The news sources covered candidate responses to a few of the questions. This post isn't to cover this from that perspective, but to simply make some observations and point out some highlights, low point and opinion.
The questions selected by the LWV, who did a great job moderating and organizing. None of the team were from Encinitas, so questions were selected without bias. No doubt the amount of duplication was one criterion. The list below is a shortened version as no transcript was available and note taking for the lay person sucks.
- What is your opinion on Sea Walls? Should the City pay for them?
- What is your opinion on holding City Budget Workshops for the community to help address financial concerns?
- Campaign Signs placed by Jerome Stocks and Mark Muir, enforcement of violation?
- Will Leucadia Streetscape change the community character?
- Do you think there is a problem with late night drinking in downtown Encinitas?
- What is your opinion on Pacific View?
- Prop K - election of mayor: your position and why you think it is best?
- Please comment on Pension Funding?
- What should Encinitas do to attract a Movie Theater?
- Are you in favor of the Right to Vote Initiative?
- Name the top 1-3 things you would change.
North County Times (NCT) online - Barbara Henry wrote ENCINITAS: Sign-posting controversy draws crowd to council candidate forum
Usually deferential to Stocks in her reporting on #3 sign violation question (the only question she covered), she wrote he was unrepentant and accused others. Stocks' mocking Kranz - saying he had some crazy "terrorist-like" story he got loudly booed and shouted to sit down.Patch online - Marlena Medford wrote City council candidate make their final pitch to voters
Also covering the #3 sign violation for most, it is here that we see the origin of Stocks hyperbole for the next night at council. Forrester is quoted in Patch as saying, "he considered the violation of the code “an offensive, but not a capital offense.”
The second half of the post was devoted to #5 Downtown Encinitas Bars. This was also the only question Medford devoted her reporting to in the Sept. 19 Cardiff Town Council Forum.Coast News online - Jared Whitlock wrote Council candidates make their case to large crowd
Giving about equal column inches to #5 Downtown Bar rowdiness, #7 Prop K elected mayor and #10 Voter's Initiative fighting density; Whitlock alone stayed clear of the sign violation. He also touched very lightly on #2 Budget Workshops, #8 Pension Funding and #9 Movie Theater desired in Encinitas. All of this reads for a more complete cross section of topics and opinions.All of the candidates were kept on task with excellent moderation. Although she stressed no clapping from the onset, in order to save time, the favorites Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz did receive applause throughout the evening. And yet again, they both had the most complete knowledge of what the community found important with thorough answers. Stocks was the only candidate the audience booed and hissed on several occasions.
In answer to #2 Budget Workshops he sneered, "We have always had this, it's called city council meeting." Most of his answers were the long-suffering tone of tolerating dunces. All of his answers were in his signature tone of condescension. Just like blaming the victim scolding of the woman at the Cardiff forum who spoke of her fear at night (she should have called 911). At this forum he declared there was no crime in downtown Encinitas, it was simply a problem of parking which made it noisy.
Jerome Stocks doesn't register as reality a perspective he doesn't have himself. Or, maybe more accurately, will not allow for a diversity of responses and insights to our complex issues in Encinitas. The answer is what serves his purposes at the moment. It is simply his way or the highway. Apprentice Stocks, Forrester is all arrogance all the time which does precisely the same thing to the public.
Kevin Forrester even upped the ante and the heat when he responded to the questions on community involvement in Budget Workshops and Voter Initiative. "Land Use shouldn't be in the hands of the people." His keening voice, that rose in inflection at the end of sentences, strongly praised free markets, bootstraps, financial measures, down tricking blah, blah, blah. Sorry, notes broke down here.
Mark Muir - Meh . . . Calling out how the video showed his big butt garnered a laugh, added something pathetic. The words, the claims come from his mouth, but I just don't credit him with actually thinking them, acting them, owning them or living according to them. Smoke and mirrors man.
Thomas Brophy is a candidate I hope stays involved in city government to keep a mix of perspectives. This may not be a winning campaign season for him, but he's shown he is a learning and he grasps a great deal of the city's dynamic in confronting the stranglehold on this whole town with this council majority led by Stocks.
Bryan Ziegler was into punishment and protecting us all and deciding for us all what is right. The over wrought bathos of the closing auto wreck story is just too much. A real Dudley Do Right. This candidate should make you shudder. Just sayin'
Barbara Yost has grown in confidence. She is still simply all over the board, despite her opening bold statement, "I'll save your neighborhood." It sounds so populist and right in an old-fashioned Americana kind of way. But, seriously, how the hell is that supposed to work in the real world? What defines the boundaries of a neighborhood? What if neighbors have 6 conflicting views? Muddy waters . . .
Tony Kranz had one line that really stood out. As a member of the Historical Society he spoke about the 1863 Pacific View pact with the city that the land be dedicated to education and open space. He confronted Stocks, pointing out how wrong it was to put the Pacific View Art Pulse Zoning on a recent agenda knowing (as Stocks admitted this evening) that the vote would be to postpone.
Great point since that meeting was overbooked with really important issues. Stocks gleefully herded people like cattle, dismissing all but the broadest of interpretations of each item.
One of my favorite lines was from Shaffer, the first candidate to speak on #11 - "Name 1-3 top things would you change." She leaped up, grabbed the mic and said, "Who is on city council!" Big applause. Her closing remarks were strong too as quoted at EYNU.
Stocks closed with a preposterous lie, something like "I have attended more meetings without an absence than anyone ever" or some nonsense. He must have been deliberately thumbing his nose as he's missed more meetings this year alone than Barth has in 6 years.
So, a bully who also lies openly without a stutter. No, this behavior does not have the support of 98% of the community, despite the taxpayer funded citizen survey misappropriation in Stocks' unethical election campaign.
