Moonlight Beach body identified as Jose Luis Quiroz

San Diego County Medical Examiner:



The Medical Examiner doesn't list a city of residence, but a Jose L. Quiroz with the same birthdate is listed as a long-time resident of a trailer park at 440 Van Houten in El Cajon.

Insane in the Membrane? Michael T. Pines faces competency hearing

Many people who have had run-ins with Encinitas foreclosure attorney Michael T. Pines (no relation to La Jolla personal injury lawyer Michael Pines) would agree.

Union-Trib: Judge doubts Pinesy's mental state.

Criminal proceedings against a controversial foreclosure attorney from North County have been suspended after a Superior Court judge expressed doubts about his "mental competency," said officials with the San Diego County District Attorney's Office.

Judge Runston G. Maino has ordered a Friday hearing to determine whether Michael T. Pines, who advised clients to retake possession of their foreclosed homes, should undergo a mental evaluation to see if he is fit to stand trial.

"The hearing judge expressed a doubt as to Mr. Pines' competency," said James Romo, the prosecutor assigned to the case.

Judge Maino has appointed a lawyer to represent Pines for "the limited purpose" of Friday's hearing, Romo added. If Pines is found mentally competent to stand trial, then the preliminary hearing will be set for Sept. 6.

Of course, a common indicator of insanity is the denial that one is insane:

Pines, 59, calls the judge's order "a delay tactic," saying he's an experienced attorney.

"They're trying to get more time because they realized they have no case," he told the Union-Tribune on Monday.

The judge might want to consider Pinesy's letter to the state bar and his lawsuit against banks, cities, the county, the state bar and others. They contain subtle indications of BATSHIT FRIGGIN' CRAZY!

Encinitas - Solana Beach gang war heats up

Read all about it at Patch.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested four men on S. Coast Highway 101 in Encinitas Saturday night suspected of threatening people with a gun and firing a shot into a moving vehicle in Solana Beach, according to Sgt. Thomas Yancey.

At around 11 p.m., deputies were called to Hernandez Street in Solana Beach for a brandishing-a-firearm report. Residents said four men spray painted gang graffiti on a house, threatened a man and two young children with a gun and shot at a vehicle driven by a local resident, shattering the driver’s window but causing no injuries, according to Yancey.

Witnesses reported that the suspects were driving a black Honda, and deputies in the area on a DUI detail saw a vehicle that matched the description and conducted a high-risk stop on S. Coast Highway 101, according to a sheriff’s report. 

Four suspects were identified, arrested and booked into Vista Detention Facility for various charges including weapons violations and conspiracy. The names of the suspects were not released.   

Nice work by the sheriffs to catch these guys.

Surfing Madonna to appear at Leucadia ARTwalk

Meet the artist and admire the beautiful work that so traumatized the control freaks on the City Council. 10am - 5pm.

KPRI plays the Toxic a-Ventures

Indie radio is a tough business these days. So tough that you might be tempted to sell out. So tough that indie station KPRI is hosting a concert tomorrow for the "City Ventures" developer building houses on toxic waste.

If you want to pay outrageous prices to raise a family on pesticide-contaminated land on Hymettus, be my guest. But why an indie radio station would support this is beyond me.

Dead body found at Cottonwood Creek

B Street (the western continuation of Encinitas Boulevard) is closed and there is crime scene tape all over Cottonwood Creek west of 101 near Moonlight Beach.

Sources tell Encinitas Undercover that a dead body was found in the bushes. Maybe a homeless person died of natural causes, but this is an awful lot of police and crime scene tape and media for natural causes. Was it a murder?




Sheriff deputies confer on the trail between the tennis courts and Moonlight Lofts.



The view from Second Street.



Watching the detectives: the cars parked facing the wrong way on the opposite side of the street appeared to be legions of plainclothes detectives. The white van on the left is the coroner van.



UPDATE: NCTimes' Morgan Cook says it was a man, and looks like natural causes.

