Municipal Bonds Refinancing Scheme

Update At End
The mere mention of municipal bonds triggers this recent news piece, which details Bank of America (and the other giants) corruption in a complex list of mortgages, credit cards, investment malfeasance and much more.

"The two that, to me, are the most incredible are municipal bid rigging—Bank of America a couple years ago paid a $137 million settlement, because they were caught rigging the bids for municipal bond issues in at least 88 different cases across—I think that was 25 different states.

What this means is whenever some municipality—it could be the Guam power authority or, you know, the city of Baltimore—when they want to raise money, they have to do it through an investment bank, and they’re supposed to do it through an auction process, where all the banks compete to see how much they’re going to pay to get that business.

Well, these banks have been systematically colluding and submitting artificially low bids, and there’s usually an insider on the municipal side who kind of games the whole process. They’ve been systematically doing this around the country for years and essentially cheating municipalities out of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues that they would have otherwise gotten. That’s a big one."

With the backdrop of a known nationally corrupt financial system, it is naive to take the city finance director's presentation at the last meeting at face value. Again, it has been said before on this blog; we have well earned our right to discern, to distrust, to question everything related to a completely monetized form of governance, utterly dependent on banks, lawyers and financial consultants.

Oh, and that big bite out of the money stack at the opening is the nearly half a million dollars the national, regional consultant team will be paid to do a stack of paperwork revisions based on the original bonds they all worked on in 2004. More than $450,000 (Jay's math is lower) to go to a hand full lof individuals with firms headquartered out of state? Just because it is a contingency fee doesn't mean it isn't going to be paid and included in the bond debt. Can't we do better than fairy dust, blinkers or worse approaching an economy in crisis?

The council all voted to go ahead and the public speakers are coming from different perspectives than are presented in this post.  There will be plenty of opportunity throughout May - a standard budget discussion month - to communicate all kinds of viewpoints. Encinitas government will not suffer from too much scrutiny.  What better time to put people's fears to rest or demonstrate a willingness to allow more transparency? 

 

 

Public Speakers with decades of experience in the financial dealings of the city.

 

Update: Budget talks are in June, rather than May as noted. So, maybe we can be a step ahead with homework.

Street Art

Vidar

Because of the traffic safety issue on the agenda this last week with a no action vote despite that staggering $146,000 spent to study a solution looking for a problem, the following guerilla street art came to mind. Thanks to Street Art Utopia for a soul satisfying glimpse of  imaginative solutions to real problems - communicated through art and acts of civil disobedience - volunteer activism.

 City Sanctioned Art

"The First Annual Encinitas Arts Festival will become reality on May 5, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Encinitas Community and Senior Center. Having coordinated Imagination Celebration of Orange County, a three-week-long arts festival held in 50 locations, Jim Gilliam feels Encinitas is ready for a similar, although smaller-scaled, event.

The Festival will include a huge outdoor drum circle, student art exhibit, music, theatre, dance workshops, as well as an impressive lineup of dance performances on two stages coordinated by professional dancer Georgia Schmid." Coast News

Go and get further inspiration to embrace braver visions, taking risks and stepping into an unknown future. 

 Just Imagine a true arts community, with unleashed creativity . . . where throwing money at things isn't the only method of confronting challenges.

Conversation in the Future
My son, do you want to hear something strange?

• Yes! What?

You know the new tree painting we did on the garage last week.. Up until around the year 2050 people generally did not have paintings on houses!

• What? Were they grey? 

Well, yes, many were. Often they would paint villas in One colour, like blue or yellow, but very rarely in more than one or two colours and almost never any pictures. Most apartment houses and government buildings and so on were grey. Artists sometimes went and painted on tunnels, grey municipal buildings and so on, but the pictures were washed away! By the government!

• …Was art forbidden? 

Well no, but it had to be in special buildings only. Some people felt that houses was not to be painted on, except in one pale colour all over.

• Wow.. How dull.

Yes, my son. Now lets get our jackets and go pick some fruit.

Thanks to Facebook Street Art Utopia for images and story.

Did Anyone Else Notice?

What a fine bunch of things happened at the last meeting?  It started with Vice President of the San Dieguito Water District Board, Teresa Barth conducting that first meeting. Wow, what a great change.

 

A wonderful young man was recognized for his saving a life.  His response was so genuine, so charming. 

