Four candidates file for city council

Looks like it's Barth and Kranz vs. Dalager and Gaspar.

I doubt we'll have any idea who's ahead until election night. A large percentage of Encinitas won't vote, and many of those who do won't really understand the issues but may vote on a tangential acquaintance with a candidate or recommendations from friends.

Dalager and Gaspar have a lot of organized interest groups likely to support them: public employee unions, developers, Rotary Club, New Encinitas. Will Kranz and Barth's looser base of long-time residents of Cardiff and Leucadia be able to mobilize their voters?

Monster House Suzy Brown gets off on technicality

We've covered the strange case of Casa Simpatica before. Since that post, former owner Suzy Brown was arrested for stealing the uber-expensive fixtures from the house while it was in foreclosure.

Happy news for Suzy today. The lazy prosecutors didn't bother to prove the bank owned the house when she took the fixtures:

A woman accused of stealing $1 million worth of fixtures, appliances and doors from a foreclosed home in Encinitas has won a legal victory, according to the North County Times.

Suzy Brown's neighbors dubbed it the “Monster House” after the 15-bedroom villa began construction. The house fell into foreclosure in February 2009 and was vacant for about three weeks. In March 2009, it was stripped of up to $1 million in imported fixtures, police said.

Brown was facing one charge of grand theft and one charge of felony vandalism, but a judge dismissed those charges Thursday on a technicality.

A judge ruled that the prosecutor failed to prove that the bank owned the house in 2009 when a real estate broker discovered the missing fixtures, according to the paper.

"The people did not provide any representative of the bank, unfortunately," Superior Court Judge Aaron Katz said.

Brown, who built the house in 2004, had planned to turn it into a "recovery house" for patients looking to escape the clutches of drugs and alcohol, but the city killed the plan after neighbors complained about the $13 million villa.

If you're interested, Casa Simpatica is still for sale at $2.5 million, a fraction of what the bank spent to build it, and a real comp-killer at $153/sqft.

Nancy Lee Ellis pleads not guilty

And the love triangle theory gains more credence.

The cars' owner says the suspect is an acquaintence and can't understand what provoked the attack.

Neighbors say it sounded like an explosion.

"You have to be a nut to do something like that," neighbor [Neighbor? Pretty sure she's the victim] Marianne La Piedra told San Diego 6. "I mean, we were all asleep."

One man woke up and saw the fire start. He chased down the suspect and tackled her.

People who know her suspect she was jealous of the victim's relationship with her boyfriend.

CalTrans I-5 expansion meeting

KUSI is here, and there are lots of cars and people showing up.

Come on by. It goes until 8pm. It's an expo format with booths, so you can stop by for 15 minutes or whatever you can spare.



I kinda felt sorry for the CalTrans consultants sent here to take the bullets from the angry mob. They were polite and knowledgeable, and getting an earful.



This is what the Manchester exit might look like.

They had detailed diagrams of each section of freeway through Encinitas, showing how far the widened freeway would go, and where sound barriers would go up. The worst part of the organization was that they had one tiny table on sound barriers, and that was where everybody wanted to go to find out what would happen in their neighborhoods.

The project is supposed to happen in five or ten years, depending on funding, public resistance, environmental issues, etc. Though I wouldn't count on funding being a problem as this is a federal project and Zimbabwe Ben can just print off as many billions as they need.

It was interesting to hear people propose ideas on issues like sound mitigation. The answer from the consultants was "Nope. We have to do it this way because the feds set the standards, and we can't do any more because the feds provide all the funding." I have a feeling a few local supporters of big federal government may be rethinking their philosophy.

Some of the city leaders were there. I saw Houlihan and Barth and Tony Kranz. No sightings of the union/developer wing of the council, but I may have missed them, and I left early so they may have come later. Kranz and Barth were hanging out together, reinforcing the common belief that they'd be allies on the council. I didn't see presumed Stocks ally Kristin Gaspar either.



The Resistance lives on!

Regal Road arson

Just months after the deadly blaze behind Carl's Jr. on Regal Road, another late night fire hit the same street last night.

This time, police have made an arrest.

Hot smoke charred the attic of the home and a Mercedes-Benz parked in the driveway was slightly damaged, Sturtevant said.

Investigators said the Mercedes appears to belong to a woman, believed to be in her late 50s to 60s, who was detained for questioning. Neighbors told investigators they saw her place some type of accelerant on the hood of the BMW seconds before the fire began, Sturtevant said

No injuries were reported and no other homes were scorched. A damage estimate is still being determined.

The name of the woman in custody has not been released. A motive for the arson has not been disclosed.

Sounds like a catfight! Mercedes lady vs. Beemer woman.

Note to future arsonists: it's probably not a good idea to park the getaway car so close to the fire.

UPDATE: The suspect is 64-year-old Nancy Lee Ellis, of Caminito Ocean Cove in Cardiff. The victim was Marianne LaPiedra. Speculation on the motive is running wild in the comments at the U-T, going from a love triangle to friends committing insurance fraud. We'll be sure to keep you up to date as details develop.

UPDATE 2: Ellis was reportedly intoxicated, which would give more weight to the love triangle motive and less to the insurance fraud motive. And a hero dog saves people from the fire.

I-5 expansion meeting Tuesday night

Tuesday, 5pm - 8pm at the Encinitas Community and Senior Center, 1140 Oakcrest Park Drive, Room 142.

Public Works Department pats itself on the back; SDWD consumers still getting screwed

The Public Works Department of Encinitas is congratulating itself for complying with hundreds of pages of bureaucratese recommended by the American Public Works Association, an umbrella bureacracy of local bureaucracies.

Meanwhile, captive residents of the San Dieguito Water District still pay far higher rates than those in the Olivenhain Water District for bad water and bloated employee pensions.