Destiny Preston threatens public safety if Kranz’s sales tax increase doesn’t pass

Coast News letters:

Destiny Preston, District 2 candidate, recently warned residents that if the 1% sales tax increase (Measure K) fails to pass, there will be “trade-offs” that involve “investing less in public safety.”

The comments were posted on Preston’s and District 1 candidate Allison Blackwell’s BikeWalkEncinitas website in response to a questionnaire but have since been removed. This was done, in all likelihood, under pressure from a public that reacted negatively to such coercive language.

For the record, Kranz has wasted tens of millions of dollars on non-essential services. For example Pacific View which Kranz purchased and then left abandoned for nearly a decade before pouring even more money into it to make it safe enough to even occupy. On top of that, the huge expansion of city staff in a time of near-zero population growth, including the creation of a new and unnecessary permanent city department of homelessness. Homeless and other human services have historically been the domain of the county. Then there's the unsafe and unwanted separated bike lanes that require a city sand Zamboni staff.

The Leichtag - Jewish Federation connection

Several commenters have made an issue of Tony Kranz having accepted a free $5000 trip to Israel from the Jewish Federation of San Diego, then having voted to allow the Leichtag Foundation to use its agriculturally-zoned land for non-agricultural general office use. The rule change likely saved Leichtag tens of thousands of dollars per year in commercial office space rental.

Without some connection between Leichtag and the Jewish Federation, this would be a non-story. One Jewish non-profit doesn't necessarily have anything to do with another.

However, it appears that Leichtag and the JF are quite interconnected. The Jewish Federation operates out of the offices of the Jewish Community Foundation San Diego at 4950 Murphy Canyon Road.  Essentially, the JF is the networking umbrella organization, while the JCF is the charitable fund.

The Leichtag Foundation is one of the primary funds listed as a part of the JCF.



The JCF has two staff members listed as working with Leichtag, one of whom is an executive there.





Obviously, laws regarding the improper financial influence of public officials are meaningless if gifts can be given to politicians from nominally separate, but clearly related, organizations, before a politician votes to give substantial financial benefits to a group.

We'd say Kranz should have disclosed and recused at the time of the Leichtag vote.

Kranz and Shaffer plan to renege on unanimous deal to appoint Gaspar mayor

In a stunning display of bad faith, crass political calculation, and petty vindictiveness, Council Members Tony Kranz and Lisa Shaffer have initiated agenda items to strip Kristin Gaspar of her unanimously-agreed six-month turn as mayor that was to begin June 11.

12A. Council initiated item from Council Member Shaffer to reconsider Mayor and Deputy Mayor transition scheduled to take effect June 11, 2014.

2014-05-28 Item 12A - Council Member Shaffer Initiated Item

12B. Council initiated item from Council Member Kranz for reconsideration of the pending transition of Mayor and Deputy Mayor duties.

2014-05-28 Item 12B - Council Member Kranz Initiated Item

The mayor-sharing was agreed last December and heralded as an example of the council's new civility. Apparently civility (and fair play) ends as soon as your colleagues have a policy disagreement over the purchase price of Pacific View.

At the time of the deal, council members expressed concern that incumbency would be an advantage (we think this concern is way overblown; just ask Mayor Stocks and Mayor Dalager). All council members were given a chance to say whether they wanted to run for mayor. Only Teresa Barth and Kristin Gaspar expressed any interest, so the council cordially agreed to allow each of them to serve for half the year.

Now that Kranz has decided he's running for mayor, he wants to change the rules.

Anyone involved in future dealings with Kranz or Shaffer would be wise to remember exactly how far you can trust them. For that matter, so would the voters.

This naked power grab bears a striking resemblance to the tone-deaf and bull-headed move by Mayor Jerome Stocks to appoint one of his allies to fill the council seat of the late Maggie Houlihan, when the magnanimous thing to do would have been to appoint Houlihan's (and the overwhelming majority of the public's) chosen successor.  That move was a catalyzing moment that marked the beginning of the end of Stocks' political career.

There's also plenty of irony in the fact that the defining issue of Teresa Barth's first several years on the council was that she was repeatedly passed over for a turn as mayor by a council majority her supporters viewed as bullies.  Now Barth's majority allies want to do the same thing to Kristin Gaspar.

A few thoughts on the council candidates so far

The Leucadia Blog has the list of candidates who have taken out (but not yet filed) papers to run for City Council.

Bryan Ziegler
Kevin Forrester
Mark Muir
Tony Kranz
Lisa Shaffer
Barbara Yost
Shoja Naimi

Here are a few initial thoughts, which I reserve the right to amend and retract.

Jerome Stocks will file unless he gets a good-ol-boy seat with good pay on a do-nothing government board.

The more yahoos who enter, the less likely the incumbents get tossed. Every unknown name added to the ballot splits the Dump Stocks vote and makes Stocks / Muir more likely to be re-elected.

Bryan Ziegler ran for Supervisor and lost badly, taking a distant 4th place, apparently with little or no campaign organization. Encinitas City Council looks like his consolation prize. He calls himself a "Tea Party Republican," but he doesn't seem to think pensions are a problem:

The employees pay for their pension just like other people pay for their 401K [WRONG - employees sometimes pay a modest amount into pensions which is almost never anywhere close to enough to cover the benefits they are guaranteed].

[...]

The County's pension is 100 percent paid for and is a model for the rest of the country. [WRONG - it's only 52.2% funded].

It would be a huge mistake to elect someone so dangerously uninformed on pensions when Encinitas' own pensions are so severely underfunded, but let's not stop there. What kind of person keeps running for elective office with little or no campaign and little or no public support? Has Ziegler ever been involved in any Encinitas civic issues? He strikes me as someone who wants to BE a Council Member for the title but doesn't have any idea or interest in DOing anything for the people of Encinitas. Read his Patch interview and see if you disagree.

Kevin Forrester is an attorney for real estate developers. He has a very good Constitutional / property rights link list, including SCOTUSblog, Volokh, and the Castle Coalition. He is an ally of Stocks-Muir-Gaspar.

Mark Muir is, well, Mark Muir. The guy who rose to the top of a demanding physical profession while morbidly obese by buttering up the right power brokers. And now a set-for-life-at-55 pension beneficiary who will receive millions of dollars from Encinitas taxpayers over his retirement.

Tony Kranz is back after losing last time to Gaspar's huge outside money campaign and that little confrontation with the Obama=Hitler guy. Kranz has a web site up and is actively involved in civic life, frequently speaking at City Council and seen at most local events. He is an ally of Teresa Barth and in opposition to Stocks-Muir-Gaspar.

Lisa Shaffer seems the most serious of the challenger candidates, with the most content on her web site and an active calendar of events. She has been active in writing commentaries in the Coast News and on Patch and speaking on good government issues at City Hall. She is a UCSD professor. She is allied with Barth and Kranz.

Barbara Yost lives in Olivenhain Village Park [but she could throw a rock to Olivenhain], doesn't have a web site up, and hasn't been active in Encinitas affairs that I know of.

Shoja Naimi is the owner of Roxy, and is involved in 101 DEMA. I do not know whether he would be allied with Stocks-Muir-Gaspar or Barth-Kranz-Shaffer.

Please correct me where I am wrong.