A local activist gets a promise  (through Teresa Barth) from the city manager and council vote for an ecologically sound treatment for toxic soil, bio-remediation, onto the agenda.

 

And on this day, public sentiment won the day when nine people who live along Manchester Avenue spoke without a shadow of doubt that the proposed alignment and widening of their street, Manchester Avenue, should not be aligned and widened. 

Maybe it was due to the Deputy Mayor not being there? Kidding. I suspect the mayor bending over backwards to be charming (cloying) was due to the youth attending or the campaign advice from rational sources or maybe just to appeal to the wealth in the room last Wednesday. Whatever, it was a refreshing experience overall. And Nancy Nelson on behalf of her mother, Carol Nelson, a resident of Encinitas for almost fifty years, chewing out the whole council majority and demanding an apology from Kristin Gaspar was the biggest kick of all.

Quote of the Day

"We are writing you today as professionals, academics, and policy experts who have researched, analyzed, and defended against security threats to the Internet and its infrastructure. We have devoted our careers to building security technologies, and to protecting networks, computers, and critical infrastructure against attacks of many stripes. We take security very seriously, but we fervently believe that strong computer and network security does not require Internet users to sacrifice their privacy and civil liberties."—From a letter to members of the US Congress, from "a group of prominent academics, experienced engineers, and professionals [who oppose] CISPA and other overly broad cybersecurity bills."

It's a great letter, and you can read the whole thing here.

Though not specifically a local issue, the internet is vital to be informed citizens in this age of corporate infotainment that passes for news. CISPA is going to the floor of congress this week.  It is only one of many cybersecurity bills - written through well financed lobbying interests.  Please keep this on your radar as a public service dedicated to connectivity and security in a time of divisiveness and fear. 

Today is Dues-day: Tail Wags Dog Planning

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 = Face value is rarely enough information to compare and contrast. 

Let's take roadwork as the subject.  There are all those who use the roadways including motor vehicles, bikes and pedestrians.  Some of these may be commercial, buses or visitor vehicles just passing through and using the roads.  By all measures the vehicular traffic is the most dangerous, the most polluting and the hardest on the roadway infrastructure. And car-centric changes to streets are far more expensive than those for biking or walking trails.

Everyone who uses, benefits from the roadways have a stake in these streets serving each driver's, biker's or walker's purposes.  Safe movement is the highest priority with convenience following.  (In practice accidents are often caused by an individual making that second priority overtake the first with high speed and carelessness for the sake of convenience).

The regulatory bodies are the city's traffic engineering staff and the traffic commission who report to the city council. Besides local ordinances, regulations include state and federal laws governing roadways. As witnessed by a recent state ruling to raise the speed limit on Quail Drive, logic and common sense fell victim to a ruling that basically rewards speeding.  Long story, see clip. In another instance, this time San Elijo Avenue stretch of roadway (part of Manchester) included this clip by residents who lived there virtually begging for street calming solutions for this treacherous curve. 

Seems safe for you to assume that residents pleading for safety are key.  You would be wrong. What we do not see on the surface are the dealings with large land owners, housing or commercial development projects that are officially and unofficially vetted by the city staff.  We have no way of knowing where and when such projects might be scheduled. 

Case in point this week is a street, traffic study contracted last summer for a portion of Manchester.  Despite this being a street where no residents had complained about problems, had relatively low accident counts a contract for almost $147,000 was awarded.  All the council agreed to the study despite nobody except Jerome Stocks whole-heartedly endorsing the study claiming the road was far more treacherous on his bike with his child than highway 101 or El Camino Real. *ahem*

Here are several more clips with the public speakers. All of these contribute to the deliberations.

 

One thing hasn't changed in years, these public speakers were never properly informed and they were not informed for this week's meeting either. 

 

For an edited clip of the presentation with some of Maggie's comments, click here.  For Teresa Barth's statements click here. 

These clips, the links to the the other road width, speed, curve issues here and in yesterday's post give a wealth of background to what actually hold most sway over the planning and engineering staff's priorities and council majority decisions.  It is not a one size fits all challenge or solution.  None of this happens in a vacuum and it is too simplistic to point out a few scapegoats, even the mayor or a state law.  There are solutions if our staff and council would be open to alternate solutions.  There is institutionalized preference given formula solutions and large land owners or large development projects are weighted far above and beyond reality or resident information, experiences and perceptions.

