Monday, June 8, 2015

TK Arnold rebuts Blakespear; roads still deteriorating

Yes, Arnold and the Seaside Courier are allied with the opposing council faction, but consider:
To me, “excellent financial shape” means being able to pay for all the things that need doing, like fixing roads and undergrounding more train tracks — not to mention smaller projects like allocating matching funds for sand replenishment. A city with $394 million in unfunded projects doesn’t make the cut, in my view, and to proclaim otherwise is disingenuous.

[...]

Blakespear says that on June 10 the Encinitas City Council is scheduled to approve a “balanced budget,” but in truth it’s easy to balance a budget and make it appear a city is in “excellent financial shape” by underfunding roads and facility maintenance. As for the projects that made the priority list, the Beacon’s Beach bluff repair — which according to Glenn Pruim, Encinitas’ director of public works and engineering, will require placing a mixture of cement and sand at the base of the bluff — is estimated to cost $3.2 million, not $750,000, as Blakespear maintains in her commentary.

As for Blakespear’s contention that the city pays about $5 million each year in total debt service, for an “excellent” debt ratio of 7.9 percent, ask any economist and he’ll tell you the only thing this means is that Wall Street feels that repayment is secure. The problem is that Encinitas simply doesn’t have the cash flow to take on more debt, unless it wants to further defund maintenance and capital improvements. Encinitas is certainly not going bankrupt, but it is a city that is only living within its means because it is allowing things it should be doing to slide. Funding the roads and facilities at a level that allows them to continue to degrade is not sustainable over the long term, and not being able to fund the entire list of capital improvement projects denies city residents the desired amenities that they deserve.
With respect to underfunding road maintenance, the city's consultant's report last year said:
Based on the principle that it costs less to maintain roads in good condition than bad, the StreetSaver program strives to develop a maintenance strategy that will improve the overall condition of the network to an optimal PCI somewhere between the low and mid 80's. Although the average PCI of the roadway network is 75.1, which is in the “good to excellent” condition category, a significant portion of the network suffers from load-related distresses. If these issues are not addressed, the quality of the road network will inevitably decline. In order to correct these deficiencies, a cost-effective funding, maintenance, and rehabilitation strategy must be implemented.
The same report estimated costs to maintain the sub-optimal 75 average would be $3.26 million per year, which would allow the number of roads falling into the "failed" category to increase seven-fold, from 0.6% of our roads to 4.2% of our roads. The city is expected to fall short of even this funding level.

42 comments:

  1. Blakespear's credibility continues to decline at a steady rate, commensurate with every public comment she makes on the fiscal state of the city. Maybe she is just another spin doctor.

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  2. I was at one of the meetings where the road report was presented. My recollection was that they have redefined the road standards by lowering the bar for acceptability. They talked about how keeping up roads was better policy in the long-run since the roads would last longer, but instead they have decided to accept lower standards to save money.

    I don't like it.

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    1. But hand out those pay raises and stuff the pension bonanzas - there is plenty o' dough for those!

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    2. Gotta keep "staff" happy or they'll LEAVE!

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    3. Let them all leave and give us our taxpayer dollars back. That's the least they can do.

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    4. Actually, I heard that Glenn Pruim had to leave Carlsbad because he was not liked by his boss. Beyond overseeing two illegal discharges on Rossini Creek that cost us $430,000 and lowering the bar for road standards, what has he done?

      How do we end up with people who are not even average in their jobs but who were compelled to leave their former employers like Gus Vina and Pruim?

      Whoever the new CM is, I hope that he/she can do an evaluation of the cabinet and raise the standards down there.

      I know that there are some good workers at the line level, but how can anyone be their best with the leadership that we have had?

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    5. Arnold was a big supporter of Jerome Stocks and the Hall property park. I wonder if he thought we "deserved" the $80 million park and the financial black hole it created. The question in not whether we in Encinitas "deserve" any expensive capital project, but whether we need it.

      Arnold makes some good points in his commentary. However, his history shows he is a political lackey. It's too bad he never applied his points to the 12-year reign of Stocks. The city would be in a much better position today to do some much needed road repair and a needed capital project.

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    6. Arnold does not live in our town. He's a failed music writer and wanna be Musical scenester who most of his know when he wrote for the Reader and LA Times. Now he's a political hack for Alice Jacobsen.

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    7. No more info is needed about Tom Arnold if he is a friend of $tock$. You are who you hang around with. Thanks, but no thanks.

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    8. 8:17

      "Some good points in his commentary:

      11:43 and 1:31 would have us ignore those points as they are political hacks and trolls must like TK

      they would prefer we ignore the truth and facts and focus on the messenger.

      This miondset is ruining the country- it has one group following the BS of Rachel Maddow and another group following the BS of others-

      facts are facts- the hack is the peson who ignroes the facts to promote their political cronies

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    9. 1:38 Try another drink. You sound half way there. And, that's a fact.

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    10. I focus on the messenger because it's not an impartial message, so you have to consider motive. Alice Jacobson owns the Seaside Courier, she's having Arnold write her opinion as his own. He doesn't live in Encinitas, so how would he know the issues at hand? Answer: he doesn't. That's her opinion.

