Saturday open thread

 Happy New Year!

Former mayoral candidate Jeff Morris reportedly arrested for domestic violence

LocalCrimeNews:

We're not familiar with "LocalCrimeNews," but it appears to be a legitimate aggregator of public arrest records.

HT: Anonymous commenter.

UPDATE: Coast News:

Jeff Charles Morris, who finished third with 6,969 votes in November’s mayoral race, was detained at approximately 6:45 p.m. on Dec. 25 at his residence in the 600 block of Poinsettia Park in Encinitas, according to Sheriff’s Department Lt. Chris Lawrence.

Morris potentially faces several felony charges, including inflicting corporal injury on a spouse/cohabitant and two charges related to unlawful restraint of an individual using violence. Lawrence confirmed that Morris was booked into county jail on Christmas and released the following day on a $50,000 bond.

Wednesday open thread

No city council meeting today.

Happy holidays!

Over residents' objections, council votes to appoint itself a supermajority

As predicted.

From an observer of Wednesday's council proceedings:

Speaker after speaker urged the council to turn over a new leaf and do the democratic thing by holding an election. The council predictably voted to appoint, with Bruce Ehlers opposing. A few highlights:

Joy cited the burden of paperwork put on those who might want to run, thinking that folks would not apply because the process was too onerous. Even though she had gone through the process herself and was elected, she was deciding for others that this same option was not available to them.

Kellie said that anyone could apply. Bruce was ready for that nonsense using himself as an example. He explained how although he won D4 by a large margin, a council that had just fired him from the Planning Commission would never have considered his application had Joe stepped down early and left his D4 seat suddenly vacant. Kranz didn't like that scenario and tried to argue that Bruce's math was wrong. Kranz stopped trying when the audience got frisky with him. Kellie was vehement in expressing her wish for a unanimous vote to appoint the fifth person - trained well by Blakespear! If it was supposed to be a stern warning to Bruce, news flash, Kellie: it ain't gonna work.

Kranz predictably cited election cost as a factor even though multiple speakers said that the estimated $250K-$400K would be a drop in the bucket to ensure democracy, and especially when compared with the costly trophy and "improvement" projects this council throws its money around on.

Believe the appointment application deadline is January 11, something like that, with the meeting to appoint held on either January 18 or 25.

Hope that gives you a flavor of same old, same old. In general, the remaining three have nowhere the punch or command that Blakespear demanded. Kranz is attempting to seem reasonable, Joy has replaced Joe for Deputy Rambler, and Kellie is trying to channel Blakespear's control of the council much like a 5 year old tries to walk in her mom's shoes. Not working for her.

Kranz sees Barth as role model for mayor

Union-Tribune:

Kranz, a 63-year-old printing company employee, will replace Catherine Blakespear, who has just won election to the state Senate.

He said last week that he doesn’t expect to make drastic changes to the city’s course once he assumes the top spot, but he does hope to “dial back some of the tensions” regarding issues that come before the council, particularly housing conflicts. He considers former mayor Teresa Barth as a role model, he said, adding that he liked her approach of hosting special meetings and engaging in strategic planning sessions to solve city problems.

We don't recall any significant city accomplishments during the Barth era. The first things that come to mind are Barth's bickering with Jerome Stocks which culminated in a frivolous harassment complaint, and numerous fiascos involving Barth favorite City Manager Gus Vina.

What do you remember of the Barth era?

UPDATE: Oh and lest we forget Barth dishonestly opposing Prop A's right to vote!

Lookin for love in all the wrong places

Having failed to get affection from Catherine Blakespear or the Democratic Party, former mayoral candidate Jeff Morris now turns to controversial rumored council appointee Mali Woods-Drake:

Council threatens to appoint itself a supermajority

Coast News:

My perspective is that I hope that we can appoint somebody,” said Hinze. “It’s cheaper and happens quicker, so let’s find a consensus candidate, somebody we can all agree would be right for the seat.”

During a Stay Classy San Diego podcast interview before the election, Kranz said he favored appointing a replacement to the vacant District 1 seat.

[...]

In contrast to the other three council members, Ehlers said that he would likely not favor an appointment, maintaining that a special election better reflects the will of city residents.

“I want the people to select the incumbent, not the council to select the incumbent,” Ehlers said. “I’m in firm opposition to appointing incumbents. This council has three (appointments) up there already, and we see the problems that this causes with what I call the ‘unanimously wrong’ council.

“The appointment gives an undeserved advantage in the next election cycle with the power of incumbency. Name recognition and notoriety is big, and I don’t think it’s fair to anoint one person who is aligned with the majority on the council over another person who is aligned with the majority of people. And the result of this happening repeatedly is what we have now — you get people all from one side in a supermajority, and they’re out of sync with the people.”