Tuesday is Dues-day: Changing Nation & World

Today is Dues-day, but what are the dues?

Paying attention . . . Yes, by simply schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported you can legitimately call yourself a citizen, an advocate for democracy.

For most people local politics only becomes a reality when you are afraid for your home, your property or your neighborhood. Fears can be physical, financial and cultural.  Fears can be great motivators, as so many activists' stories of initial involvement attest.

Citizen Tip = "All movements are born out of grievance."

This week the connection between our local reality, local grievance is linked to the worldwide, nationwide changes in full view of the world through live stream.  The corporate press in this country is still mostly absent in this global  story unfolding.  But, the vastness of millions protesting around the world is happening even if the US public is largely unaware of what is going on in this country and abroad. 

From the video clip description:

"The Occupy movement has united hundreds of thousands across the world to fight social and economic inequality. In the latest edition of Assange's very own interview programme Julian Assange meets with prominent Occupy activists who say their collective efforts target global institutions."

Julian Assange Show - official video page: http://assange.rt.com

For the time pressed, the final 10 minutes capture the local realities and relationship to the global whole, but the whole video is an education in politics undergoing dramatic change.  We are not alone.

Number of the Day: 1 every 80 minutes

"An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began."

Full story here.

According to Mary: Never Give Up

Encinitas resident Mary Fleener, nationally recognized cartoonist and more, shares her view of city activists. Thank you, Mary. Check out Our Mayor blog for another cartoon according to Mary.

The People Knock on Treasury Secretary's Door

Taking a bit of a break this week, sharing some things from around the country, like at Tim Geitner's house.

"Robin Hood Tax - We believe in our communities. Help us fight back against Wall Street and the people who crashed our economy."

Tuesday is Dues-day: Review Citizen Tips

Tuesday is Dues-day. The dues are simply schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported?

You’re a citizen, an advocate for democracy with this first step, paying attention.

Democracy isn't free. We're all paying the price of turning a blind eye to the goings on around us in our government. So much has been trashed, so much done in our names that neither benefit us or our communities or the resources all around. Locally this has cost us representation of growing majority of voters as the city council is made up of a super majority serving primarily commercial, developer, wealthy investors over the majority of residents or the common good. Even if these four council people believe they are doing the work of the people, they have consistently marginalized and silenced Teresa Barth as well as any dissent, minority views and transparent government practices in general. And that is not democracy, even if they wrote a code or ordinance saying it is.

Citizen Tip = Know How to Find Information, Blog Edition

It has been fifteen weeks since this feature has been posted each Tuesday, with the first one on Our Mayor blog.  Every once in awhile it pays to stop and take a look at what dues you've paid along the way.  If you have been reading this blog you are now aware of these things in our local government in Encinitas.

This post is to make it easy for you to catch up if you came in later. Any time you need a refresher, just look at the list of labels in the right hand column of the blog and find Tuesday is Dues-day and click.  All of the posts to date will appear from the most recent back to the first.  Also, for activists and voters unfamiliar with blog conventions . . . the label or tag list shows the number of posts carrying this label or tag.   Some posts have a bunch of tags because the ways to label them overlap.  All of the Tuesday is Dues-day also have labels related to specific subjects they cover. 

Here is a list to date, again working backwards for review.

May 15, 2012 - California City Finance Primer

May 8, 2012- Engage: Citizen Tip = Find Your Own Way to Engage

May 1, 2012 -Fiscal Limits: Citizen Tip = Financing the Hall property park

April 24, 2012 - Tail Wags Dog Planning: Citizen Tip = Face value is rarely enough information to compare and contrast

April 17, 2012 - Campaign Rules: Citizen Tip = Start with this exposure of what went on in 2010

April 10, 2012 - GPU Foundation: Citizen Tip = Watch last year council clips 

April 3, 2012 - Spreaker Protocol: Citizen Tip = Guest activist recommendations 

March 27, 2012 - Get Up, Stand Up: Citizen Tip = Action

March 20, 2012 - Trees: Citizen Tip = Trees

March 13, 2012 - Sunshine Ordinance: Citizen Tip = GPU, ERAC  & other antics

March 6, 2012 - General Plan Update: Citizen Tip = Watch what has been erased (ERAC'd) in the past six months

February 28, 2012 - Developer's Agreement: Citizen Tip = Searching 2007 Clips

February 21, 2012 - SANDAG Growth Forecast 2050: Citizen Tip = 2009 Video

February 14, 2012 - Mayoral Rotation: Citizen Tip = Shutting our Dissent with Barth passed over for 3 years.

Good Morning

Hat tip Driftglass

Photo(s) of the Day

Look what we found in the public domain.  Looks like the 5K race had candidates Shaffer and Kranz with friends as active participants.  Now that is citizen participation, doggy and all.

Tell-A-Vision

Once while walking along the beach, the sight of tide pools and mussel encrusted rocks brought a woman I know to tears. She hadn’t grown up by the ocean, so she looked upon the sight as an epiphany and raved through her tears of a rock teaming with life and the iridescence reflected in the sunlight.

That was far more magical than the mundane glimpse of a barnacle covered rock so common to us who walk along the beach here in Encinitas. Or maybe it is simply perspective.


