2009 Cartoon Parody in Real Time - REDUX

The Crest Drive Appeal brought 30 public speakers before the city council last Wednesday night, August 15 to defend the historic pines and vegetation along their street.  When reviewing the various city council member's discussion it was clear the parody from Leucadia blog in 2009 was being acted out in real time. The images from the 2009 Encinitas City Council Guide are included after each clip from last Wednesday.   What do you think?

"Jerome Stocks is Eddie Haskell. He has a tendency for being insincerely courteous. When the spotlight is turned off his true side comes out. He is the most willing council member to put his own fortunes ahead of the citizens, and he does that in the backroom as much as possible so he doesn't have to take responsibility."

 

"Jim Bond is Grandpa Simpson. Grandpa Simpson might have been a mover and shaker when young and still eager. He still belts out some classic lines of wisdom from time to time, but he is worn out. Expect him to provide a guiding hand on the lucky occasion, but he is over it. His heart is the right place but there is no leadership left in him."

 "Teresa Barth is Lois Lane from Superman I. Not just on the job, but eager to dig in and get to the bottom of the story and then do something about it. From an outside perspective some of her interactions might seem awkward or uncomfortable, but that is because she is so focused on the big story and has that in mind." 

It was fun to revist that lively period in Leucadia blog's history.   Ironically this parody was published on the same night that the great Leucadia tree cutting at Orpheus Park brought a crowd to city hall speaking out for the beloved trees in the neighborhood. Three more years with the council majority in control has meant very little has changed.  

According to Mary: Tree

Myths Encinitas

Tree City USA, Urban Forest Policy and other designations claimed by the Encinitas City is largely mythical. It just doesn't seem like Engineering got the memo from Public Works (and clearly unfamiliar with the Environmental Commission).  Public Works was in charge of writing the manual on Encinitas Urban Forest, including heritage trees.  Engineering is pretty much robotically wired to road code dimensions and are rarely swayed by real life or logic.

This particular week we have the perfect storm of empty rhetoric regarding city council policies actually effectively connecting and engaging various departments' supposed commitment to Encinitas community character, Encinitas trees and Encinitas Urban Forest.

Why? The agenda for Wednesday's meeting agenda includes the merging of two department director positions into one. Consolidation of the positions of Director of Engineering and Director of Public Works into Director of Engineering and Public Works. We question the success of that merger in the current culture at city hall that does not celebrate connectivity, collaboration or cooperation.

Meanwhile, another agenda item:
Public Hearing of the appeal of Engineering conditions for public improvements adjacent to 1794 Crest Drive. Reading through the appeal makes the many layers of trees, street standards, infrastructure, community character and financial hardship a complex web of assumptions, justification and a fair dose of misinterpretation.  Behind it all is money (see Growth: Ponzi Scheme series) and an authoritarian adherence to codes as power.  It's how it sounds to this reader. The appellant's challenges the reality of the city plan for a trail throughout the Crest Drive built out area will ever happen, yet alone that harms no trees. Another mythical notion of shared goals amongst departments with a council majority uninterested in making these connections.

It is very difficult to ascribe "good faith" to our city departments dealings with single family residents, given a long history of inconsistent treatment of resident requests. Indeed, there is a very real reluctance of homeowners, architects and contractors to come forward with individual stories because of fear of retaliation in their properties and businesses.

It's vital we all keep hearing, learning and sharing our preferred city government ideals.  Planting trees should be more than a political photo op. There are  fantastic examples all around us, and some close by, of a better way to deal with sincere connections to our public spaces, our trees and our private property and business owners.  These magnificent pines on Crest Drive and all the other vegetation is of upmost importance in this time of drought, climate change, erosion, need for sustainability and economic depression.

Andy Lipkis, well known TreePeople founder, known to many in Encinitas speaks here about  our need for functioning community forests as acupuncture used strategically to heal; for our watersheds, to create oxygen and filters for our air and coolants and . . . well start at 6:00 to dive right into it. Enabling community is at the heart and soul of this for success.  We could have this kind of thinking on our city council.

Love the part about we Americans just hate to be told what to do, but when informed we want to help.

Crest Drive is yet another opportunity for our city council to seek policy for connections and restoration rather than piecemeal acquisition of scattered contract work for favored vendors. After Wednesday there will only be about a half dozen council meetings until the election. Time to envision change and campaign for it too. 

Crest Drive

On Aug. 15, the Encinitas City Council will hear arguments against City Engineering Department mandates for curb, gutter and pedestrian walkway on Crest Drive, a rural residential subdivision of one-acre lots within old Encinitas.In the proposed single family home, the city originally asked for 8 feet of concrete pavers with curbs 450 feet long and a 5 foot walkway, eliminating 13 feet of natural landscaping and threatening old growth trees and vegetation along Crest Drive. 

All the land adjacent to the pavement would also need to be removed and graded down to the level of the street, thereby widening the street by over 26 feet when both sides are complete. 