      If you agree with it, that's ok. For me the jury is still out on Blakespeare. You will not see any council person ever say that the financial situation is anything less than rosy. It hasn't happened in the past, and it won't happen in the future.

      I was just happy she was willing to look at the pension issue.

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    11. 9:01,

      "You will not see any council person ever say that the financial situation is anything less than rosy."

      Shaffer did last year as a prelude to pushing for a tax increase.

      "I was just happy she was willing to look at the pension issue."

      That's looking at the pension issue? She got a few glib quips from staff and blew it off.

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    12. This is why Lisa won't be coming back, she doesn't get how to play the game. I guess it's glass half full vs. half empty.

      Do I think Blakespeare will be a crusading pension reformer? No, that seems unlikely based on her campaign. Still, I have more hope that she would look at the issue than say someone like Muir who is a beneficiary of the pension system as it is.

      It's a world of incremental gains on the council. At this point I'll flat out say it, if we want a change in that arena, someone from the Encinitas Tax Payers group or similarly minded individuals need to think about running.

      If not, we'll continue to muddle by with the standard fare....

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  3. Before the election, the council voted to spend $1 million on road repairs. While the council touted this as a great achievement, the Nichols report indicated that we were already $45 million dollars behind about five years ago.

    The solution is to change the scale of measurement and to reclassify the standards to make it LOOK like our roads are in better condition than they are. It is the old grade inflation trick!

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  4. "A city with $394 million in unfunded projects doesn’t make the cut, in my view, and to proclaim otherwise is disingenuous."

    So, any city that has identified "nice to have" projects that don't make the priority list is in shabby financial shape? Think about it, then ask yourself who's really being disingenuous, TK.

    I have identified an oceanfront beach house in Hawaii, a Porsche 918 Spyder, and a G650 aircraft as "unfunded projects" in my household budget. I suppose by TK's logic, my finances must be in shambles.

    --FP.

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    1. Hawaii is in worse shape than Encinitas, you can't afford to change the oil on a Spyder and the G650 isn't much to brag about. Keep trying...meanwhile my street goes un repaired.

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    2. Encinitas' roads are in better condition than San Diego County as a whole. In fact, they are in better shape than all but two counties in the whole state.

      See Table 2.3, pages 10-11 in the link below. Look to the third yellow highlighted column. Our street conditions are a PCI score of 74.

      http://www.cacities.org/Resources-Documents/Member-Engagement/Professional-Departments/Public-Works-Officers/Documents-%281%29/Local-Streets-and-Roads/2010/California-Statewide-Local-Streets-and-Roads-Asses

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    3. 5:39 is FP.

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  5. The same TK Arnold who lives in Carlsbad and failed in his run for city council? The same TK Arnold with the poodle haircut from back in the 80's who once recorded "Louie, Louie" with Roger Hedgecock?

    Posting an article from this guy is like posting an article from Lyndon Larouche, except Larouche is probably a better writer...

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  6. I see roads being worked on almost every time I drive across town. Where are the top ten problem roads and their specific pot holes? TK? Anyone?

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    1. Maps of all the city road ratings are on the city web site I hear.

      I haven't looked for them.

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    2. Drive Vulcan between Esc blvd and Leucadia blvd. Maybe we can get a group rate on realignments. Don't be so lazy. Leave your keyboard and drive around. You can report back on the other nine. I just got you started.

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    3. Neptune needs a lot of work, and it's a major recreational street for beach access, for pedestrians, bicyclists, joggers, etc. So much construction seems to be going on, at all times, on Neptune, and there are many cracks and bumps, much road damage caused by the construction, and heavy trucks . . .

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    4. The worst is Santa Fe in front of the HS, but they are still working there. It does need some work.

      If you want to see truly bad roads, drive on Friars road in San Diego....

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    5. 9:23, there's your problem. There is no Escondido Blvd in town.
      But yes, N. Vulcan is pretty poor in places. I'll get right on it.

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  7. Say what you will about the Seaside Courier, and I would probably agree with a lot of it. But did you see the cartoon in the June 2015 edition. It's called "Encinitas Wins San Diego Taxpayers Assoc. Golden Fleece Award" and it is hilarious, in a strange sort of way. If you are a fan of paying 10 million for Pacific View then you won't be amused. I was not a fan of this so I am amused as to how right on this cartoon is. It is an Editorial Cartoon, so I have no idea who actually did it. But, in it, it shows 3 people talking about PV. It says "future site of the new living arts museum". And there is a for Sale sign that says "appraised value 3 million, Sold for 10 million". There is a little mouse in the right hand corner that says "Tony should have voted Naaaaayyy on Pacific View.' My sentiments exactly and I am not a huge fan of this newspaper. Kristin Gaspar also has a commentary in it talking about Community Character and why she voted NO when Blakespear/Kranz/Shaffer voted to move ahead. I agree with Gaspar on this one as well. Read some of it, before you trash the entire paper because Jacobson owns it, and Arnold writes for it. Evelyn Weidner also writes for it, and I love her gardens. It also talks about the TMCA and the B.S. associated with it. Even Chris Ahrens is a columnist and I don't think he is a big fan of the "right wing conspiracy".

