Quote of the Day

“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.” -- Voltaire

 

Classic Stocks Mocks™ to lump any and all who criticize him as haters, whiners, jerks, etc.

Please, please, please Mayor Stocks.  Keep Talking . . .

Channel 10 News for full video and story here.

Word Games - Affordable Housing

April 2, 2008
During the months long futile exercise in a Mobile Home Study which touted the notion of supporting mobile home residents against predator practices like the Sands Mobile Home Park Conversion, the chambers were repeatedly packed with public speakers passionate about needing security for their housing. At one such meeting Richard Bintliff thought he had a solution.

Stocks Mocks™ - as he does - and squashed that pretty thoroughly.

We BILKED This - Begins Monday

Happy Anniversary to the Women of the US of A - 92 years of having the vote.

This doesn't mean we have rights.  There is a certain party that would deny women rights over their own bodies. This has been a war on women for forty years. If every woman in the US of A who could vote, would vote we would see a country transformed. 

Hat Tip to Truthdig's Mr. Fish and Emma's Revolution and the Renegade Raging Grannies.

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.

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. 

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.

Sidewalk Dining for $.79/day

George Hejduk, a regular speaker at council meetings is the self-appointed watchdog on sidewalk dining and has spoken out regularly for years. There's a long history of the city not responding, responding but not enforcing ADA and other public aspects of our coastal downtown sidewalk dining. 2011 looked like this issue would finally get some resolution. 2012 begins without a final decision from the council.

The city staff findings are not presented here, simply a bit of discussion from Jerome Stocks in these two clips of Our Mayor's representing . . . his viewpoint. Characteristically, in two words, Stocks Mocks TM . . . a whole range of targets.

Sidewalk Dining is brought back to the council on November 16, 2011 agenda based on the above comments and more. Watch how Teresa Barth's attempt at addressing Jerome Stock's objection to an annual fee by treating it as a realistic concern is translated into a manufactured(?) complexity.

Full April 13 meeting can be viewed here and November 16 meeting here. Sitting through these in real time made $.79 a day a really foolish sticking point for then Deputy Mayor Stocks. Only the cynical might guess this was for 2012 campaign support or some other political jockeying or simple vindictiveness.