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Citizen Tip = Hoodlink, Guest Post
This is a group of activists with a Leucadia focus who have been documenting City Council shenanigins since June 2005. (See the page tab above for Hoodlink in the top tab row for a link to the full list of archive articles.) These are thorough, thoughtful newsletters to help anyone with 7 years of history from the vantage point of those dissenting with the council majority. Today we are happy to reproduce the articles from the latest, Labor Day 2012 issue with the editors' permission.
THE PROVERBIAL NUTSHELL . . .
1) For over 10 years, scant progress has been made toward safe pedestrian rail crossings at reasonable spacing along the tracks. The railroad right-of-way through Encinitas is still a dusty wasteland. The man squarely in favor of these abject failures is the North County Transit District board member representative from Encinitas: our mayor, Jerome Stocks.
As the City’s self-appointed railroad right- of-way expert, Stocks has repeatedly rejected as impossible the reasonable and affordable solution that could serve everyone crossing the tracks. Instead, we get a single, mega-expensive, under crossing, useful to relatively few people.
In this issue, Herb Patterson reprises an article of his from 2008. In it he discusses how adept Stocks is at scheduling things so he can claim the big PR credit for some mega-project he helped to delay, but that can be conveniently addressed when he is up for re-election.
2) Where have all the flowers gone? Their disappearance is tied to a long term plan for generating money to pay for our existing future obligations. Which came first, chicken or egg?
Jerome Stocks and his supporters champion upzoning in every neighborhood while they pile on City debt like shopaholics. We need to stop them before we have “no choice” but to follow Stockton into troubles driven by the ag business calling for upzoning that promises new property tax revenue to cover the mounting debt. Next comes bankruptcy when there are far more empty homes than there are buyers.
Some members of the Encinitas Taxpayer Association have put together a three-part series on one of the financial troubles we-the-people of the city are in. Our representatives continue to claim good times have never looked better in Encinitas. The series starts [below].
~ the Editors
THE TICKING TIME BOMB . . .
On May 15, 2012, Encinitas Treasurer Jay Lembach presented the City’s pension status to the City Council. He stated that pensions are underfunded by $16.2 million. That statement is false.
It turns out Lembach’s $16.2 M figure represents only one of the City’s four pension plans: "miscellaneous employees" He excluded the plans for firefighters, lifeguards and San Dieguito Water District employees. Firefighters are among the City’s most highly paid and pensioned employees. To exclude their underfunded pensions from the City’s reported total is willful deception.
The “miscellaneous employees” plan had assets of $36.5 M and liabilities of $61.7 M when Lembach reported its status. To most people, 61.7 minus 36.5 equals 25.2, not 16.2. Lembach’s questionable math apparently assumes the $36.5 M in the account is really worth $45.5 M. At best this is a fantasy valuation that produces $9 M out of thin air. In his report, Lembach neither discloses nor explains why he used hypothetical rather than real assets.
An independent analysis by Charlie McDermott of the Encinitas Taxpayers Association shows the total unfunded pension liability is closer to $70 M — and growing. McDermott calculated the $70 M figure using the California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s (CalPERS) future-return assumptions. He believes, and we agree, that the CalPERS assumptions are excessively optimistic. More realistic assumptions for return on investments would push the shortfall to well over $100 M.
For some perspective on that amount, $100 M is more than the combined bond debt the City has assumed to buy the Hall property, to build the park on the property, and to build the library and fire stations.
On several occasions, Encinitas citizens have publicly asked the City Council for honesty and transparency regarding the City’s unfunded pension liabilities. Mayor Jerome Stocks has repeatedly shrugged off these requests, with flippant remarks to the effect that CalPERS, not the City, is responsible for the calculations, and that the City just pays the CalPERS monthly bills.
Stocks’ public position on the pension trouble is the equivalent of our repeatedly making minimum monthly payments on our credit card, ignoring the large and growing balance, and continuing our shopping sprees.
The City’s combined employer and employee pension payments to CalPERS are more than $6 M annually. That’s about 11% of the budget. The longer we put off being honest about our liabilities, the greater the eventual cost will be.
~ Encinitas Taxpayers Association
FOUR YEARS LATER . . .
and what has really changed? Here is a reprint from the November 2008 edition.
Jerome Stocks, currently Mayor of Encinitas, has served for over six years on the North County Transit Board [ NCTD] and had previously been an alternate for two years. You would think that over that period of time, Mayor Stocks would have been able to benefit Encinitas in some way, but to my eyes, the only improvement in all that time is an asphalt path at the Leucadia/Vulcan/101 crossing.
People die at this intersection and the surrounding NCTD right of way, yet nothing has been done. Then there were the orange sandbags at the same Leucadia crossing that garnered so many complaints. Did it take weeks or months or years to get them removed? Did Stocks even have any input?
Or, we could consider the tree cutting by the NCTD that occurred with roughly 24 hours notice and no possibility of local input. Did Mayor Stocks give us a heads up? No!
Sure, Mayor Stocks was right there to take credit for the completion of the Sprinter project and garner as much publicity as possible. He neglected to mention that the San Diego County Taxpayers Association awarded the Sprinter project it’s Grand Golden Fleece award for it’s long delays, budget over runs, and repeated ecological pollution resulting in large fines. The Taxpayers Association concluded that the Sprinter does not improve traffic on 78.
Most Encinitas residents believe that under grounding the train is the answer to the many problems associated with the proposed increase in train trips (and as the situation is now). Mayor Stocks, however, has referred to under grounding the train as “impossible” in a Encinitas Council meeting and supports the ridiculously expensive underpass solution which would make under grounding less feasible.
Just on a very simple level, look at the NCTD right of way -- do you see any improvement in the landscaping? Isn’t it the same dusty, desert of neglect it was 10 or 20 years ago? Where is ANY improvement?
At a recent NCTD meeting Mayor Stocks missed a closed session where the selection of the executive director was made. He was also late to the regular meeting and then left early. No wonder Mayor Stocks has at least one sitting NCTD Board Member who would prefer Mayor Stocks not be re-appointed to the NCTD.
UPDATE LATE AUGUST 2012 . . .
We are currently building an underground crossing at Santa Fe using someone else’s money - it is clear that any other underground crossing will be financially unfeasible for the City of Encinitas to build in the foreseeable future. So do we have an at grade crossing planned for Leucadia or other areas? Not to my knowledge.
We did have additional pedestrian improvements at Leucadia and 101, with plantings. If we can plant in this area, why the hell can’t we plant the rest of the NCTD corridor? What has stopped us all these years?
The City staff did a boundary check of the East side of 101 to ascertain where our land ends and the NCTD right of way begins. Anybody know what they found? Are you happy with the progress we have made in four years?
~ Herb Patterson
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