If one looks closely at the barnacles that cover a rock there is an abode quality to the crusty nuggets that house the inner workings. The barnacle is a natural survivor acclimated to harsh living situations not even considered by others in the sea world (land or air) or resilience in action. This domed colony or clumping design shows great economy and minimalism in resource use. It is reminiscent of the earthbag structures.

Earthbag building fills a unique niche in the quest for sustainable architecture. The bags can be filled with local, natural materials, which lowers the embodied energy commonly associated with the manufacture and transportation of building materials. The fill material is generally of mineral composition and is not subject to decomposition (even when damp), attractive to vermin, or burnable...in other word it is extremely durable.

The fill material is generally completely non-toxic and will not offgas noxious fumes into the building. Earthbags have the tremendous advantage of providing either thermal mass or insulation, depending on what the bags are filled with. When filled with soil they provide thermal mass, but when filled with lighter weight materials, such as crushed volcanic stone, perlite, vermiculite, or rice hulls, they provide insulation. The bags can even act as natural non-wicking, somewhat insulated foundations when they are filled with gravel. Vision of an alternative housing and more

With that as basic structure cell for background, this vision really begins right here.

Take a look at the monstrously underutilized, ignored and ugly view of the corporate chains, the consumer structures typically massed along El Camino Real. Besides the valuable land massively being given away to vehicle storage, the rooftops are a giant waste of square footage.

Remember, our city government bends over backwards for commercial interests in the name of tax revenues and in the name of the economy. Remember too the secretive meetings to usher Walmart into our community through the back door last year? What is seldom calculated are what these enterprises with the consumer-friendly low prices actually cost our community. By no means a complete essay, this is to convey a vision that has the potential to addresses a whole bunch of problems, many if not all invisible to most and clearly invisible to all of the city council majority and current city planning staff with the growth at all costs mindset.

Externalized Costs of Commercial Use

The kind of employment in these sprawling concrete boxes is minimum wage workers and managers, who very often don’t live in Encinitas because they can’t afford to live in Encinitas. they are the working poor all around us. This means most all the workforce have vehicles being stored along with the shoppers in this sea of asphalt.

As an aside, the electrical loads from refrigeration in the grocery stores, fast food restaurants and drug stores and air conditioning in all of these retail outlets doubtless dwarfs residential use.

In other words, our corporate stakeholders can be brought into the process of addressing a critical need in Encinitas; that is, low income housing for their own work force and deficits caused largely by their commercial operations. Ideally, the vision would retain all of the commercial advantages that New Encinitas residents in particular have been shoved into thinking will evaporate with any affordable housing options along El Camino Real.

And, through creative visioning, a bonus would be to help mitigate the externalized costs of the low prices regarding cheap labor, excessive fossil fuel use for workforce, high packaging waste, high use cheap energy costs, loss of valuable land through vehicle storage and possibly a whole lot more.

Greenroofs and more

Not shown here would be steel structure to create 1 level above these commercial building with a 9’ gap between the top of the building and the housing zone to accommodate engineering, maintenance zone, some parking (largely bikes) and storage pods for tenants. Also not shown in these images gathered on the web are the potential PV solar arrays or wind energy generators. But the feel is that of a natural setting with a deep layer of soil part of this design vision for a greenroof along with the housing pods. Greywater systems from showers, compost stations supplied with resident and grocery food waste are part of this green / garden zone with an orchard at its center. Berms and swales will create opportunities in the habitat variation in dwelling heights (opening up varied views at level and from below) as well as habitat opportunities for birds and critters.

What this vision embodies is an organic village above the commercial zone with small, efficient structures to house singles or families, depending on the choices of single or primary with add-ons in the basic housing unit.  The luminous shades of the iridescent mussels in the opening paragraph could be used throughout.  What costs are necessary in the second and mid-stories would be comparable to conventional building. The vastly less expensive small homes with tiny energy footprints lend credibility to proposing this as an experimental plan. The study was started in an agricultural setting to test the model of this eco-village, the authors wrote:

A way to begin, testing – On agricultural lands, city owned open lands a phase 1 experimental eco-construction as a study for local education and code re-adjustment studies would be built before moving to phase 2. “Pod one is designed to consist of thirty-two 200 square foot semi-subterranean “dry pod” earthbag hotel room styled cabanas placed in a circle with thirty-two separate 200 square foot “wet pod” bathrooms forming a second inner-circle. Like a hotel, the dry pods will consist of a bed, a closet, and a small sitting area and desk. The wet pods will be a solar heated passive shower, sink, passive toilet, and walk-in closet/storage. Additional storage will be available between the two Pods with a small patio and additional sitting area.

Why we chose this size and earthbag design: The 200 square foot size, and elimination of hard plumbing (no septic tank; rather composting toilets, recycling of all water) allows us (and people in most US counties) to classify these structures as agricultural buildings that we can start building week one without the permits we will be immediately applying for to build Pod 2. We will still be working with the county on this Pod with a full disclosure of what we are creating and why but THEIR hands won’t be tied by existing regulations and rules so we can all move forward faster. We chose earthbag construction and this design as our first pod because they can be built for under $500 for each structure, are easy to construct with very little training or experience, and will be easier than ever to duplicate anywhere in the world as we achieve our open source goals.”

