Encinitas has second-worst financial reserves in county

We're worse than Oceanside, but not as bad as Escondido!

Union-Trib:

Reserves by Agency

This is the result of a decade of rule by the Stocks-Dalager Gang and the city unions.  If we had competent and honest leadership, Encinitas would be at the top with its peers Carlsbad, Poway, and Solana Beach, and not in the gutter with Oceanside and Escondido.

UPDATE: Stocks responds.  If you count more categories as "reserves," we have more reserves.  So if you un-dedicate a bunch of dedicated funds, you have more undedicated funds. Duh.

Please excuse the Union-Tribune for using the uniform methodology used by the bond rating agencies.

1% of Friday night 101 drivers are drunk

Patch: checkpoint stopped 345 drivers, 3 arrested for DUI:

A DUI checkpoint in Encinitas Friday night led to three suspected drunken driver arrests, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Of the 586 vehicles that drove through the checkpoint near the 1300 block of South Coast Highway 101, 345 were contacted by deputies and 13 were sent to a secondary-inspection area.

Dude, if you're going drinking at Union or the Lumberyard, take a cab or a bus or the Coaster. There's no excuse for drunk driving.

Encinitas street fair

Come on down!

New USC study refutes SANDAG growth forecast

In March, Denise Martin pointed out that the SANDAG population growth forecast being used to justify high density development in Encinitas was using outdated, faulty estimates.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is responsible for forecasting regional population growth, which Encinitas and other local governments use to decide how much new construction should be allowed in their towns. The Encinitas city planners, based on the SANDAG forecast, predicted that Encinitas’ population would increase 15.2 percent between 2010 and 2020. This number — 15.2 percent — was used as the justification in the General Plan Update to allow up-zoning that could result in the construction of 1,255 new apartments on El Camino Real, 847 on the Encinitas Blvd/Interstate 5, and another 280 apartments at the Santa Fe/I-5 Interchange.

A new report from USC shows growth slowing dramatically across California.

The study projects that the state's population, now 37.3 million, will continue to increase at a healthy clip — about 1% annually — for years to come. But at least through 2050, we are unlikely to see the boom rates of recent decades, especially the 1980s.

[...]

"Those of us who've been here for a while think of California as a place that's grow, grow, grow — and go, go, go — but this shows that we're not that anymore," Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California, said of the USC study released Tuesday. "We're now more typical of the rest of the nation."

Presumably, built-out, expensive coastal cities like Encinitas should grow even more slowly than the statewide average as there is plenty of cheap, open space to build on inland.

It's time for the people of Encinitas to tell SANDAG and the city planners where to stuff it.

Whole Foods rules

Just say "no" to factory farming.

Hall Park Toxic Waste Report

Hall Property Bury Soil - April 4, 2012 DEH Ltr

Ouch. That sounds expensive. Is that in the budget? And wouldn't you think the city would have thought of this and made the seller take care of it before they bought it?

Big Brother is Watching You

An anonymous commenter alerted me to this.

Look... up in the sky... it's a bird... it's a plane... it's... a government surveillance camera recording citizens' activity. This is at the corner of 101 and Leucadia Boulevard.



I'm guessing the city got a federal grant to install it. Just for traffic safety, you know. Nothing to be alarmed about.

And to get the sheeple used to being monitored, much as they've become accustomed to being groped by TSA goons for the privilege of air travel... or to allowing no-knock warrants and asset forfeiture without due process in the name of the "War on Drugs."  Heck, no one even noticed when Obama signed a bill allowing the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without charge.

Are you OK with this, Leucadians?

Stocks, Gaspar throw Gus Vina under the bus in Houlihan banner censorship fiasco

After discovering that Encinitas' Great Purge of late council member Maggie Houlihan's image from street banners was an un-Constitutional violation of the First Amendment, the council reversed the censorship policy but placed the blame for the debacle on City Manager Gus Vina:

Councilwoman Kristin Gaspar said that while she did not object to the photos of Houlihan, she would rather have seen the Council stand by the City Manager's decision made in December.

