I knew Kristen Gaspar was a high risk to support the Jerome Stocks "Respect my authoritah!" regime, but Maggie Houlihan???
How can she possibly defend wasting more public money to appeal an obvious Public Records Act case over an old road report that can't possibly be anything worse than politically embarrassing? This isn't national security here.
Read all about it at Patch.
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ReplyDeleteHoulihan believes that Kevin cannot afford to appeal this thing to a higher court. After all, Kevin has proven his point.
ReplyDeleteIs there really anything in this report that the average citizen needs to know?
Hopefully, Kevin puts the money to better use, like a college fund for a child.
Has Maggie considered that she and her other three close friends - Stocks, Bond, and Gaspar have completely lost in the court of public opinion?
ReplyDelete9:19 Sorry, I hate censorship and almost never delete comments, but that was a little harsh even for me.
ReplyDelete10:51 I don't think Kevin's going to have to pay for this. I would guess that CalAware will fund it or the lawyer will take it on contingency -- and the city will have to pay lawyer's fees when they lose their meritless appeal.
11:03 I think Maggie has been on council so long that she's lost touch with the public. She's only around staff and other councilmembers so those are the people she wants to please.
Houlihan is a shill for BIG GOVT!!! Evil!!
ReplyDeleteIt's not "big" government I'm worried about in Encinitas. It's BAD government. i.e. corrupt, secretive, run for the benefit of insiders and big political donors. i.e. the kind of government Maggie was elected to oppose.
ReplyDeleteMaggie's political career is a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger's. Shen like Arnie, is driven by a need to be liked. Both used that drive to initially work for popular/populist initiatives. But then both spent too much time with insiders and no longer sought public approval but only approval from other political insiders. Both are massive betrayals to their original supporters, but then that's what you get when you support unprincipled lightweights who only want to be popular.
I am terribly disappointed by Maggie's vote to appeal. She has gone to the dark side on this one. Maggie has always been intimidated by Glenn Sabine and is afraid to question anything he says. Surely she knows the city violated the Public Records Act. Did she even read the judge's decision?
ReplyDeleteThe council was in closed door session for over 2 hours, probably longer than ever before. Mayor Bond also said it was the most people ever to attend the open meeting portion of a closed door session. And this with only 24 hour for a "special meeting."
This case is not going away. Dennis Winston, KC's lawyer. is working pro bono. He has already asked the city for $30,000 in legal fees, which he is entitled to as the winner. Rumor says Sabine has already billed the city $60,000 for "overtime" that is on top of his contract with the city. Sabine has a conflict of interest. He wins whatever the legal outcome. It's the Encinitas taxpayer footing the bill who loses.
This is all about supporting Sabine. He has convinced the City he got a raw deal by the Judge and that the Appelate Court will surely right the wrong. NOT! Sabine has got to go. He was wrong to advise against disclosure, wrong to persist in defending this lawsuit, and wrong again in trying to overturn a well thought out decision. Why does Maggie support Sabine? Don't know.
ReplyDeleteViolet,
ReplyDeleteI think you're exactly right. And that fits perfectly with what I've been saying:
1) Maggie just wants to be popular with insiders, and
2) This case is all about ego. Sabine is an incompetent egomaniac. There is absolutely no public interest in wasting more money on this case, but Sabine is vainly trying to save face. Remember, he's the idiot who wasted thousands of dollars referring Barth's harassment complaint to expensive outside lawyers when a competent city attorney could have answered it himself in 15 minutes.
If Sabine has been granted overtime pay defending this absurd appeal, then that should be publically disclosed. No only should council seats be turned over in the next election, the city attorney needs to be replaced. Poor Houlihan - she is finishing off her career with a blantant affront to the constituency that once trusted her.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I have posted on this site, but the points on Glen Sabine are so right on I felt compelled to join in. I have watched his career with our City for some time. Not only does he sometimes make over a $1,000,000 a year from us, the City will not even consider allowing other attorneys or firms to bid on the job. I have also asked the City why they won't allow others, that may want to be the City's legal council, bid on the job. The answer has always been, "Glen does a good job." The other interesting thing about Glen is he never bills for using a paralegal. It is always as if the attorney or attorneys are doing the whole job. In most cases, attorney's use paralegals to do their "grunt" work and to save money. If Glen is using them, he still passes off his full fee to the City. It would appear the Council cannot let him go. I do not understand their loyalty to a man that often appears very incompetent. He personally threatened me with a lawsuit some years back, which I will not get in to on this post. So perhaps the next issue for whomever, is WHY and WHAT does he have over the City.