For less than $40,000 our city staff could work with unskilled labor, local dirt (that’s lifeless soil and widely available), a cadre of local expertise to come up with a kind of living lab for another fee to address ecology and economy in the commercial zones of Encinitas to capture the invisible opportunities for housing the largely invisible people who are low income workers. And El Camino Real might be only a start.

Billboard Graphic Earthbag

For the commercially obsessed there is a variation on this where the earthbags are made from old billboard vinyl. They still get their workforce nearly captive above the stores. And those curmudgeons who see labor only in punitive terms might suggest filling these billboard tubes with all the toxic dirt throughout the nursery zone in Encinitas. Worker housing as punishment? Ugh, forget that. Sometimes the hate talk bubbles up in the mind, even in the middle of some healthy imaginings. In truth this was a design concept winner (without any ill intent) from environmental graphics professionals in a challenge, to offer brilliantly intriguing images if nothing else.

Several hours of creative envisioning and musing - amusement? It beat the hell out of the television machine.

Reminder: Bike to Work May 18, 2012

Just what's needed after Wednesday night council meeting? How about a bike ride to a Thursday morning Yoga workout? Councilwoman Teresa Barth's routine being scrutinized during National Bike Month of May.

It is one thing to talk about the environment, purchase a bunch of "green" products or proselytize about a small carbon footprint. It is quite another to live what you believe with a sense of humor and some tolerance too.

Here's hoping everyone who rides a bike to work tomorrow has a good time doing it. Remember when you were a kid and you were your very own engine.

Update: Nothing on the city website for the Bike to Work Day.

But Teresa Barth passed along this map link and website link.

Bike to Work Pit Stops

El Camino Bike Shop
121 N. El Camino Real, Suite A, Encinitas, CA 92024.

We are a full service bike shop. Our pit stop will be open 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Besides the morning shift, our pit stop will have a second afternoon shift from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

REI ‐ Encinitas 1590 Leucadia Blvd. Encinitas 92024.

Our bike tech at this pit stop will be happy to help lube chains, fix flats, help fit your bike properly to you and make any other adjustments needed to get you back on the road safe and comfortable! Our pit stop will be open 6 a.m. to 12 p.m.

RIDE Cyclery – Encinitas with Equinox Center In front of our store on the 559 S. Coast Highway 101 in Downtown Encinitas

Work and Errands

Teresa Barth continues her bike riding this month, National Bike Month.  Besides this shot of her at the Seaside Market in her own neighborhood - easy biking challenge - her rides to city hall continue.  Tuesday her red bike was spotted in the shadows at city hall with the ride to work day three days away on May 18, 2012.

Tuesday is Dues-day: California City Finance Primer

Tuesday is Dues-day. The dues are simply schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported?

You’re a citizen, an advocate for democracy with this first step, paying attention.

Citizen Tip = California City Finance Primer

All of the information in this week’s Dues-day post are excerpts and charts from this finance primer report by League of California Cities. For some it may be too elementary, but invaluable to those of us new to city government finances. This isn’t about budget, it’s about revenue. This is important because the demand for unsustainable growth is in part generated by this current financial structure that demands growth in order to have revenue. The original document must be read for a complete description.

Where does a city get its money?

Taxes: A tax is a charge for public services and facilities. There need not be a direct relationship between the services and facilities used by an individual taxpayer and the tax paid.

Fees: Charges and Assessments A fee is a charge imposed on an individual for a service that the person chooses to receive.

Intergovernmental Revenue: Cities also receive revenue from other government agencies, principally the state and federal governments.


Other City Revenues: Other sources of revenue to cities include rents, concessions and royalties; investment earnings; revenue from the sale of property; proceeds from debt financing; revenues from licenses and permits; and fines and penalties. Each type of revenue has legal limitations on what may be charged and collected as well as how the money may be spent.

Putting Money in Its Proper Place

The law restricts many types of city revenues to certain uses. As explained above, a special tax is levied for a specific program. Some subventions are designated by law for specific activities. Fees are charged for specific services, and fee revenue can fund only those services and related expenses. To comply with these laws and standards, finance departments segregate revenues and expenditures into separate accounts or funds. The three most important types of city funds are:

1. special revenue funds
2. enterprise funds
3. general fund 

Major City Revenues

Sales and Use Tax: The sales tax an individual pays on a purchase is collected by the state Board of Equalization and includes a state sales tax, the locally levied Bradley-Burns sales tax and several other components. The sales tax is imposed on the total retail price of any tangible personal property. (State law provides a variety of exemptions to the sales and use tax, including resale, interstate sales, intangibles, food for home consumption, candy, bottled water, natural gas, electricity and water delivered through pipes, prescription medicines, agricultural feeds, seeds, fertilizers and sales to the federal government.)

Property Tax: The property tax is an ad valorem (value-based) tax imposed on real property and tangible personal property. (State law provides a variety of exemptions to the property tax, including most government-owned property; nonprofit, educational, religious, hospital, charitable and cemetery properties; the first $7,000 of an owner-occupied home; business inventories; household furnishings and personal effects; timber; motor vehicles, freight and passenger vessels; and crops and orchards for the first four years).

