Candidates Forum Tues. 5th

Reminder

Candidates Forum
Tuesday, Sept. 5
7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Ada Harris Elementary School
1508 Windsor Rd.
Cardiff

NCT.com candidate roundup

Teresa Barth
www.barthforencinitas.com


Teresa Barth, a third-generation resident of coastal North County and longtime activist in Cardiff, said the seated City Council is out of touch.

"(The defeats) of Prop. A and Prop. C said that loud and clear," she said.

Barth, 53, serves on the Cardiff-by-the-Sea Chamber of Commerce's board of directors and is president of the Friends of the Cardiff-by-the-Sea Library. Cardiff is one of five communities in Encinitas.

Barth also serves on the Greater San Diego Resource Conservation District and the San Diego County Fish and Wildlife Advisory Commission.

Barth's face is familiar at City Hall. In 2001, she co-chaired workshops soliciting residents' ideas to create a planning document for Cardiff's six-block commercial district. Recently, she has criticized city officials and a consultant because the Cardiff Specific Plan remains incomplete.

If any meeting concerns a proposal to change the city's land-use plan, chances are Barth will attend. Changes that seek to allow more housing than called for in the general plan should be put to a vote of the people, she said.

On the fiscal front, Barth questions a city proposal to borrow $20 million to pay for capital projects.

Barth said won't hire a consultant to develop a "slick" campaign and that she won't solicit donations from political action committees.

Barth retired in 2003 after 25 years as an exhibit supervisor at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. She lives in Cardiff with her husband, Don.

Thomas Brown


If you don't know Thomas Brown, you probably know his work ---- or at least have driven on top of it.

Brown is president of Sierra Pacific West Inc., an engineering contracting company that has completed numerous jobs in the city. Most recently, the company finished nearly $3 million in improvements to Santa Fe Drive, which included construction of the city's first roundabout traffic circle. The company was based in Encinitas for years before relocating to Vista.

Brown, 57, says his experience as a contractor would be an asset to a City Council that faces ever-increasing costs for capital projects.

Brown said city staffers and engineering consultants sometimes produce "fantasy-type budgets," and that the city would benefit from his oversight of capital project costs.

On the topic of community development, Brown said, "There's always going to be controversy with growth. I think growth needs to be carefully planned, and it needs to be in moderation."

If elected to the council, Brown said, his company would not compete for city contracts while he is in office.

Brown serves on the state Contractors License Board and is chairman of the San Diego Family Center for Justice, which provides services for abused women and children. He is the San Diego chapter president of the Associated General Contractors of America and is an honorary deputy sheriff.

Brown has coached softball, sponsored Little League and soccer teams, and has supported the YMCA.

An Encinitas resident since the mid-1960s, Brown lives with his wife of 37 years. They have two grown sons.

Dan Dalager


Dan Dalager, 56, is quick to remind colleagues and constituents that he has lived in Encinitas his entire life. More than once during his first term he has stated from the dais that he remembers when the Interstate 5 corridor in Encinitas used to be a cow pasture.

Dalager says he's running again because he wants to see to completion the construction of the planned Hall property park in Cardiff.

Elected in 2002 after serving on the Parks and Recreation Commission, one of Dalager's first swing votes was to approve a playground at Moonlight Beach.

During his one-year turn as the appointed mayor, Dalager made the controversial decision to return the city-sponsored Encinitas Holiday Parade to its original title, the Encinitas Christmas Parade. Also that year, he directed city staff members to wear name tags. Recently, he successfully lobbied the National Endowment for the Arts to include Encinitas as a stop on a reading tour to support a compilation of war stories written by troops and their families.

By day, Dalager works at his family's business, Dalager's Sharpening Service, which sells and repairs outdoor power equipment. The little store on Second Street is an informal gathering place, and Dalager says constituents often stop in to discuss city business. He keeps his city business cards on the worn countertop.

He doesn't seem worried that his open support of Prop. A and Prop. C would work against him.

Dalager and his wife, Shirley, have two grown sons.

Doug Long


Doug Long's attendance record at City Council meetings is nearly spotless, even when the agendas are lean or contain no business pertaining to the Parks and Recreation Commission, which Long serves as chairman.

He says he enjoys watching the council conduct his business.

For many months, Long, 56, told a North County Times reporter he was not interested in running for the City Council, but clearly he's had a change of heart.

He said he's concerned that other challengers could disrupt the chemistry of a City Council that functions well.

"I want to keep the council on the path they've taken right now," he said. "I think I'd be a better fit."

Long and Dalager are personal friends. Both of them graduated from San Dieguito High School in 1968.

Long's plumbing business, which has sponsored youth sports teams, is about a block away from Dalager's store.

Long is a member of the Downtown Encinitas MainStreet Association's board of directors.

One year ago, Long served on a steering committee that tried to promote passage of Prop. A.

Long said he doesn't feel his support of the measure amounts to a political liability.

Long and his wife have two grown children.

Paul Martens



Paul Martens, a resident of the Leucadia community for 13 years, joins the City Council race as an outsider but an eager politician. He was a write-in candidate for the 50th Congressional District in June, although his name does not appear on candidate lists published by the registrar of voters. The registrar issued petitions for him to run as an Independent candidate in November but he never returned them, officials with the registrar said.

Martens, 48, says he is running because the City Council is dysfunctional and subservient to the staff members who control the city's day-to-day operations. He added that a council member's $897-a-month salary isn't enough to live on.

Martens said he works as a freelance photographer and accounting consultant. He said he would have to keep those jobs if elected, even if that left him less time to serve on the council.

He lives near the city's most flood-prone area, at Leucadia Boulevard and North Coast Highway 101.

He said he wonders why the city couldn't negotiate with the North County Transit District to build evaporation ponds along the nearby railway, where floodwaters could settle. A permanent flood-control system shouldn't cost $30 million, as a city consultant has estimated, he said.

During the record rains of 2005, improvements to the drainage system and emergency pumping by the city's Fire and Public Works departments kept property damage to a minimum.

"That was effective," Martens said, "but at a tremendous expenditure of money in terms of men and material to make the stopgap measures.

Martens is single and has no children.