Jesus Christ weighs in on culture of secrecy at Encinitas City Hall

John 3:19-20:

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

Hey, who am I to argue with Jesus?

Toxaphene Manor update

Jim the Realtor has a video update on the Toxaphene Manor development on Hymettus as well as Rancho Tyvek Estates on Sheridan.



Rancho Tyvek Estates start at $1.145 million for 3245 square feet. And remember you get a tiny lot because of the damned density bonus. I'm not sure yet whether the low-income housing will be on-site or dumped on Vulcan like everyone else.

Toxaphene Manor on Hymettus will start in the $900,000s, and you'll be sleeping, eating, and breathing just seven feet above toxic dirt full of carcinogenic pesticides. Will that affect buyers' enthusiasm? Check the comments at Jim's blog and see.

Mean town: Leucadia beatdown

What's wrong with the kids today?

A well-known surfboard maker suffered a broken jaw after he was viciously attacked and beaten in Encinitas on Sunday.

Mark Wisdom told 10News he was walking across the street near the corner of La Veta Avenue and Marcheta Street at about 3 a.m. Sunday.

"This was just brutal and it was violent," he said.

Wisdom said he was beaten with one blow after another with some type of board. He said the blows were so hard and so fast that there may have two attackers.

"It was so forceful that I literally went down just to protect myself in a fetal position," he said.

Wisdom also said he kept saying his name, hoping if it was a case of mistaken identity, the attackers would stop.

Then, he said he heard a voice.

"I heard a female's voice saying, 'Stop, you're going to kill him,'" he said.

Wisdom's face was fractured in several places and needs six titanium plates during reconstructive facial surgery.

Several years ago, Wisdom said he left his corporate job to follow his passion and create surfboards like his father did when he was younger.

Though he followed his passion, for Wisdom, it meant giving up a steady paycheck and health insurance.

Now, he said he cannot work because shaping boards requires wearing a mask. Wisdom believes the vicious beating is random because the attackers did not take his wallet or the money inside it. Wisdom is confident that sheriff's deputies will find who is responsible.

"We don't need someone like this in North County doing random acts of violence," he said.

Encinitas goes right-wing yahoo!

Encinitas is currently part of the 50th Congressional District, represented by moderate Republican Brian Bilbray. It's rated +3% voting edge to the Republican Party, meaning it's a competitive district. Bilbray had a serious threat from liberal Democrat Francine Busby in 2008, and a better candidate could easily have beaten Bilbray in the Obama landslide.

Welcome to your new Congressional district.



That's right, miles and miles of wealthy coastline with a giant Camp Pendleton full of Hooah! Marines in the middle. Think a Democrat stands a snowball's chance in Hell of winning this district?

Meet your new Congressman, conservative Republican Darrell Issa.



Issa scored 100% in the 2010 Club for Growth scorecard of voting on fiscal conservative issues, compared to Bilbray's 77%. He's the Chairman of the Government Oversight Committee, which he's used to investigate scandals such as the "Friends of Angelo" Countrywide Congressional bribery scandal and the current Project Gunrunner scandal where the Obama Administration deliberately allowed thousands of semiautomatic weapons to go across the border and fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

Now that our votes for Congress don't matter in an uncompetitive district, let's hope that Encinitans start paying a little more attention to the City Council race instead. It's important.

As for Bilbray? He's carpetbagging back to Clairemont, where he'll run for a new district covering Poway to downtown and Coronado. He'll have a very slight registration edge in that district, and could lose. People aren't just pissed at Obama this year. They're pissed at Congress and incumbents everywhere. Let's hope that spills over to the City Council race too.

Local boy Michael T. Pines finds fame in SF Bay Area

Check it out at Marin Family Action. Pinesy compares himself to Martin Luther King.

A Southern California attorney accused of bilking distressed homeowners is facing felony charges and could wind up getting disbarred. The attorney is advising clients in Marin County and around the state to break into their former homes after losing them to foreclosure.