California Constitution Article XIIIA (Prop. 13) limits the property tax to a maximum 1 percent of assessed value, not including voter-approved rates to fund debt. The assessed value of property is capped at 1975–76 base year plus inflation — or 2 percent per year. Property that declines in value may be reassessed at the lower market value. Property is reassessed to current full value upon change in ownership (with certain exemptions). Property tax revenue is collected by counties and allocated according to state law among cities, counties, school districts and special districts.

Business License Tax (BLT): Most cities in California levy a business license tax. Tax rates are determined by each city, which collects the taxes. Business license taxes are most commonly based on gross receipts or levied at a flat rate but are sometimes based on the quantity of goods produced, number of employees, number of vehicles, square footage of the business or some combination of factors.

Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT):  Like the business license tax, a TOT may be levied by a city under the police powers granted to cities in the state Constitution. More than 380 cities in California impose TOT on people staying for 30 days or less in a hotel, inn or other lodging facility. Rates range from 4 to 15 percent of the lodging cost.
Utility User Tax (UUT). More than 150 cities (collectively representing a majority of the state’s population) impose a utility user tax. UUT rates vary from 1 to 11 percent and are levied on the users of various utilities, which may include telephone, electric, gas, water and cable television. For cities that impose the UUT, it provides an average of 15 percent of general revenue and often as much as 22 percent.

Vehicle License Fee (VLF). The VLF is a tax imposed by the state on the ownership of a registered vehicle in place of taxing vehicles as personal property. Property Tax in Lieu of Vehicle License Fee Property tax revenue (including property tax in lieu of VLF) accounts for more than one-third of general revenue for the average full-service city.

Parcel Tax This is a special non-value based tax on property, generally based on either a flat per-parcel rate or a variable rate depending on the size, use or number of units on the parcel. Parcel taxes require two-thirds voter approval and are imposed for a variety of purposes, including police and fire services, parks, libraries and open space protection. Parcel taxes provide less than 1 percent of city revenues statewide.

Rents, Royalties and Concessions:  Examples of revenues generated through the use of city property include royalties from natural resources taken from city property, the sale of advertising in city publications, payments from concessionaires operating on city property, facility rentals, entry charges, on- and off-street parking charges and even golf fees.

Franchises: Franchise fees are collected in lieu of rent for use of city streets from refuse collectors, cable television companies and utilities. Some franchise charges are limited by statute.

Fines, Forfeitures and Penalties: Cities receive a share of fines and bail forfeitures from misdemeanors and infractions committed within city boundaries. State law determines the distribution and use of state-imposed fines and forfeitures, but cities determine penalties for violations of their municipal codes.

Service Charges and Fees: Cities have authority to impose fees, charges and rates for services and facilities they provide, such as plan checking or recreation classes. Use of these revenues is limited to paying for the service for which the fees are collected, but may include overhead, capital improvements and debt service. City utilities and enterprises supported by service fees constitute a substantial portion of most city budgets. These include water, sewer, electricity and solid waste services. In some cities, a public or private agency other than the city provides and funds these services.

Where can we find these numbers in Encinitas?

The city council will be talking about the budget tomorrow and again in June.  These financial reports need a vigilant public assessing what is being reported.  Citizens may put in FOIA forms to ask for these figures cited above.  We would like to be aware of the specifics for Encinitas.

If you know where to access the various revenue breakdowns described in the primer, please let us know at our email address.  encinitasyouneedus@gmail.com

Planning Humor

Reminder, Tonight is the last City Planning Housing Needs and Growth Workshop to be held from 6-8 pm at the Community and Senior Center. 

Participation seems to primarily position neighbor against neighbor - you get a map and 10 dots representing 1,300 new living units, each representing a concentration of 130 units - to place on a map. The packet also includes a survey they allows a bit more citizen expression regarding options.  After several years involvement, it's difficult to not feel the cynicism and infectious distrust of the duplicitous officials and still largely uninformed population.

If you miss out tonight, city planners did extend the opportunity to participate at City Hall from May 21st to May 24th from the hours of 8am until 5pm. During these times community members can come to city hall and complete the mapping exercise They must turn it in at the end of the exercise.

Update:  Failed to mention the obvious, when you go to an event like this and see hundreds of your fellow citizens, it is invigorating.  There is absolutely no comparison to visible crowds of people showing by their very presence that community matters.  Please help fight the malaise and distrust by showing up - and bring a friend.  Whatever you mark on your survey, wherever you place a dot or if you choose neither, experience the REAL authority in Encinitas, the voters.

Invisible Ones, The Other Mothers

Some thoughts today for hidden moms in our neighborhoods and communities.  These various lines of work below are filled with the absolutely most vulnerable among us.  They haven't spoken up in the blogs here, or many other public places even though we know they are everywhere working really hard for very little pay.  There are so many more not even noted, like restaurant, child care and hospital workers.  Traditionally the last two centuries have shown, if a job category or field is considered women's work the pay, benefits and working conditions will be inferior.  Let's not forget these hidden workers, any of these people who often directly affect our personal and professional lives in the most basic ways.

Domestic Servants

Encinitas has a very wealthy proportion of its population who have domestic servants.

Mothers in Deportation Facilities and Prisons

Private prisons remain secret places where children are incarcerated, families are separated and they are largely phantom places for the public at large. This is a small town in Florida. California prisons and relocation centers are criminal crowded. A portion of our population lives in terror of these places.

