Encinitas has second-worst financial reserves in county

We're worse than Oceanside, but not as bad as Escondido!

Union-Trib:

Reserves by Agency

This is the result of a decade of rule by the Stocks-Dalager Gang and the city unions.  If we had competent and honest leadership, Encinitas would be at the top with its peers Carlsbad, Poway, and Solana Beach, and not in the gutter with Oceanside and Escondido.

UPDATE: Stocks responds.  If you count more categories as "reserves," we have more reserves.  So if you un-dedicate a bunch of dedicated funds, you have more undedicated funds. Duh.

Please excuse the Union-Tribune for using the uniform methodology used by the bond rating agencies.

1% of Friday night 101 drivers are drunk

Patch: checkpoint stopped 345 drivers, 3 arrested for DUI:

A DUI checkpoint in Encinitas Friday night led to three suspected drunken driver arrests, according to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Of the 586 vehicles that drove through the checkpoint near the 1300 block of South Coast Highway 101, 345 were contacted by deputies and 13 were sent to a secondary-inspection area.

Dude, if you're going drinking at Union or the Lumberyard, take a cab or a bus or the Coaster. There's no excuse for drunk driving.

Encinitas street fair

Come on down!

New USC study refutes SANDAG growth forecast

In March, Denise Martin pointed out that the SANDAG population growth forecast being used to justify high density development in Encinitas was using outdated, faulty estimates.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is responsible for forecasting regional population growth, which Encinitas and other local governments use to decide how much new construction should be allowed in their towns. The Encinitas city planners, based on the SANDAG forecast, predicted that Encinitas’ population would increase 15.2 percent between 2010 and 2020. This number — 15.2 percent — was used as the justification in the General Plan Update to allow up-zoning that could result in the construction of 1,255 new apartments on El Camino Real, 847 on the Encinitas Blvd/Interstate 5, and another 280 apartments at the Santa Fe/I-5 Interchange.

A new report from USC shows growth slowing dramatically across California.

The study projects that the state's population, now 37.3 million, will continue to increase at a healthy clip — about 1% annually — for years to come. But at least through 2050, we are unlikely to see the boom rates of recent decades, especially the 1980s.

[...]

"Those of us who've been here for a while think of California as a place that's grow, grow, grow — and go, go, go — but this shows that we're not that anymore," Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California, said of the USC study released Tuesday. "We're now more typical of the rest of the nation."

Presumably, built-out, expensive coastal cities like Encinitas should grow even more slowly than the statewide average as there is plenty of cheap, open space to build on inland.

It's time for the people of Encinitas to tell SANDAG and the city planners where to stuff it.

Whole Foods rules

Just say "no" to factory farming.

Hall Park Toxic Waste Report

Hall Property Bury Soil - April 4, 2012 DEH Ltr

Ouch. That sounds expensive. Is that in the budget? And wouldn't you think the city would have thought of this and made the seller take care of it before they bought it?

Big Brother is Watching You

An anonymous commenter alerted me to this.

Look... up in the sky... it's a bird... it's a plane... it's... a government surveillance camera recording citizens' activity. This is at the corner of 101 and Leucadia Boulevard.



I'm guessing the city got a federal grant to install it. Just for traffic safety, you know. Nothing to be alarmed about.

And to get the sheeple used to being monitored, much as they've become accustomed to being groped by TSA goons for the privilege of air travel... or to allowing no-knock warrants and asset forfeiture without due process in the name of the "War on Drugs."  Heck, no one even noticed when Obama signed a bill allowing the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without charge.

Are you OK with this, Leucadians?