The notion that Gus Vina came up with this goofy censorship idea on his own with no input from the council is absurd. Gus Vina had no personal animosity toward or political rivalry with Houlihan. Stocks and Gaspar had at least the latter and likely the former. Gus Vina serves at the pleasure of the council and wouldn't unilaterally come up with a scheme like this without getting input from the council.

And here's Jerome Stocks defending the censorship in January to the North County Times:

Mayor Jerome Stocks, who was often at odds with Houlihan when she was on the council, has said he considers the Houlihan image to be "political" and thus shouldn't be allowed to be displayed on city-owned property.

If there's one bright spot to this fiasco, it's that Glenn Sabine has either stopped advising the council to blow tens of thousands of dollars on frivolous legal challenges, or the council has stopped taking his advice.

Name that Kook

Easter bunny?

Baby news

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Sabine on the wonderful news of a bun in the oven.  It was only a few months ago that Jennifer Smith announced her resignation as Finance Director of Encinitas.  Many were puzzled why Ms. Smith, who made $162,000 in 2010 and would have been guaranteed a multi-million-dollar pension at 55, and is not believed to have a finance or accounting degree, would leave such a job.

According to the registry, the due date is June 3.  Baby gifts may be purchased here.

Don't have the scratch right now to buy them a gift?  That's OK; you've given so much already.

Jerome Stocks unites Encinitas

I'm seeing more and more of these around town: "Dump Stocks."









I'm old enough to have lived in every single beach town from here to Ocean Beach, and I can't recall anyone ever knowing a mayor or council member's name, much less being motivated enough to drive around with a bumper sticker.

Jerome Stocks inspires people like no one I've seen.

I get the sense that Mark Muir is savvy enough to understand this, and that's the reason he's distanced himself from Stocks in rejecting the anointed mayor plan.  Kristin Gaspar? Not so much.

Kristin Gaspar goes nuts when her two-year appointment to mayor is shot down

Wow. Watch Gaspar's meltdown here. Fast forward to 03:42:00. Watch Gaspar's whole speech.

How dishonest that she keeps saying she supported all the issues Barth tried to put on the agenda, when Barth moved to put pension reform on the agenda and Gaspar has let it die.

While Gaspar's outburst was directed toward Barth, it was clearly a reaction to both Muir and Bond refusing to anoint her as well as the overwhelming public opposition.  Take a look at the twelve members of the public who spoke, many of them quite eloquently, beginning at 02:51:20.  Barth's comments which preceded Gaspar's outburst called the proposal "Orwellian" (I would have preferred the term "Machiavellian"), but hardly rose to level of prompting such a reaction from Gaspar.

I was drawn to look up the video by Andrew Audet's column in the Coast News.  Audet wrote:

Gaspar followed Barth and rather than address public comments, chose instead to let loose a verbal attack on Barth as being the cause for Gaspar’s negative portrayal in the media and local blogs.

Audet appears to be referring to Gaspar's statement, "I appreciate you [Barth] saying that it's not about me because every time we've discussed this issue, it becomes all about Council Member Barth, and the criticism that's come my way I believe is unfair as it relates to Council Member Barth."

While Gaspar didn't specifically mention blogs by name, I'm honored if in fact she is so consternated by "the criticism that's come my way" in the local blogs. The biggest local blog, the Leucadia Blog, hasn't said much about Gaspar, and as far as I know the little ol' Encinitas Undercover blog is the only one to comment on her earlier tirades or compare her record to her campaign promises.  Logan Jenkins of the Union-Tribune, certainly no Barth fan, has also criticised Gaspar at least twice (1, 2) for her pettiness toward Barth.

For the record, this blog does not get its narrative from Teresa Barth.  I call 'em like I see 'em, which includes being critical of Barth.
Here's local cartoonist Mary Fleener's cartoon on the subject from the Coast News:

Toxaphene Manor update

Jim the Realtor tours the Hymettus pesticide development. They've sold three in the $1 million - $1.1 million range, plus a low-income house to an investor at $200,000.