Hotel Maids

Encinitas relies on tourism and the hospitality industry.  This is back breaking seasonal work for pennies on the dollar. "I don't mind working hard, I do mind being abused."

Warehouse / Temporary Workers

  "The first step is awareness," an e-commerce specialist will tell me later. There have been trickles of information leaking out of the Internet Order Fulfillment Industrial Complex: an investigation by the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Morning Call in which Amazon workers complained of fainting in stifling heat, being disciplined for getting heat exhaustion, and otherwise being "treated like a piece of crap"; a workampers' blog picked up by Gizmodo; a Huffington Post exposé about the lasting physical damage and wild economic instability temporary warehouse staffers suffer.

And workers have filed lawsuits against online retailers, their logistics companies, and their temp agencies over off-the-clock work and other compensation issues, as well as at least one that details working conditions that are all too similar. (That case has been dismissed but is on appeal.) Still, most people really don't know how most internet goods get to them. The e-commerce specialist didn't even know, and she was in charge of choosing the 3PL for her midsize online-retail company. "These decisions are made at a business level and are based on cost," she says. "I never, ever thought about what they're like and how they treat people. Fulfillment centers want to keep clients blissfully ignorant of their conditions."

 "There's no time off on Election Day. "What if I want to vote?" I ask a supervisor. "I think you should!" he says. "But if I leave I'll get fired," I say. To which he makes a sad face before saying, "Yeah." If they are aware how inhumane the reality is. But awareness has a long way to go, and logistics doesn't just mean online retail; food packagers and processors, medical suppliers, and factories use mega-3PLs as well. And a whole lot of other industries—hotels, call centers—take advantage of the price controls and plausible deniability that temporary staffing offers.

"Maybe awareness will lead to better working conditions," says Vinod Singhal, a professor of operations management at Georgia Tech. "But…" Given the state of the economy, he isn't optimistic. This is the kind of resignation many of my coworkers have been forced to accept. At the end of break, the workamper and I are starting to fast-walk back to our stations. A guy who's been listening to our conversation butts in. "They can take you for everything you've got," he says. "They know it's your last resort."

"Just look around in here if you wanna see how bad it is out there," one of the associates at the temp office said to me, unprompted, when I got hired. It's the first time anyone has ever tried to comfort me because I got a job, because he knew, and everyone in this industry that's growing wildfire fast knows, and accepts, that its model by design is mean. He offered me the same kind of solidarity the workers inside the warehouse try to provide each other at every break: Why are you here? What happened that you have to let people treat you like this? "We're all in the same boat," he said, after shaking my hand to welcome me aboard. "It's a really big boat."

This story ran in the March/April 2012 issue of Mother Jones, under the headline "Shelf Lives."

Farm Workers 

One can't live in California without some sense that farm workers exist.  There are probably so many stories we could learn from in some of our Encinitas neighborhoods and these would open up some important bridge possibilities.

Still Biking!

Just a quick look at our Councilwoman Barth's bike spotted yesterday at the Lumberyard.  She challenged herself to ride to work as often as she could.  Don't know the tally, but that red bike has been spotted in lots of locations. Just noticed the flowers on the seat and the frame.  Does anyone know if she has a name?

Leading to Mean, Not Meaning

You may have read reviews of the newly released movie, Bully, focused on bullies in our children's lives . Don't these reviews seem to be overlooking a very obvious connection - the leaders in the political area of today's US of A?

Political Leaders  
Local politics via Our Mayor blog, as in today's post. Big Cheese Stands Alone is meant to expose bully behavior. And this is just one of more than a dozen posts with clips all listed here. These are a fraction of the stories citizens could share throughout the dozen years Jerome Stocks has served on city council . As editor, I'll state that a clear mission is to show clips of the council warts and all and especially the voices not covered by the news or the kinds of things a compliant press doesn't write about or expose.  For this reason we can't get candidates LIsa Shaffer or Tony Kranz to participate directly in the blogs, but we will continue to show clips of them, copy from their public websites, facebook entries and other public sources because we consider them the alternative to crony behavior from the mayor and the council majority and their friends and funding sources.

The movie, Bully, is a place we all might learn about a pathology that allows this mean behavior to thrive.

 

When vicious behavior is rewarded in every facet of our culturally elite's personal, social, recreational, business and political lives without accountability and scrutiny; it is no surprise we raise up a new crop of bullies each and every year. But, leaders who are mean in their very characters are not going to be providing us meaning of any value if the message is, I've got mine - the hell with you. 

Remember This Revelation?

The scene is Harvard Business School, 1975. Bush is captain of his class' basketball team, which is playing the Class of '76 team.

The game was tight. The other team's captain, Gary Engle went up for a shot. Bush slugged him — an elbow to the mouth, knocking him to the parquet. "What the hell are you doing?" Engle remembers saying. "What, you want to get into a fistfight and both of us end up in the fucking emergency room?" Bush just smiled.

Moments later, at the other end of the court, Engle went up high for a rebound and felt someone chop his legs out from under him. Bush again. Engle jumped up and threw the ball in Bush's face. The two went at it until two teams of future business leaders leapt on their captains, pulling them apart. Engle, angry and vexed by what had happened, began wondering why the hell Bush would have done what he did. He lost his composure, and his team lost its leader.

