Tuesday is Dues-day: 2012 Campaign 10 x 10

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: Concentrated Dues

This is dedicated to all the good intentioned amongst us who wishes that he or she had done more, said more, learned more, given more, etc., etc.  Business, busy-ness and a host of other diversions - yada, yada - we all know.  These next few weeks though are the most critical weeks of this year.  If you have done nothing at all to pay your civic dues as an adult Encinitas person, you owe your community, your neighbors, family and yourself some concentrated attention for a minimum of 4 weeks.

Be Careful, If You Blink You'll Miss It

• This week Tomorrow - Wed. 9/12/12 City Council Meeting 

Maybe the more important task this week is to try and clear your calendar for the next four weeks for some intense campaign scrutiny.  Better yet, find out if you can gather a group of friends and neighbors to join you some of the following key events of the campaign.  Highly recommended is to watch council meetings at home with games, prizes for predicting the mayor's comments and behavior in advance.  It is entertaining for "take a drink if" score keeping.  

Both council meetings and candidate forums are included for several reasons.  Council meetings are a far better metric to use for the two incumbents, Stocks and Muir.  Better to actually see how they treat community members, each other and staff than simply hear them for more what they do than what they say they do. There is also a good chance you'll see and hear Shaffer and Kranz who have attended most every council meeting the last year or two. Candidates Brophy, Forrester, Yost, Zeigler, Shuh have to our knowledge never spoken at a council meeting though any one of them might have attended a meeting.  I wouldn't count on it.

The Candidate Forums are wonderful to ask all of the challenging questions that are never aked and answered in a council meeting.  Side-by-side comparisons of how each handles himself or herself, how truthful, how combative, how defensive and how articulate are possible here.  The advantage of going to the different forums is the community audience and the formats are different, bringing real diversity to candidate scrutiny. And, just one more thing . . . talk to 10 people each week about each of the following events.  This is the 10 x 10 idea.

• Week One

1. Tues. 9/18/12 Cardiff Candidates Forum, 7-9 pm

 Ada Harris Elementary School, 1508 Windsor Road, Cardiff-by-the-Sea

2. Wed. 9/19/12 City Council Meeting

• Week Two

3. Wed. 9/26/12 City Council Meeting

• Week Three

4. Wed. 10/3/12 Olivenhain Candidates Forum, 7-9 pm

 Olivenhain Meeting Hall, 423 Rancho Santa Fe Road, Olivenhain

• Week Four

5. Tues. 10/9/12 Leucadia-Encinitas Town Council(s) Candidate Forum 7-9 pm

Community Center, 1140 Oakcrest Park Drive, Encinitas 

Moderated by League of Women Voters

6. Wed. 10/10/12 City Council Meeting

• Final 4 Weeks

7. Get a sign for your front yard! 

8. Tues. 10/22/12 Last chance to - Register to Vote - for yourself or those you meet. 

Online Registration - San Diego County Registrar of Voters makes it easy to register 

9.  Tell 10 people a week (minimum) what you have gleaned, why Shaffer and Kranz are the best.

10. Vote Nov. 6 (If you haven't already mailed your ballot)