The City Engineering Department stated, “ Our goal is to have curb, gutter and sidewalk on every home in Encinitas.”

Excerpt from Coast News article by Kevin Farrell, we recommend reading the whole piece. It ends with this call to action.

"We don’t understand the benefit the city would get from this. With so many people opposed throughout Encinitas, it would be a win, win, for the City to re-evaluate and leave our neighborhoods the way we want, not some Engineers personal preference. We have appealed the engineers finding to our City Council members for a final determination. We are optimistic the Council will assist in helping preserve our trees and vegetation thus maintaining the Community Character we love. 

Please join me at the City Council meeting next Wednesday at 6 p.m. and help support this worthy cause in keeping Encinitas, the way it was. A presence in numbers will help to get our point across." 

This council agenda item triggered the memory of Joni Mitchell's song we posted on Thursday, singing "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."  The lyrics are perfectly apt for Mayor Stocks bragging at his state of the city address last April 18th.  The following clip was first posted after the last council meeting before this break with this introduction.

"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."

It's probably no coincidence that Stocks is called out for including tree-lined Crest Drive in his bragging, while city engineers are ginning up rationale to fell these same trees.  The man either has no ethics or no clue what the words coming from his mouth mean.

Photo at Opening from April 21, 2012 article, North County Times, about Crest Drive Petition. 

Related Posts:

• Confessions of a Recovering Engineer
• Redefining Normal
• Tuesday is Dues-day: Tail Wags Dog Planning

Can't believe we are still protesting this . . .

Joni Mitchell wrote "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot" 42 years ago. It could have been written today for our council majority and their backers. Two generations of protest on behalf of the quality of life. Is anyone listening? (They aren't.)

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

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.

According to Mary: Tale of the Tree

Stocks Promotes Poison, Scorched Earth

Willfully neglected land bordering the railroad tracks along Leucadia's Vulcan Ave. and Highway 101 corridor invited invasive noxious weeds that thrive in harsh, barren condition. At last year's Environmental Workplan "Lite" presentation (after stripping the Commission of it's expertise and advocacy), Maggie Houlihan asked Russell Levan to give an update on his spring volunteer effort to eradicate goathead thorns.

Poisonous Behavior, Contempt for Citizens

Stocks simply has to play the bully with Russell Levan's magnanimous efforts (see EYNU post today) by negating them and that's his favorite poison. But there is more, because he's spewing dangerously false nonsense from his gardener . . er neighbor across the street . . .  and misrepresenting the harmlessness of spraying herbicides. This is the Leucadia railroad corridor where, by the way, he has a child at Paul Ecke Central School who plays outside within a stone's throw of the spray zone he's championing. Seriously.

Reality Check, Healthy Soil
First, here's a look at the puncture vine up close. It is a menace, no argument and it thrives on scorched earth, where residents who try to place mulch on this bare dusty earth can be ticketed.

Let’s face it, the soil surface wants to be covered. You can either choose what the cover will be or Nature will do it herself and you might not like the results.

Forget about eradicating every weed, work on the soil and the weed war will be over. In the meantime, keep mulching.

Here is another basic reality of how life within an ecosystem works via Wikipedia and the ecological principals are verifiable in organic studies and reports or anyone's back yard where growing healthy soils is the goal.

In smaller areas, puncture vine is best controlled with manual removal using a hoe to cut the plant off at its taproot. While this is effective, removing the entire plant by gripping the taproot, stem or trunk and pulling upward to remove the taproot is far more effective. This requires monitoring the area and removing the weed throughout the preceding time (late spring and early summer in many temperate areas). This will greatly reduce the prevalence of the weed the following year. Mowing is not an effective method of eradication, because the plant grows flat against the ground.

Another avenue of physical eradication is to crowd out the opportunistic weed by providing good competition from favorable plants. Aerating compacted sites and planting competitive desirable plants including broad-leaved grasses such as St Augustine can reduce the impact of puncture vine by reducing resources available to the weed.

So, we have prisoners along the corridor working off their community service time by raking away any life on the surface of the earth, clearing away mulch and inexplicably not directed to focus on eradicating goathead thorns down to its tap root. Clueless.

 Poison the Earth, Scorch the Earth

Of course there are seeds galore with this plant.  It is a survivor. But spraying simple salt water isn't going to accomplish anything except  killing the soil. A coastal area as ours already has a great deal of salt which stays in the soil.  It's crazy talk to say we should find a truck and spray some more, because this isn't going to bring the results Stocks is prophesying based on hearsay anyway.

Did this supposedly educated man say that RoundUp is safe?  This is  a jaw dropping and dangerous lie given a decade of research and public education to the contrary.  Monsanto is a menace to the entire globe and only corporate lackey's are saying otherwise.

Today's article is a good one here, featuring a CA republican lobbying on behalf a a giant Pesticide Company. There probably isn't a day where there isn't something revealed around the globe that Monsanto, Dow or other Corporate Chemical Giant is reprehensibly doing.