A few years later, Engle...bumped into Jeb Bush....Engle, a Republican contributor, had thought from time to time about his game against George. Nothing like that had happened to him before or since. This was his chance to get a little insight about it. He told the story. Jeb kind of laughed, Engle recalled. "In Texas, they call guys like George 'a hard case.' It wasn't easy being his brother, either. He truly enjoys getting people to knuckle under."

He truly enjoys getting people to knuckle under. source

Bully 2.0

In a TV interview this month, Mitt Romney's wife Ann insisted, "There's a wild and crazy man inside of [Mitt Romney] just waiting to come out." How wild and crazy is he? Well, when he was a teenager at boarding school in 1965, he was so crazed by a fellow student's slightly long hair that he organized a wild mob that held the boy down while Romney cut off the offensive locks, as his victim wept. [. . .]

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s

look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

"It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said [Thomas] Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.” ... "It was a hack job,” recalled Phillip Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious." source

A bully is essentially a coward.  Only when he can outnumber, outweigh or otherwise overwhelm or secretly attack does he strike.  We never need to accept this behavior.  And it is vital we don't back down and sanction behavior by saying we don't want to be negative, we don't want to be rude or otherwise equivocate with unacceptable demonstrations.  Although tolerance is an ideal worth striving for in so many areas, it doesn't belong in this arena of human rights and indulging predators or sociopaths.

Bullying at home when mom and the kids are smacked around or treated with contempt?  That is a whole other story for blog writers attuned to this with resources to share. We invite contributors.

Goathead Thorn Warrior

A year ago Russell Levan single-handedly took on the noxious weed, the puncture vine aka goathead thorn that plagues all bike riders along Leucadia's rail corridor.

Remarkably, eighty volunteers took part in this goathead thorn eradication event.  It is the first of many more in the years to come. Change comes slowly when a real menace has taken hold.  This is a fair metaphor for negatives that take root in our community while we weren't paying attention.  Amirite?

Levan is a former Parks & Recreation Commissioner,  is a Leucadia family man, business owner who takes his civic engagement very seriously.  His activism is the hand-on kind, but he also attends City Council meetings, Environmental Commission meetings, Encinitas Union School District Green Team and all the General Plan Update workshops, open houses, etc.  He is a real hero when it comes to citizenship in practice.

For his two daughters and the community this man is the über volunteer with a life long commitment to the common good.  Here is one organizing suggestion we offer Levan. There seems to be over representation of women and children in these volunteer activities in tree planting, coastal cleanup and school gardens. 


Goathead thorns are known as Tribulus Terrestrs. Maybe you should recruit this testosterone crowd. Maybe this is the hook for crowds of men to volunteer for goathead thorn harvesting.

Tribulus Terrestrs L has been used for some time by Bulgarian strength athletes, especially during the last 10 days prior to competition. Active components are reported to be effective plant steroids, flavonoids, alkaloids, and glycosides. Tribulus Terrestris L has been shown in at least one study to increase levels of testosterone, lutenizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone and steroids without any harmful side effects. Some may find increased stamina beneficial for developing muscle size and strength.

Bodybuilders are pumped up about Tribulus Terrestris L and may have just stumbled across the next hot herb of the year. Bodybuilders use it because they believe it is a safe alternative to anabolic steroids. It appears to help increase stamina and has been used in studies for treating infertility in women and impotence in males.This extract has been long used in Asia as a stimulant to help treat sexual "deficiency". To study the natural hormonal treatment of dysfunction and anomalies, research was conducted by the Chemical Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria was developed. These studies indicated positive effects on some key reproductive functions.

Better than VIAGRA! The great news is that Tribulus Terrestris L is not just for bodybuilders and athletes. There are many people who could possibly benefit from Tribulus Terrestris L as it offers new hope for infertility and libido enhancement for the sexually-challenged, as well. In males, it has been reported by some to increase libido (sexual desire), improve strength of erection and spermatogenesis (formation and development of sperm) and shown to increase testosterone levels in studies in mice (Chemical Pharmaceutical Research Institute study).

Because this research is totally scientifically true (it is not).  Stay tuned as Russell Levan will provide more verifiable thorn control options along with weeding sessions in good time.

Tuesday is Dues-day: Engage

Tuesday is Dues-day. The dues are schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported? 

You’re a citizen, an advocate for democracy with this first step, paying attention.


Citizen Tip = Find Your Own Way to Engage


This will be your own story, your own way to move beyond merely watching, paying attention.  Gather ideas to yourself, decide on some and make them your own.  

Tell-A-Vision

Here is a vision (overheard) for tonight's pit neighbor against neighbor Public Workshop 1 - Housing Element Edition - for participants to place 10 dots each, representing a total of 1,300 multifamily units, on a map.  This typical election year bread and circuses exercise is for the pretense of community input.  It is a rigged game that finds low income Encinitans who'd love a well designed, affordable housing approach close enough to employers, shopping and transportation to eliminate the cost of an automobile or the high cost of gas (and carbon dioxide emissions) for commuting.  Even the predominantly single family home owners aren't happy with this rigidly defined housing element's future scenario.