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    1. 7:12 —

      To make and start a new paragraph when you come to the end of a sentence, hit the Return key twice.

      See?

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    2. I find it hard to believe Gaspar really cares about community character. Rather than her writings (this particular one), I would refer to her votes on council to make a judgement. She has pattern of not caring about what the community wants, and this one time, she sees a divided community and writes a commentary to take advantage.

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    3. 8:16 Her elderly husband pulls her strings.

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    4. 10:01 PM

      "8:16 Her elderly husband pulls her strings." Say what?

      Are you referring to Gaspar whose husband isn't elderly?

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    5. 7:12, of course the Seaside Courier catering to developers will highlight how wrong it was to preserve PV. So will everyone who promoted the PV purchase who still holds a grudge against council members who were against Prop A. I think they're all ready for a new Tough Shit card.

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    6. If they would have gotten PV for the $3,000,000 that the Naylor Act would have allowed, there would be no complaints on the price.

      Instead, Teresa Barth was on the phone trying to find activists to take a stance against the school district. This sage advice was supposedly from our City Attorney since he apparently didn't want to be involved.

      The other issue is that the Council majority have claimed that they "saved Pacific View," yet Teresa Barth in her interview with Scott Chatfield was very proud that she put in the agreement that the school would have the first right of refusal to get the property back in 10 years. She was boastful that she had tied up the property in what is a lease deal for the benefit of the school district but a dog for Encinitas taxpayers.

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    7. I repeat once again, there were no sealed bids! What developer in their right mind would bid on something that had no guarantee they could build homes on it. Think about it folks. PV at 3 million, good deal. PV at 10 million, plus God only knows how much more, not such a good deal. Even if we had all of the money in the world, it was still a bad deal. But, oh well, we can always use it as a homeless shelter, which would actually be OK with me. not sure how my neighbors would feel, but then again, the Council usually doesn't take neighbors into account. Just ask the people over at Desert Rose, or Quail Gardens, or numerous other areas of town.

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    8. Ahrens is in on it - I saw him at the Bilderberg meetings

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  8. Hey Catherine... my road sucks, Glen Arbor.
    Fix it. perhaps that's why city coffers are overflowing, the city doesn't spend monies to fix the roads. Again, GLEN ARBOR. Fix it! One of the WORST roads in town.

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  9. 9:38, Two down. Next?

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  10. The Arnold commentary doesn't analyze city finances. It merely assumes that because the city bought PV (which I was against) and that it has a lot of CIP projects listed that can't be funded in the next several years, the city's finances are bad. Well, the city decided to buy PV without discussing the financial trade-offs involved. So even though the city used bonds to make the purchase, it still needed to identify which projects will be impacted from the decision. It didn't. Is street maintenance being impacted by the PV purchase? I would expect that there is some impact.

    But having more CIP projects than the city can immediately fund isn't unusual. In fact, if all the CIP projects were funded people would be screaming about high taxes. Remember Prop 13?

    Most of the money used for Moonlight Beach came from a state grant originally for Beacon. But the coastal commission wouldn't agree to a common sense solution for Beacon so the city had to apply the grant to Moonlight. It's the coastal commission that is driving up the cost of Beacon. If it were up to me, even though I often use the Beacon trail to get down to the beach, I would close it over liability concerns. It's going to fail one of these days and if people get hurt they'll be suing the city. Putting up signs saying you're on your own doesn't cut it.

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    1. The Coastal Commission hadn't weighed in on the Beacon project. The grant money couldn't be used to build the seawall the city insisted on and had to be transferred to Moonlight Beach or the money would have been lost. The grant was for $1.9 million. The Moonlight Beach project was $4.8 million. The other $2.9 had to be borrowed.

      This borrowing also added $8 million for the Hall property park construction cost of $19.3 million with $7.8 million set aside funds and $7 million stripped from 15 other funds. To borrow the money the city couldn't use the Hall property as collateral because it had already been used to buy the property, nor Moonlight Beach because it's part of the state park system. Can you guess what was used as collateral?

      The Beacon trail could be stable for years. If the predicted super El Niño arrives next fall, it could collapse overnight. It all depends on the intensity of rains.

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    2. 2:42 PM

      State Parks has been following the coastal commission policy of managed retreat and city discussions with coastal commission staff revealed that they weren't going to to exempt the stairs at Beacon. Yes, it didn't get formally reviewed by the coastal commission because their staff made it clear it was a non-starter.

      Moonlight Beach was a larger project than Beacon. That's why it cost more. As you indicated, the Beacon grant was about to expire when the city got the state to agree to apply it to Moonlight. Both beaches, by the way, are owned by the state and operated by the city.

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  11. Well lo and behold the city fixed some potholes along Vulcan today. Coincidence? I suggest if you want action from the city post your road fix on this blog.

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  12. No coincidence. Told ya I'd get right on it, 2:09. Next.

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