Redefining Normal

ENCINITAS: City policy threatens trees on picturesque street, residents say

The North County Times article speaks to our city's real problem (from residents point of view and from an sound ecosystem point of view) with the aggressive butchering of trees to achieve ill-defined, questionably justified planning goals and parks and recreation practices (separate but equally destructive for trees). 

This article contains a list of all of the 82 Special Status Streets that were given exemptions from mandatory widths dictated by codes.  Nothing has been allowed this exemption since 1993 or since the current city council majority has been in power.

It's time to redefine what these roadway codes are and why they take precedence over all of the people who live along these streets, like the Crest Drive neighbors and the Wotan Drive neighbors in the article who are petitioning the city.

More than a decade of relying on developer deals to run a city in a piecemeal fashion for a revenue stream or infrastructure improvements, insensitive to safe and sustainable living for the children, the  people, wildlife and the trees (always working 24/7 though far older than most residents) is blind to reality. 

This isn't a simplistic challenge.  This is a giant connect the dots with vision and intelligence.  It demands the kind of coordination between traffic, housing, public health, environmental limits, economic changes and other criteria within our General Plan.  The need for the status quo to be revisited is the very reason the update to our General Plan was needed and why discarding and / or disallowing diverse voices now is a big mistake.

This week one council agenda item will be  to discuss the study findings for widening a portion of Manchester Avenue.  Those neighbors spoke out with the same concerns of these people in the article above, so we are all connected.

image credit: 11:11

Earth Day

Spotted on Facebook, Lisa Shaffer's photo taken at yesterday's Garden Festival in Encinitas where she volunteered as a tour guide. Also, this entry:

"Congratulations to Encinitas resident, Prof. Kim Prather, along with colleagues Prof. Naomi Oreskes and Prof. Emeritus Charles Kennel, this year's recipients of the UCSD Muir Environmental Fellow award. I was one of the inaugural winners last year when the prize was established."

Looking at the UC San Diego John Muir College Website:

"In 2011 Muir College inaugurated a new tradition to honor the legacy of the college’s namesake, John Muir. Each year, the college names as Muir Environmental Fellows a selected group of individuals affiliated with UC San Diego (faculty, staff, or alumni) whose work has contributed significantly to the cause of sustainability and environmental preservation."

2011 Environmental Fellow Award Recipient

For many years, Lisa Shaffer has been a principal moving force in sustainability efforts at UC San Diego and in San Diego at large. Among a long list of awards and honors, she has been presented with the UCSD Sustainability Award; the City of San Diego Climate Champion Award; and NASA’s Exceptional Service and, Special Service medals. She has served as a board member of the Kids-vs.-Global-Warming and iMatter March; as a member of the Board of Directors for the California Center for Sustainable Energy; and for years, as the Executive Director of the Environment and Sustainability Initiative at UCSD, forerunner of the Sustainability Solutions Institute. At the Rady School of Management, Shafer teaches courses such as Corporate Ethics and Social Responsibility and serves as a resource for sustainability and green job-related outreach. She also teaches a graduate seminar at IRPS on Corporate Strategy and the Environment.

2012 Environmental Fellow Award Recipient

Kimberly Prather, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry at UC San Diego, is an internationally recognized scientist who takes her innovative research on aerosols and their impact on the environment outside the lab to school children in San Diego and to the community more broadly. Affiliated with both the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and SIO’s Center for Atmospheric Sciences, Prather is a founder and Director of the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and Environment (CAICE). Through standing partnerships that she has established with local schools such as Castle Park High School in Chula Vista and Paul Ecke Elementary School in Encinitas, she and her research group bring their instruments to K-12 classrooms to educate students about pollution and climate change and to encourage them to consider careers in science. No less committed to education at UCSD, Prather is an excellent teacher who was nominated by her students in 2009 for the UCSD Faculty Sustainability Award in recognition of her teaching which encourages students to apply the principles of air pollution, climate, and health to real world experience.

Kim spoke out at a city council meeting almost exactly one year ago about the hazard to our health with the widening of Interstate 5. Kim is the last to speak (7:10) on this clip. You are encouraged to watch the whole thing as the first 2 speakers, the Minsters, Bernard and C.J., as ever give highly cogent description of what is going on and one of Kim Prather's students precedes her speech.  It isn't hard to be very proud of the citizenry of Encinitas when people like this make such a commitment to their community.

Guess I'll be sure and check Lisa Shaffer's facebook page more regularly.