So, rebel.  In this vision you place your dots in the Pacific Ocean. This particular slant on the dumb map exercise says several things, including the message that we aren't stupid.  Many citizens have watched bread and circus exercises again and again and know the hours of general plan update workshops, council meeting statements, ERAC and open house sessions are essentially just for show.

Now there is a 21st century vision with a community extension on the water, with specially designed floating housing. Can you picture diving and working to preserve kelp beds and sea life?  Cultivating nearly extinct fish stock, maintaining deep water wind turbines, wave turbines and solar panels all working to produce alternate energy.  Yes, decades to develop but worth the effort of engaged work.  Gone the day of SDG&E central plants.  Some may talk doomsday, some wail about a changing status quo, but there is a place for the visionary notions of simply looking at our problems differently and coloring outside the lines.

Oh, and people who want to remain in their single family homes in a suburban setting a drive away from separate commercial centers or their respective work places can do that too.

This week's Tell-A-vision edition brought to you without advertisements of any kind.

Gratitude

Day before yesterday Lisa Shaffer shared on Facebook the following:

Today is a day of gratitude. A year ago today my husband, Steve Bartram had a heart attack while playing basketball at the Solana Beach Boys & Girls Club. We are grateful to his teammates for their quick action, to the off-duty paramedics who were nearby and came to help, to the basketball team that donated the AED used to resuscitate Steve, to the ambulance team that arrived quickly, to Scripps Encinitas hospital for its excellent care, and to all the friends and family who expressed their love and care for Steve and for me. Life is precious. Do something compassionate and caring with yours.

Green Lane Project

The Green Lane Project is a new effort that will work closely with six U.S. cities to help them build world-class cycling networks on city streets. These will be cities that are poised to make significant progress over the next two years in installing cycle tracks and related improvements, which we’re calling Green Lanes. The Project will facilitate a partnership between the cities and provide them with resources and technical assistance, while expanding the knowledge base and sharing it widely.

I can't, It's too sweaty

If you have ever imagined what your work day might be like if you rode a bike daily instead of driving a car you no doubt struggled with the inevitable questions:

1. What about sweating?
2. What could I wear to ride, then change?
3. Where to store bike at work.
4. What if I got a flat or other broken part?
5. What if I have to stay late or leave my bike?

 

The example in the above clip is for a huge population in one of the biggest urban centers. Encintias would be considerably scaled back like the Bikestation in Santa Barbara. Imagine being able to check off all of the concerns at the opening of this post with a convenient spot to secure a parking place for your bike, to shower, to change for work, to fix a flat and even leave your bike overnight or pick it up after regular work hours?

This is called removing obstacles to quality of life choices. The mayor pushed hard for his electric car to have a charging station at the town's center. In all of San Diego County there are a small percentage of electric car owners. Conversely, there are potentially hundreds of thousands of bike riders in San Diego County, with more each year. This bikestation concept represents a creative solution that fulfills quality of life goals of healthy living, economic opportunity (for small business), affordability for commuters, flexibility, resilience, sustainability, lowered carbon dioxide emissions, traffic congestion and parking congestion.

About that parking problem in Encinitas, did you know that 14 bicycles fit in one car parking space?  And that traffic congestion? Eight bicycles that fit into one car road space. Even just a beginning of a shift in choices from daily car use to biking would be felt in our parking lots and busy main arteries.  Safety is the other leading deterrent to biking and that will be a different post.

There is a longing in this community for innovative planning and visionary leadership. In fact, Encinitas is falling far behind communities all across the state and the nation.  How we all get around is just one more challenge we can look to our candidates for office to hear our ideas, look to other leading examples and step away from approaches that belong to another era whose time has passed.

21st Century, You're Soaking In It

Online News
This year's campaign is far more interactive on a daily basis than any previous campaign in Encinitas.  Besides our local newspapers, we have their online versions where readers comment.  Besides the instant feedback (sometimes awful) this means that we aren't limited to the physical papers we must fetch at our door or beyond. Check the links in the sidebar.

Blogosphere
EYNU blog and Our Mayor blog both post political news about our council, council candidates, local issues and smattering bits of things outside of Encinitas.  EYNU links in the sidebar lists a few other blogs of interest who started this cross-blog linking years ago.

Facebook
Lisa Shaffer has been keeping her Facebook entries very current, to the delight of those following her campaign.  She's been posting brief messages or linking to news, events or people of interest here as well as her campaign website and monthly newsletter. Hands down, Lisa, is a leader in our 21st century environment.

Teresa Barth has a Facebook page she actively used to communicate with voters in the 2010 election, well ahead of the times.  Through her Facebook page the NYT article from Tony Kranz became a real keeper for the EYNU files, because in Encinitas we love our trees.

Tony Kranz' shared article from Mark Wisnewski is called, Why Trees Matter on his Facebook page. Tony is a likeable guy according to his friends meter.  Tony has also spoken at city council meetings frequently in the last several years.  Clips of Tony are all over the place at the encinitasyouneedus YouTube channel.

Recently I looked for and found this Facebook page, Dave Roberts for Supervisor. Dave is from Solana Beach and is running for County Supervisor to fill incumbent Pam Slater-Price's seat.  This man has always been a really good supporter for Encinitas citizen voices and shared undertakings with this city while he has served on Solana Beach's city council.

