More word games from Shaffer

We have noted before Council Member Lisa Shaffer's odd uses of language to detach herself from responsibility for her actions. First, Shaffer told the Union-Tribune that she was "sad at the divisive tone and misleading messaging" around Proposition A without mentioning that she was on the subcommittee that wrote the untruthful ballot arguments that the council gave to voters.

Then, Shaffer falsely stated,

Meanwhile, a judge ruled in favor of Olivenhain neighbors who sued the developer, asserting that a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR) should have been required before deciding whether to approve a density bonus project referred to as Desert Rose.

The lawsuit and ruling were not against the developer, but against the City of Encinitas, which, under Shaffer's responsibility of oversight, ignored environmental concerns and violated the law. One would expect a council member of a party in a lawsuit to be somewhat cognizant of the lawsuit. Maybe she was distracted by a plastic bag.

And it continues.

From Shaffer's latest newsletter:

A few speakers were eloquent but perhaps need their poetic licenses checked. I don't mind if people disagree with me or criticize me for something I actually did. I do object to someone criticizing me for things I did NOT do. I don't want to go into a long discussion of my request for information on a sales (or transactions and use) tax, but I want to be clear that I did not propose a sales tax. I asked for information so we could understand how a sales tax works and how much money it might provide to the City. I'm not afraid to admit what is obvious, that I don't know all there is to know about how cities operate and so I have to ask questions. Unfortunately, more than once, people have interpreted asking a question as taking a position or giving direction. Sometimes a question is just a question. In this case, the Council does not even have the authority to impose taxes - that requires a vote of the people. At the latest Council meeting, several times it was repeated that I had proposed a sales tax and it's not true. I was proposing that we consider all the available tools to increase revenues as part of our budget discussions. So just because you hear something from a speaker, that doesn't mean it is accurate.

While Shaffer's statement is narrowly, technically true (she did not literally say, "I propose a sales tax"), it is substantively quite the opposite. Shaffer, Barth, and Kranz aggressively advocated the hiring of Lew Edwards to run a propaganda campaign and push-poll advocating a sales tax increase. They were not just "asking questions" or seeking honest information about community opinion on taxes. Here's how Lew Edwards market themselves, not as unbiased measurers of community needs, but as consistently successful pushers of ballot initiatives on debt increases and tax increases.



The only thing that stopped Barth-Shaffer-Kranz from paying Lew Edwards a huge consulting fee for push-poll propaganda advocating a sales tax increase was the fact that Mark Muir and Kristin Gaspar refused to provide them the required fourth vote to put a tax increase on the ballot, regardless of the outcome of Lew Edwards' biased poll. Go back and watch the council video. You can practically see the steam coming out of Barth's ears.

So either Lisa Shaffer is so naive and gullible that she actually believed that Gus Vina brought in Lew Edwards just to get an honest, unbiased opinion about how the community felt about sales taxes, or she's being dishonest. Which is it? You make the call.