ReplyDeleteI am new to this site, but I have never seen an attornery as prideful as Glenn Sabine--and for what? His record of losses is staggering. His personal standards of performance are disgraceful, and I am ashamed that we are represented by such a self-serving snake. The reward systems are all messed up since his reward each time he loses is for us to pay for him to take another stab at cases.
ReplyDeleteI was also shocked to hear that the USA Today Business Section headline quoter, Ms. Jennifer Smith, is or has been romantically linked to Mr. Sabine. I heard that she is now taking accounting classes that we are paying for, since Gus actually has a financial background and might expect people like Jay Lemback to be able to make presentations with 6 digit, rounded numbers that add up. How can we be paying people like this with no demonstratable skills to be paid over $100,000? Why are these people--regardless of the degrees that they claim to have earned, rewarded for being foolish and incompetent?
Does the HR manager actually check to see if they have the credentials that they claim? I see no evidence in the case of Jennifer.
Jennier-It is true that Glen Sabine and Jennifer Smith were at one time an "item". I saw them holding hands at a party I was invited to attend. I don't know if they still are, however. Jennifer was Kerry Miller's secretary before becoming Director of Finance. In case you don't know it, Kerry was our City Manager before Phil Cotton. He has since been a City Manager at a few other cities. Seems like he doesn't stay in one place too long. From what I heard when she was promoted, there were a few people in accounting that were not too happy about it. As far as Glen, his record is abysmal. But, the City refuses to let him go. This would be an interesting topic to find out about. WHY won't they?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know the secret to how someone was able to get Kerry Miller move on. I'd like to see Sabine, Jennifer, Jay Lemback and the assorted document grinders all hit the trail, but what incentive is there for them to leave.
ReplyDeleteThey don't have to punch in, they don't have to be there, and they don't have to be accountable to anyone but Jerome and Jim who have very low personal standards. And when they retire at 55, they will make as much as they do now doing nothing at work when they do nothing at home, and we will be stuck paying for it. How can this be sustained?
I have read Dr. Lorri's thoughtful posts over the years and have always heard the most complimentary things about her, but obviously she went about things the wrong way. She actually studied and worked hard!! There is just no way that they would ever give someone like her for a position at City Hall!
The fiasco in City Hall only gets more wretched by the minute! A bunch of incompetents loading their pockets as fast as they can, before they are fully exposed. Like Dalager, they consider themselves privledged and above any rules. Time to dump the lot!
ReplyDeleteHoulihan should retire and allow an interim appointment; she has serious health concerns predominating in her life. She cannot devote the time or attention now required for this position that she holds. It is nice to be sympathetic, but life goes on and efficiency should not be compromised to play a compassionate pass on real world necessities.
ReplyDeleteKerry Miller left the city in 2006 because he saw the financial house-of-cards he had built was going to unravel. Plus his marriage unraveled too. Housing prices peaked in Fall 2005 and in July 2006 the State Supreme Court closed the loophole that allowed cities to move funds out of sewer and water districts into the General Fund to pay for Lease Revenue Bonds unrelated to sewer or water district projects. This is how the Hall property purchase was financed and is one of the main reasons the city doesn't have money for the park construction.
ReplyDeleteThe relationship between Smith and Sabine is a huge conflict of interest, but it doesn't seem to bother the council majority. Sabine doesn't act alone. He follows council direction. Sabine stays as long as Stocks, Bond, and Gaspar stay. The new city manager can count to three and won't disturb the status quo.
Big govt is evil.
ReplyDeleteBad govt is more evil.
Big bad govt is the most evil.
Enc city council supports big bad govt.....(fill in the blank).
Yea, the new city manager isn't going to buck the prevailing trend - he'll do what is in his best interests and that is to serve the special interests. Only a handful of vocal citizen activists really know or care what is going on in City Hall, so what's there to worry? Until the ruling elite are toppled, it will be business as usual.
ReplyDeleteJennifer Smith was a secretary promoted to head of finance? Definitely proves it is who you know, rather than what you know. Encinitas government is an insiders' party of self-promotion and cronyism at its worst!
ReplyDeleteHoulihan is more a product of small town indifference, as she has no poitical savy. It makes Encinitas look like Mayberry when someone with no civic skill makes city hall. Houlihan is more of a groupie for Stocks.
ReplyDelete