Jerome Stocks is to the left of Jerry Brown on government union pensions

WSJ:

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday unveiled what would be one of the nation's widest-reaching pension overhauls, a proposal that would raise the retirement age and shift more investing responsibilities to public workers.

The 12-point plan includes meshing a 401(k)-style component into newly hired workers' retirement plans, raising the age at which some future employees retire to 67 from 55 now and boosting pension contributions for current workers. Labor groups immediately expressed disapproval.

Encinitas labor groups don't have anything to worry about. Their bought-and-paid-for councilman Jerome Stocks, who voted to spike city pensions by 35% in 2005, is still stonewalling Teresa Barth's attempts to get pension reform on the Encinitas council agenda. And now it looks like he's about to appoint his longtime crony and union dream candidate Mark Muir to give the unions an even bigger council majority.

Council candidate song and dance show tonight

The appointment candidates present their cases tonight.

Rumor is the council majority wants to appoint a huge Jerome Stocks crony.

A large public turnout this evening, and at next week's appointment vote, might be enough to dissuade some council members from going along with that.

Rubenstein neighbors get traffic calming circles as consolation for stadium lights going in their back yard

That's going to look a lot nicer than those hideous and annoying-at-any-speed plastic bumps on Devonshire.



Summit has also been torn up for several weeks now, likely for similar calming circles.

Red-shouldered hawks of Encinitas

This fellow seen in coastal Encinitas is likely a red-shouldered hawk according to birdwatchers working from a grainy photo.

Your Encinitas Council appointment candidates are...

From Jonathan Horn:

Lisa Shaffer - Maggie Houlihan's dying request and a UCSD professor
Tony Brandenberg - old-time eccentric Olivenhain character known as "the Judge"
Alan Lerchbaker - Cardiff resident and Navy veteran
David Drielsma, Robert Campbell, Joel King - Senior Commission members
Robert Schneider - senior citizen from New Encinitas
Kent Mesplay - senior citizen from Leucadia

I'm guessing the Council majority won't honor Maggie's wish by appointing Shaffer, who would oppose them on most issues.

And "the Judge" could be too much of a wild card and upset business as usual.

So I think the Council majority will pick one of the senior citizens. I hope whoever that senior citizen is won't be persuaded to join a 4-1 super-majority for upzoning.

UPDATE: Late entrants! And yep, there's Muir as well as Alice Jacobson.

EUSD under fire

The Encinitas Union School District is coming under increasing scrutiny for financial mismanagement.

In today's Patch, we learn that the the EUSD is running a $5 million deficit before taking into account the likely December cuts from the state. It is utterly irresponsible to run a huge deficit even under the unrealistically optimistic June budget scenario and then risk making drastic cuts mid-school-year.

Fiscal irresponsibility is a recurring theme at EUSD. Recall that this is the same district that swindled Encinitas voters into taking on 30 years of debt so they could buy iPads for 4th-graders.

But EUSD management is willing to do more than mortgage our future for a little technology bling. They also want to strip the community forever of an irreplaceable prime asset in order to fund current bloated operating budgets. The Leucadia Blog explains the history of the Pacific View site that EUSD wants to sell to the highest-builder.

Most of the property was gifted to our community in 1883 by one of the early town founders, J. Pitcher. Over the last 128 years the remainder of the property has been meticulously deeded down through several generations until it was finally deeded to EUSD in 1964. It was a gift. There was lots of land available in Encinitas in 1883. These town founders were very particular about this special site on top of the bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. They wanted it for the community and its children.

Finally, anonymous commenters at Encinitas Undercover have lots of info (unverified, but believable) on this post, including free preschools for revenue, a sweetheart deal for a Vista farmer, and Tim Baird's background in Ojai.

If you have any information you'd like to share, please e-mail encinitasundercover@gmail.com. Confidentiality is assured.

Occupy Encinitas comes to town

Occupy Wall Street is moving to a new phase as The Man attempts to evict the Occupiers tomorrow.

Meanwhile, in little old Encinitas, some West Coast Occupiers will be gathering in sympathy:

The Occupy Wall Street movement against corporate greed is coming to North County, starting Saturday in with an event in downtown Encinitas.

It's set to start at 1 p.m. at the intersection of Encinitas Boulevard and Coast Highway 101. Anyone is welcome and organizers encourage people to show up with signs and American flags.

"We're planning to march into downtown and we're planned to stay on the sidewalks," said publicist Dave Peiser, a longtime Encinitas resident who runs a computer tech company and an online environmentally friendly products website. "We don't want to get in the way of anyone."

Unlike the Occupy event in New York City, where participants have camped out for weeks to protest corporate greed and the concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of a few, the Encinitas event will end after the march through downtown.

"There's no encampment planned," Peiser said. "The hope is just to bring the message to North County."

What more could you ask in laid-back Encinitas?

I have a feeling the organizers are the same people who are out on 101 at Encinitas Boulevard on lots of weekend afternoons waving signs for various lefty causes. But they're likely to get a much bigger turnout Saturday with the media publicity from the national #Occupy movement.

For locals who want to go Full Occupy, you can still join Occupy San Diego, where they're camped out at the Civic Center, tents and all. Don't eat the brown acid.

UPDATE: There goes Occupy San Diego.