“I’m going to precipitate an armed confrontation,” Michael Pines said in a cell phone video obtained by San Diego’s KGTV. “You want me to say it again? I’m going to force an armed confrontation.”

KGTV was on-hand in October when Pines helped a family break back into their foreclosed home in Escondido, the same thing 75-year-old Mill Valley resident Ursula McComas said Pines told her to do after she paid him a $5,000 retainer. The Mill Valley Police Department later hauled McComas away in handcuffs.

“It was just humiliating,” McComas said. “I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was so inhumane.”

The bruises that the handcuffs left were still visible on McComas.

Pines has been arrested numerous times himself for trespassing and confronting security guards while helping his clients break into homes. He sees nothing wrong with the advice he gives his clients.

“Martin Luther King got arrested, I don’t know how many times,” Pines said. “So did other world leaders that turned out to be right in the end.”

ABC News video report here.

Pacific View saved!

... for now. They'll be back with more lawyers and maybe more council members next time.

NCT:

The latest housing proposal for the old Pacific View Elementary School site failed to gain favor Wednesday night with a majority of the Encinitas City Council.

The next battle over the prime coastal property's future is likely to occur in a courtroom, proponents and opponents said after the council's 2-2 vote on a rezoning request, which would have allowed the housing proposal to proceed. The council needed a super majority vote to approve the request.

Looking furious moments after the council vote, Encinitas Union School District Superintendent Tim Baird shook his head and repeatedly said, "Unbelievable."

Baird, who just swindled Encinitas homeowners into taking on 30 years of debt to buy iPads for 4th graders, should take a pill. There's no Constitutional right to have your land rezoned for maximum profit.

Stocks and Bond voted for the rezoning; Houlihan and Barth voted against it. Gaspar bizarrely "recused" herself because she hadn't been on the Council for the first rezoning vote. Does she not understand what recusing is? You recuse yourself when you have a conflict of interest, not when you weren't on the Council for prior related votes. Most likely, Gaspar is just afraid to piss off the developers and school district by voting "no," and the public by voting "yes." That's not a recusal; that's a cowardly "present" vote.

Elizabeth Shany speaks!

Elizabeth Shany is speaking right now at City Hall, asking for an appointment to the Arts Committee.

It is reminiscent of Kristin Gaspar's first sighting at City Hall, after Gaspar decided she wanted to be Council Member Gaspar. Does Shany's first appearance portend a successful run for Council too?

Shany's campaign Facebook page is here, but she doesn't seem to want to talk about pensions... or any other issues, for that matter.

Pacific View rezoning tonight

Will Pacific View be turned into condos?

Tonight's council meeting will decide.

Your presence could make a difference. 6pm at City Hall.

Your tax dollars at work

Sources tell Encinitas Undercover that the Proposition P bonds, which are debt that will be paid off by increased property taxes over 30 years, have been used to buy iPads for all 4th through 6th graders, as well as giant flat screen TVs for school offices. You know what the useful life of an iPad in the hands of a 9-year-old is? I'll give you a hint: it ain't the 30 years of debt we just signed on to pay for it.

All this while EUSD schools are increasing class sizes and still failing No Child Left Behind standards. How's that for district management?

In unrelated news of Encinitas financial shenanigans, the Ecke developers are seeking yet another bailout via subdivision after ripping off members of the Encinitas Ranch HOA by getting the city council to let them out of their obligations to the failing Encinitas Ranch Golf Course. And Pacific View is up for rezoning into condos again.

Time for change at City Hall?

Monster House Suzy Brown back in court today

10 News:

A preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin Monday for a woman accused of stealing more than $1 million worth of fixtures from her repossessed Olivenhain mansion, which was dubbed the "Monster House" by neighbors.

Suzy Brown allegedly stole the fixtures from the 16,000-square-foot home she built in 2006 to use as a high-end drug rehabilitation business. Brown, a retired electrical engineer, lost the 15-bedroom, 17-bathroom home after neighbor complaints prevented the business from getting off the ground.

It's all the NIMBYs' fault!