Here's a classic full length film Monsanto, hands down the worst, most dangerous with chemical agriculture out of control.

Best viewed at YouTube here.
There are countless metaphors for this story of a noxious menace stopping us from biking and walking safely or the direction to poison our common property and open lands and to discourage community, volunteering and citizen participation.  All these metaphorical references are begging to be shared, but that won't be happening today.

Trees and Hostile Officials

Vernal Equinox today, day and night in balance just twice a year.  In honor of this first day of Spring and last week sometime being Arbor Day and Encinitas newly designated Tree City, USA, today will center on trees.  But, where the mayor and the council majority are involved, there is also the dodging of accountability, disregard for public sentiment and a cavalier dismissal of rules unless they are for somebody else.  Did you say, "Sweeping generalizations?" On notice here to search for anecdotes that are the exception. Promise.

Last week of Sunshine and Open Government, the story of Orpheus Trees was presented and today the following clip adds to this historic council majority claim to ill-fame.


Mentioned in this clip and linked in last week's post, Sheila Cameron's complete commentary from the Coast News three years ago is shared here. This Wednesday's March 21, 2012 council meeting will be discussing agenda item #9, the very issue Sheila has described below, email communication.  This example is why it is vital for the council policy to specifically spell out retention requirements and other procedures related to 21st century technology.

Trees and Sunshine
March 19, 2009

This week, March 14 to March 21, is proclaimed Sunshine Week in California. Not referring to the abundant sunshine that we enjoy here, but rather the term is used to shine a light on political processes and to foster transparency in all corners of government.

Last week, March 7 to March 14 was Arbor Week in California. Cities have to apply and pass muster with the National Arbor Day Foundation to be recognized as a Tree City. There are 124 Tree Cities in this state — Encinitas is not one of them.

There is a nexus between these two weeks, coming one after the other, that reflects the deficit in the lack of processes practiced in Encinitas city government.

In the middle of Arbor Week, irate Encinitas residents were protesting in a City Council meeting because staff members, ignoring process and public concerns, cut down 11 young healthy trees in the Orpheus Neighborhood Park so that a few condo owners could improve their ocean view. I don’t know how the Arbor Foundation will view this city’s action, but I doubt that it will sit well with an organization whose purpose is maintaining a healthy urban forest.

The Encinitas Environmental Commission has developed an Urban Forest Policy and aspires to be designated a Tree City. The policy was presented at the March 18 City Council meeting. Now it goes to the staff to write up the procedures for operation. Will this policy prevent an Orpheus Park incident from happening again? Some public process needs to be assured and built-in to the procedures. The policy and the procedures need to return to the Environmental Commission and City Council for review and a second public hearing.

The Brown Act is our Sunshine Law in California, which assures us of accountability and transparency in government. The Freedom of Information Act, Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Sunshine Act are the federal laws granting us access to public records and open meetings. When Brown Act violations occur, it does not bode well for city governments. While the trees in Orpheus Park were being cut down, the three majority council members engaged in a serial e-mail exchange among themselves on this issue. With more than two members discussing an issue, it constitutes a collective concurrence outside the purview of the public, a Brown Act violation. Closed sessions are meetings where all City Council members meet to discuss: a) possible or real lawsuits/legal action; b) salaries/pay and benefits for staff; c) purchase of property for parks, city projects, etc., without the public in attendance.

Closed sessions are required to be noticed with an agenda.

In Encinitas, the way in which Closed Sessions are being noticed to the public constitutes a Brown Act violation. Currently all Closed Sessions are being noticed as a “Special Meeting,” which means the city is only required to give 24 hours notice versus the 72 hours notice normally required for regular agendas. Result: It doesn’t give the public adequate notification should they want to speak to any issue listed. It shows yet another attempt to circumvent the public process.

Marco Gonzales, co-founder of the Coast Law Group and an Encinitas resident, spoke before the council at the March 11 meeting: “The integrity of your entire government structure is called into question — not just the underhandedness, it is about avoiding process and not having process. We have a systemic problem here in the city with regards to governance. It has led to a lack of confidence of your constituency. It is not hard to govern well, just set the rules and follow them.”

Sheila S. Cameron is an Encinitas resident and former mayor of Encinitas.

Stocks in the Dark, Where the Sun Don't Shine

Update Below
It's Sunshine Week across the nation. Our Mayor Stocks remains in the dark when it comes to the concept of sunshine as the best disinfectant for corruption and collusion.

In the clip below he reads his carefully worded revision of history. The great hostility that was the city's cutting of eleven trees from Orpheus Park and subsequent ham-handed cover up is again misrepresented.



There was an opportunity for Jerome Stocks to admit error and show some remorse for actions that would shame most of us who would seek the public's esteem. Not a chance for this politico. And yes, he blames the trees too.

Update: For those unfamiliar with the back story of the Orpheus Park tree cutting, there will be further council meeting clips to come.  In the meantime, a news account with the apt title, "Trees and Sunshine" is linked here.