Fog rolling in

Looks like a misty moody Halloween on the coast.

Someone call public works and tell them this sprinkler head is broken

Under the Leucadia Roadside Park sign

A New Sheriff in Town

A couple years ago, my street was repeatedly hit by auto burglars.  It was like clockwork and happened on the same weekend night for weeks.

I ran into the local sheriff's captain at a city council meeting and asking him how his department would respond. In a few dismissive words he made it clear that my neighborhood was on our own. He did give some helpful advise about getting cars in garages, not leaving anything we don't want taken left in our cars, and suggested joining a neighborhood watch program.

Since then, our city got a new captain, Sherri A. Sarro. Patch reported that our local sheriffs recently conducted an undercover operation that nabbed a suspected repeat auto burglar.

Looks like we are no longer on our own.

Obesity Concerns

At a number of recent city events I heard several people mention the obesity problem facing our kids.

Diabetes and obesity is a problem for our nation, but the problem is unevenly distributed geographically and socioeconomically. Darker colors in the map below indicate greater obesity. There are lower levels of obesity in coastal California.

Understanding mechanisms (ie causes) related to natural phenomenon is tough without access to good experimental data. Observational data are useful in helping describe patterns and identifying associations.

Correlation doesn't equal causation. Correlation can help test ideas about mechanisms, but there is nothing better than good ol' experimental data to cleanly demonstrate causation. Check out this next map. The lack of an automobile and distance to a supermarket is spatially correlated with obesity.


Maybe we should fund a study that gives people cars and see if that results in an improvement in their obesity? Automobiles could be a solution to obesity. Well, maybe not.

On the other side, I've reviewed several epidemiological studies of obesity and urban design that are based on observational associations (correlations). Even for an observational study, the conclusions that could be drawn were fairly thin, however they were exciting because they pointed toward public policies that don't require direct intervention at the patient level. However, there were still too many alternative explanations that can explain the patterns seen in those studies, that had not been strongly tested. This doesn't mean the authors were barking up the wrong tree, only that we can't yet see clearly what climbed out on a limb.

Fortunately for our local kids, the issue is less pressing than in other areas of the country. Our kids have a relatively low level of obesity. Here are some data from last year's California Healthy Kids Survey. These BMI distributions are from our local high schools.

There are lots of cool reasons, which I support, for improving our infrastructure. Doing it because we want to keep our kids from becoming obese is not as strong a justification as others.

What happened to the pension discussion?

Jerome Stocks is to the left of Jerry Brown on government union pensions

Nothing new, but now it goes viral

Excerpts from the UT:

In 2000, Muir helped form and became president of a political action committee, Encinitas Coalition of Home Owners, which donated money in the 2004 election to Bond, Councilman Jerome Stocks and a failed candidate, Alice Jacobson. Muir's participation in the group has waned, he said. His wife is still treasurer.  

Who runs ECHO if not Mark? Does ECHO have members?

Muir bristles at the suggestion that his career path was aided by political favors.  

Bristles? The whole thing looks bad. It looks no different than if Muir got his millionaire job simply because he is friends and did political favors for the council majority. He shouldn't bristle. He should prove that his rise and his wealth is in no way a response to him being a political operative for the council majority, and then after that he can go big on the bristling. 

  “That is ridiculous,” he said. “I donate to nonprofit organizations and hold fund-raisers for schools. The fact that I am engaged in the community should not keep me from becoming chief.”

The concerns are not about the charity work but that was a nice deflection response that Muir tossed out. The concerns are about his political ties. Donating to nonprofits should not get the taxpayer funded millionaire job either. Worse, being bros with the council majority should not get you the job. Even more, doing campaign work for the council should not result in favors paid on the taxpayer's dime. 

  Councilman Dan Dalager dismisses the rumors as just that.

Just like Randy Duke dismissed the charges, when the facts needed to be explained. The facts need to be explained in Muir's case because the simplest explanation is cronyism.

“We had three division chiefs in the running,” Dalager said. “I see in them competence and decency. I would be very disappointed if (Miller) didn't hire one of them.” Bond said he supports Muir because of his abilities. “He has exceptional interpersonal skills,” Bond said. “He is a cost-effective, conservative-thinking guy. He is knowledgeable of any fire situation and great organizer who moves people in the same direction.  

Bond often talks about how hands off he is with the city's adminstration and probably knows even less about the fire department than other departments. As long a Bond's memory holds out, he knows how well Muir is at organizing campaigns. Muir has been directly asked about the scope of his political operations in city council campaigns. He has not cleared the air. More on that later.

Family of Heros

Both Muirs have now been awarded leadership awards from Mike Andreen's ECR group.

Mo Muir for doing her work on the school board got Educator of the Year. Mark just got named as a hero for being a firefighter, according to Patch.

Jerome Says Voters Want a Counterbalance

Just after Jerome's re-election, he wrote a memorable blog post. It was good enough to save, which is lucky. It has since been erased from the Red County Blog.

Jerome was probably responding to the dizzying astonishment that the voters would select both Jerome AND Maggie to represent their interests. Those are two extremely different types of candidates.

Jerome wrote:

A wise coffee vendor in Cardiff summed it up best for me when she said that she liked our current council, and wanted it to stay the same. She said she feels that way because while we have a common-sense majority basically having the final word, there's the "other approach" represented as well. And although she doesn't want the alternative voice to go away, she doesn't want it to be in the majority either.

and concluded,

I think that line of reasoning may help explain why the voters rejected all of the challengers--even in this year of change--and, instead returned the proven leaders of a reasoned and balanced council which has served our city so well these past six years.

