The history of Encinitas' mayoral rotation

I'm more interested in whether three council members will stand up for pension reform than who gets to be mayor. But it's a bad sign that Kristen Gaspar and Jim Bond are allying themselves with anti-reform Jerome Stocks.

2010 12 14 Mayoral Rotation

Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Animation Festival at La Paloma

Now through Thursday.

Support your local historic theater and Spike and Mike, a couple of local UCSD boys made good.

And see some really funny and creative stuff.

Do the math

The Encinitas city council lends to deadbeat developers at 4.5%:

The council approved 5-0 to authorize an agreement with Pacific Coast Properties to clean up the [Quail Gardens crack den] property and appropriate $35,000 from the city's general fund to cover the costs and file a lien on the property for that amount plus 4.5 percent interest.

... and gives city workers a guaranteed 7.75% annual return forever on their pensions.

If a bank charged borrowers only 4.5% interest and paid out 7.75% on investments or deposits, that bank wouldn't be in business very long. Why can't our city council do basic math?

Free the Yurt march today!

No yurts, no peace!

March on City Hall starting at 5pm at Yoga Swami's, 912 S. Coast Highway 101.

Leucadia's Scott Bottolfson busted for $6 million Ponzi scheme

We've got our own Bernie Madoff Jr.!

Leucadia's Scott Bottolfson pleaded guilty to felony wire fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison:

According to a criminal complaint filed Nov. 30, 2010 with the U.S. District Court, Southern District of California in San Diego, Scott Bottolfson through at least two entities he owned and operated – Increase Investments, Inc. and Spirit Investments -- solicited more than $15 million from investors, many from neighbors in the Town of Newbold [Wisconsin] where he had lived for awhile, in exchange for fixed high-rate promissory notes, in at least one case of 20%.

The alleged fraud occurred from approximately September 2001 initially in the Newbold area and from 2005 through July 2010 from Bottolfson's base in Encinitas, California, prosecutors said.

The complaint said that as part of the scheme Bottolfson solicited investors via interstate e-mail and telephone calls and falsely claimed to investors that he could guarantee "high rates of return" for their investments that included commodities futures trading. The complaint said Increase was not registered with the National Futures Association (NFA).

The complaint read here said Bottolfson did not invest all investor funds as represented, but used “as much as 50% of investor funds for personal expenditures.” The “Ponzi” scheme involved giving new investor funds to previous investors and falsely representing those funds as investment returns, the complaint stated. “Defendant returned several million dollars to investors through the Ponzi scheme activity but still caused losses of approximately $6 million,” it added.

One victim, mentioned in the complaint by the initials only as “R.W.”, gave Bottolfson $1.3 million in December 2008 to invest in return for a promised guaranteed rate of return of 20%, but the money was used instead to pay previous investors, according to the complaint.

Details of the case are in this National Futures Association document and this criminal case.

Bottolfson bought the house at 1262 Urania in 2005 for $1.55 million.

HT: Encinitas Patch. Damn they're good.

Lifestyles of the rich and pensioned

HT: T-Dub

Encinitas Christmas Parade

Tree lighting at 5:00, parade at 5:30.

See you there!