules and responsibilities were spelled out.



And six months since later this super committee have codified a gag rule that completely keeps the people's business in secret.

This majority gang will never be accused of serving the peoples business or being critical thinkers or creative in their governance of Encinitas for the good of the whole population.  They are relentless though in their inventive winner take all strategies via disinformation, distraction and denial - if you'll excuse the alliteration. Again, making the claim of doing the people's business is comically stretching the truth.

Myths Encinitas

The most glaring myth lately (first of several) involves the Gaspar Gag Order passed at the last city council meeting by the majority. In essence these new procedures codify "secret meetings" and require "group-think" to be considered a good team player.  This is a complete myth.  A good team player provides his or her unique flexibility,  skills, strengths and insights to strengthen a team.

Another aspect of this myth of a good team player is the completely fabricated outrage to justify unacceptable behavior in ambushing and attacking Councilwoman Barth last fall.  Siince that abusive period Barth has refused any and all appointments to a subcommittee until rules are clarified.  This was to be that meeting and instead it was a bunch of bullies ganging up on her, ganging up on the public with the blessing of the city attorney and city manager. Go team evil.
 
And this myth begets more myths, like the mythical allegiance a good team member must provide to her attackers.  Throughout the 30 minutes of this agenda item #8 discussion the crony club that is our city council majority ignores public speakers, revises history, makes things up, redefines language, creates false choices, welcomes straw men and a whole fustercluck of cruel, condescending and dismissive silencing of Teresa Barth and the thousands and thousands she represents.  It's legal, but team evil is the only game in town right now. Some clips to judge for yourself follow.

Imagine for one moment you are a lone voice attempting to be heard as an equal team player even though you have a different opinion or perspective and moreover, you have alternatives for the team to consider. Most importantly, Barth points out that it is a mistake to consider the city council as the team when the focus should be on the public with the council being part of that team.

If you can sit through all of the next two clips, you might try to listen to how language is used, how sources are lacking and other critical elements citizens should expect from a deliberative governing body are completely missing.

It is really difficult to witness or listen to authoritarian language of absolute control presented with childish clichés in a tone of condescension from a neophyte like Kristin Gaspar.

• All discussions involving city staff will happen within an ad hoc committee setting. 
• The ad hoc committee will sign off on the staff report before it’s brought back to council.
• The ad hoc committee will only address topics discussed by the full council. 

Mayor Stocks wanted to slap on even tighter control with mandating the mayor alone being able to appoint subcommittees and name the chair.

The pile on doesn't end with the vote of 4:1.  Barth attempts to at least allow the guidelines to come back as an agenda item.  Not a chance.

Following this meeting Teresa Barth stated,

"I have served on a number of subcommittees during my past 6 years on council, including a committee with Jerome Stocks concerning former city manager Phil Cotton's compensation. Mr. Stocks recommended a significant raise and I recommended no raise. I have never received a complaint from any other council member nor have I complained about their comments or suggestions in the sub-committee process. Deputy Mayor Gaspar seems to believe that disagreement and independent research are somehow inappropriate.

Councilman Bond also commented about the need to "get things" done and having the public included slows things down.

Open Meeting laws (the Brown Act) do not apply to temporary sub-committees as long as there is not a quorum of elected officials on the committee. However, in light of the recent actions and comments by other council members, I believe the public should have the right to attend such meetings if they so desire. I proposed simple procedures that would have allowed the public to attend subcommittee meetings. The Council majority didn't agree."

Tomorrow there will be a second installment of this myth.  It is born out of the misuse of the phrase, people's business as a council responsibility.