Some of the council majority have been saying the open seat "is not Maggie's seat." OK, and it is not the council's seat. The seat ultimately belongs to the voters. Jerome Stocks believes the voters want that seat to be held by someone who will provide a balance against his position.

That means Jerome won't be supporting Alice or Muir, unless he wants to go against the will of the voters.

FOOD

Three stories from Encinitas Patch about food:

Leucadia Woman to Launch Encinitas Food Swap

Community Resource Center in Serious Need of Food Donations

The Kebab Shop Opens in Encinitas

Isn't odd how food is everywhere yet so many people go hungry?

Time for a Change

From the mailbox,

It is time to start charging people for parking and tearing out parking spaces all together. We should be using parking spaces for people, not cars. Please share these links with your readers. W.O.

http://www.good.is/post/park-or-parking-rethinking-urban-designs/
Cities today have ballooned into near-uncontrollable masses of cement and cluster. If you live in a car-centric metropolis of some significant population, you know what I'm talking about (if not, then you're one of the lucky ones). The question is clear: What do we do about cities that are becoming unlivable?
Grist has a post that discusses the issues of the modern city, what is currently being done, and what can be done to curb these horrid conditions. Here's an excerpt:

The world’s cities are facing unprecedented challenges. In Mexico City, Tehran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Beijing, and hundreds of other cities, the air is no longer safe to breathe. In some cities the air is so polluted that breathing is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Respiratory illnesses are rampant. In many places, the number of hours commuters spend sitting in traffic-congested streets and highways climbs higher each year, raising frustration levels. In response to these conditions, we are seeing the emergence of a new urbanism, a planning philosophy that environmentalist Francesca Lyman says “seeks to revive the traditional city planning of an era when cities were designed around human beings instead of automobiles.”

Maybe the time for traditional urbanism has come to an end. Maybe cities should focus less on industrialization and commercial development in favor of making themselves more habitable for their greatest resource: their inhabitants. And if that means more parks and less parking lots, why not?
 

Hygeia House

Sweet new house on Hygeia.

Holy Guacamole! So Many Council Applicants

From the mailbox:

People who applied for the council vacancy.

Alan Lerchbacker Cardiff, CA 92007

David Drielsma Cardiff, CA 92007

Robert H. Campbell Encinitas, CA 92024

Anthony Brandenburg Encinitas, 92024

Joel King Encinitas, CA 92024

Robert Dale Schneider Encinitas, CA 92024

Lisa R. Shaffer Encinitas, CA 92024

Kent Mesplay Encinitas, CA

Ken Harrison Cardiff by the Sea, 92007

Alice Jacobson Encinitas

Tony Kranz Encinitas

Mark Muir Encinitas, CA

Joann Hoffman Encinitas

Dave Clark Cardiff by the Sea

A neurotic Encinitas welcomes Wal Mart to town

With the news that infamous big box chain Wal*Mart is going to move into the former Home Depot Expo building we can now finally declare the city of Encinitas to be a neurotic mess.

One of the biggest cultural and economic changes to ever happen in the history of Encinitas was the complete rezone of the "New Encinitas" area from agriculture to the Target shopping center.

Target changed all of our lives forever. It shifted the El Camino emphasis away from Wiegand Plaza. Leucadia Blvd now connects all the way through. We got a spiffy golf course. We got Barnes and Noble, Stater Bros, places to eat, all kinds of stuff!

The Target center has been a big success despite the boring facades and some waste of space. Target just did a big remodel and if you've been there lately you've seen it was a success and the store is rocking.

Linens and Things didn't make it and remains vacant, but let's face it, that store was pointless.

The difference between Target and Wal*Mart may just be different marketing and merchandising approaches, but Target achieves a level of yuppie class that Wal*Mart just doesn't have.

Wal*Mart moving into town right across from Target is like getting a new fat drunk neighbor move onto your street who immediately lets the lawn die and works on that crappy old van in the driveway all the time and never wears a shirt.

Now, all the wannabee free market libertarians are tripping over themselves to defend Wal*Mart's right to exist and they would be correct, if only they would make the same free market arguments about strip clubs, adult book stores and marijuana dispensers in Encinitas.

Allowing Wal*Mart into a town that previously made a huge culture shift in building Target, borrowing $20 million for a classy library, forever changed downtown Hwy 101 with Pacific Station and Whole Foods, a city which is trying to dramatically rezone the El Camino Real commercial corridor , a city that does all these types of things and then welcomes a thing like Wal*Mart to slip in through the backdoor, these are actions of a town with no real direction, vision or leadership.

The Expo space should have become a multiplex movie theater. Our town of over 60,000 people want it, the theater chains were interested and it wouldn't have taken much for city leaders to encourage the Home Depot property owners to go in that direction.

Total FAIL.

Bizarre rant by Encinitas city council member appears in Canada

Encinitas city council dude Jerome Stocks wrote an editorial for The Candadian for some reason. And by editorial we mean it's mostly drunken angry blog post (we should know) that suggest Obama call former California governor Pete Wilson.
Check it out click me
Also, click around "The Canadian" website www.agoracosmopolitan.com
The front page is mish mash of random and weird articles with an emphasis on UFO's and extraterrestrials.