An artist among us

Encinitas Votes:

10/28/20 City Council meeting open thread

 Please use the comments to record your observations.

Marco Gonzalez's fair-weather friendship makes for hilarious political ad

Marco Gonzalez, who heckles Julie Thunder for having formerly been a Republican and now being an independent, has some shifting allegiances of his own.

Republican registration drops 6 percent in Encinitas

From the Secretary of State’s web site:

	Democratic	Republican	Minor Parties	No Party Preference
September 2020	43.11%	25.95%	5.83%	25.10%
March 2016	36.46%	31.96%	5.64%	25.95%

San Diego County data here.

Is the Strong Towns grid really an appropriate model for a Leucadia 101 lane reduction?

The city council incumbents seem to be relying on this “stroad” concept to justify the removal of traffic lanes from Leucadia 101.

Strong Towns:

But when a road diet—removing lanes and shrinking the stroad to the more appropriate dimensions and design of an urban street—is proposed, the same objection universally arises from concerned citizens:

“What will happen to all the traffic?”

In fact, the answer reveals a fundamental paradox of traffic flow: removing the highest-capacity leg in a network may actually make the network as a whole function better, with less congestion and smoother travel.

 

Are Neptune and Vulcan really equipped to handle all the traffic from a constricted 101?

Turney responds to Michael Verdu hit piece

Facebook:

Lies are what you resort to when you can't or won't discuss the issues. It's where you go when you're on the wrong side of too many issues.

I want to set the record straight on these lies:

' (click to enlarge)

UPDATE: Two of the four dubious allegations were made by Verdu, the others by someone else.

Tasha vs. Prop 13

 From the Inbox:

Regular voters, unaffiliated to any campaign or party, we have been researching Proposition 19 to understand its impacts to us and other families. We realized that:

• Prop 19 has multiple unrelated parts, most of which are not mentioned in ballot summary and ballot that are incomplete and misleading as to key provisions of the underlying legislation (ACA 11);

• Is backed by $41M misinformation campaign financed by special interest groups.

In our research, we discovered Tasha Boerner Horvath (along with many CA Democrats) are guilty of the same unacceptable anti-democratic conduct we’re seeing nationally.

More at the link.

Facebook gazillionaires Michael and Paula Verdu’s PAC attacks council challengers

In a recurring theme of the council incumbents being unable to defend their records and instead smearing challengers, Blakespear buddy and Facebook gazillionaire Michael Verdu is sending out hit pieces against Julie Thunder:

A 2018 Coast News article identified Michael and Paula Verdu as being the dark money behind "North County Action Network."

Well, if it’s not enough to have tens of thousands of dollars of developer money on your side, why not bring in some serious Silicon Valley big money!

UPDATE: Blowback!

10/14/20 City Council meeting open thread

 Please use the comments to record your observations.

Maggie Houlihan's husband writes book on Encinitas politics

A lot of good history here.

Dirty tricks are nothing new in Encinitas!

https://www.ianthompsonbooks.com/

Thompson will be a guest on an Encinitas Viewpoint Zoom meeting this Thursday.

Prop 19 would roll back Prop 13 protections for inherited properties

From the Inbox from an Olivenhain homeowner:

Prop 19, with 18.5 M of realtor funding, has no paid opposition and voters don't know the facts.  Marketed as benefitting seniors and wildfire fighting and only taxing the rich, Proposition 19 will increase property taxes for every home/property-owning family in California.  It will eliminate protections granted by prior constitutional amendments (Propositions 13, 58 and 193) that allowed the transfer of a limited amount and value of property between parents/grandparents and children/grandchildren.  It will push average Californians out of their homes and family properties. 

Proposition 19:

·         Will require reassessment at the date of death of all California real estate transferred to or from parents/grandparents;

·         Parent/child exclusion requirements are so restrictive that few families will qualify, even when children/grandchildren live in family homes or intend to;

·         Amount of tax increase is unknown until a retroactive reassessment bill comes from the assessor!

·         Firefighting funds have few standards, little oversight and no end date, a recipe for government waste and misspending.

Dark money pro-Blakespear Facebook site making friends and influencing people

Encinitas Votes has long been the primary Facebook site related to Encinitas politics. Launched by longtime resident Dr. Lorri Greene and moderated by Greene and other volunteers, it’s a spirited board where all sides can be heard.

This election cycle, a new Facebook site called Encinitas Now has popped up. It’s unclear who is behind the site, but it appears to be paying Facebook to buy prominent placement. And it’s not a spirited board where all sides can be heard. The site is decidedly in support of Mayor Blakespear and her merry band of incumbents, and people with opposing views claim to be regularly censored for violating dubious rules.

Today:

In news we’re sure is totally unrelated, developer attorney Marco Gonzalez recently started a PAC to collect developer money to support the council incumbents.