Campaign Websites
All of these community leaders have their own websites too, listed in the sidebar. These are early days.  There may be PAC's to list later this year, or more.

Thought You Might Like to Know Newsletter
Our mayor in exile, Teresa Arballo Barth, has a robust weekly email newsletter that is hands down one of the greatest summaries of our local politics, business, tourism and public interest one could imagine.  It's a graphically pleasing, professional looking newsletter without bells and whistles. It's treasure lies in the hard work kind of dozens of links each week to what matters most in Encinitas.  This is no slap dash affair. No, it's lots of time and editing 52 weeks a year.  For someone just wanting to get up to speed in what is going on politically in Encinitas, Councilwoman Barth's Thought You Might Like To Know is made for you.

This is a glance at the 21st century media alternatives to give you a framework, a guide to where you can find a wealth of information.  Have you found that cable 'news' or a simple Google search can take you down a rabbit hole to harrowing tea parties, distortions, utter nonsense and threats?  It's good to know that every single source linked and described in this post are places to rely on to show some short cuts to quality, to the good stuff.

"In the absence of activist movements that draw in a very substantial part of the population for interaction. Interchange -- the kinds of things that went on in the Occupy community for example -- in the absence of that most people are kind of at sea when they face the internet. So yes, they can find things of value and significance, but you have to know to look for them and you have to have a framework of analysis and perception that allows you to weed that out from a lot of the junk that surrounds it." Noam Chomsky

The advantage of all of the social media, the websites, blogs, YouTube channel clips means voters can hear from their candidates, speak to their candidates, know what is going on without the high cost of corporate media or mailings.  The yard signs, mailers, banners and all of the trappings of a campaign are absolutely necessary and fundraising is vital.  Please do what you can where you can.  This post isn't an excuse not to support candidates of your choice.

And Twitter Too?
Anyone who followed the Arab Spring stories, the Occupy activities too, know that Twitter was used for rapid mobilizing of large numbers of people. It gave spontaneous actions tremendous leverage to keep groups flexible. Who knows how this tool might work in our upcoming campaign. The Face Look versus FaceBook phase will come later this year when people are out in the neighborhoods, knocking on doors, hanging out at grocery stores and engaging people face to face in conversations.  Real live interaction is powerfully good stuff and the social media, blogs, etc. won't change that reality.

The point is that we don't have only the purchased methods of communication, or armies of volunteers to feel we can begin.  We have the internet with the price of an internet connection. And even that isn't a prerequisite thanks to the library and WiFi spots. Crowds clicking on links and surfing the net will help get us a new start in Encinitas, just you watch.

Tuesday is Dues-day: Fiscal Limits

Tuesday is Dues-day. The dues are simply schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported?

You’re a citizen, an advocate for democracy with this first step, paying attention.

Citizen Tip = Financing the Hall property park

The city has three choices to finance the Hall property park:  borrowing money using General Obligation Bonds (requiring a public vote), borrowing money using Lease Revenue Bonds (requiring only a majority vote of the council), or using money from the General Fund.

Accurate figures are slippery, but estimated construction costs put out by the city are $12-18 million with $8.5-9.5 million in the construction fund.  These figures keep changing with the cost going down and the fund going up.  It's clear there's not enough on hand to build the park and private contributions have not materialized.

On that second choice, Lease Revenue Bonds, it's important to understand that these require a revenue stream to make the annual “lease” payment, otherwise the money has to come out of the General Fund.  What are the revenue streams for the library, for instance, yet alone the Hall property park?

Lease Revenue Bonds have been abused by the state, counties and cities because they are often not self-supporting with a revenue stream, thus putting a strain on budgets and causing expenses to be cut in other areas.  It was reported recently in the news that Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa is proposing an extension of a ½ cent temporary sales tax in the city in order to use the additional future revenue stream to borrow against. This would be legitimate, but would sacrifice guaranteed future income to meet current expenses  -- the proverbial “kicking the can down the road.” This is what we want to avoid in Encinitas, especially for any project that is not an absolute necessity in these times of reduced tax revenues.

I don’t think Jerome Stocks has any real understanding of all of this because he only thinks of the short-term expediency.  He denies that the city has already spent or committed to spend $46 million on the Hall property.  If it’s not a line item expense in the annual budget, it doesn’t count for him, just like the pension obligation.

Bonds are usually issued to be repaid in 30 years. The repayment cost is roughly double the amount borrowed, and the bond consultant gets paid about $1 million.  If the city borrows money for the Hall property park construction, it will probably be for the full construction cost.  The city did this with the library and then shifted the money already set aside to fill other holes in the budget.

In his April 18th state of the city speech it sure sounded like Jerome Stocks was setting things up to borrow money.  Sure enough, the next week brought Finance Director Jay Lembaugh to propose municipal bond refinancing for the Encinitas Ranch Public Improvements (CDF).

But is this all?  He’s desperate to get something started on the Hall property before November.  But rushing ahead on projects is how the city gets itself into trouble.  The Public Works yard on the Mossy site is the prime example.  It cost us an extra $3.5 million in “unforeseen” costs.  We all love the library, but it went $6 million over budget, was finished behind schedule, and needs another $½ million to fix a defective heating and ventilation system.