Made in Encinitas

Do we have much of an  industrial (manufacturing, commercial, or agricultural) base in Encinitas, beyond the service and retail industry? Do we have jobs or job centers here in Encinitas to sustain us locally?

No Calaway, Heidelberg Engineering, Qualcom, ViaSat.

Here is a list of local makers of things. What else do we produce, here in Encinitas?

B. Elliot Sierra Padre Mill Co. 555 N. Vulcan Ave. Zip 92024 Phone 760-753-5368	Bill Iwaisako Print & Copy House 523 Encinitas Blvd., Ste. 104-6 Zip 92024 Phone 760-632-8911	Cynthia Blodgett Blodgett Glass, Inc. 1086 Hygeia Ave. Zip 92024 Phone 760-942-2002	Donnie Valentine T & M Plumbing Enterprises, LLC 132 N. El Camino Real Zip 92024 Phone 760-230-1069
James Shatto Shatto's Shirts 696 Hwy. 101 Zip 92024 Phone 760-436-5542	John W. Concrad Falcon Co. 3435 Jasmine Crest Zip 92024 Phone 858-759-6746	Max F. Afcari Master Plating 1709 Hill Top Ln. Zip 92024 Phone 760-943-1482	Michael Seewald Award Custom Framing 835 N. Vulcan Ave. Zip 92024 Phone 760-633-1351
Patricia Brady Ipanema P.O. Box 230746 Zip 92023 Phone 858-759-5015	Robert Bahne Fins Unlimited 585 Westlake St. Zip 92024 Phone 760-753-8847	Scott Clayton Fine Line Screenprinting 740 N. Hwy. 101 Zip 92024 Phone 760-943-1701	Sherrie Cook Accent Packaging 1042 N. El Camino Real, Ste. B225 Zip 92024 Phone 760-632-5880
T. Wragg Wragg, Inc. 899 Passiflora Ave. Zip 92024 Phone 760-943-0750	William L. Bahne Jr. Bahne & Co. P.O. Box 230326 Zip 92023 Phone 760-753-0255

Poinsettia Time!

Leucadia 101 Mixer Dec 2

You Are Invited to a

Leucadia 101 Main Street Mixer

Find out what’s new in Leucadia!

When: December 2, 2010

Time: 5 - 7:30 pm

Where: JamRoc101 Caribbean Grill,

101 Coast Hwy 101

Enjoy Their Great Caribbean Cuisine – Ya Mon!

Happy Hour Prices for Appetizers & Beverages

Please RSVP by Nov. 29th 760-436-2320

There is no charge to attend!

Thankful

What are thankful for on this day?

Lessons from the State for Encinitas

Selling Assets the Wrong Way

Suppose a grinning real estate agent knocks on your door with a proposal.  He will buy your home (which you own free and clear) for a fair price if, in return, you promise to spend all the proceeds within one year and agree to rent back your property over the next 20 years for an amount that exceeds what you were paid.  At the end of 20 years you will have to arrange a new rental agreement or become homeless.

At this point most property owners would recognize a scam and some might even summon the family pit bull to make sure that the slick salesman beats a hasty retreat. 

However, what is an obvious scam to average taxpayers is called sound public policy by Sacramento politicians.

The Schwarzenegger administration plans to sell 24 state buildings, including the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles, to raise $1.2 billion to help offset the budget deficit.  If these were surplus properties for which the state had no further use, taxpayers would be cheering.  Indeed, we’ve consistently argued that the state’s real estate portfolio has been mismanaged and offloading surplus property should be vigorously pursued.  There is, for example, no reason whatsoever for the state owning a golf course which could be better managed in the private sector.

But, sadly, this is not the case with the current proposal.  These are facilities that are being used and are important enough that the state is agreeing to lease back these properties for the next 20 years.  Here is how this pencils out according to the Legislative Analyst's Office:  The transaction amounts to borrowing at 10% interest over the next 35 years, an amount much more than the state pays for bonds.

Indeed, the long term financial commitment – in the form of a 20 year lease – is a stark admission that the subject property is not surplus.  Thus we have the worst of all worlds from the perspective of fiscal prudence:    All downside and no upside (other than a quick infusion of cash that will be quickly squandered by the same political elites who are more focused on the debate over the official state rock than they are with balancing the budget).

This deal also runs contrary to the spirit of the law which requires voter approval of long term financial commitments.  But the forces behind this scam know that voters would never agree to so burden the next generation of Californians which is why they are jamming through this sale that does nothing to fix the state’s addiction to overspending and, in fact, makes it worse.

Only in Sacramento does this make sense.  Unemployment is up, personal income is down and so, too, is revenue to government.  The politician’s response is to use tricks to avoid reality and the obvious need to cut back on spending in these times of economic crisis.  Their goal is preserve the government status quo, regardless of how much it hurts already beleaguered taxpayers.

Ironically, the only two voices of reason that are coming from Sacramento on this issue are two officials affiliated with the political party not renowned for fiscal prudence.  State Controller John Chiang and Treasurer Bill Lockyer, both Democrats, have blistered the real estate agreement as bad for taxpayers.  Both serve on the Public Works Board, which granted final approval of the arrangement, but were outvoted by three Schwarzenegger appointees.

Taxpayers will be burdened with decades of lease payments, said Lockyer, while Chiang called the property sale and lease back another budget gimmick that pushes the state's fiscal challenges down the road.  A spokesman for the one of the firms involved in financing the deal has been quoted as saying, "We're happy we came out on top."

The firms involved in this horrible deal did in fact come out on top.  But the taxpayers came out on the bottom.

Now, where is the dog when we need him?

Jon Coupla (www.hjta.com)

City Hall Gets Touchy Feely

It is kinda funny how most of the council thinks that the government shouldn't be involved in telling developers what their developments should look like and then at the General Plan Workshop the attendants are asked how they "feel" about a bunch of photos of different street frontages. A lot of time was spent on that.

At the meeting, staff said the images wouldn't be online so we had to come up with our own set.

"How do you feel when you see?"

1.

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6.

More Trees Get the Chop

A set of trees along Gardenview, near Leucadia Blvd. are tagged for elimination.

The city writes:
12 London Plane Trees (Platanus acerifolia) Reason for Removal: the trees are frequently infested with  several common diseases and pests of Platanus including Sycamore Anthracnose, Powdery Mildew, Sycamore Scale, and Sycamore Leaf Mites.   The trees continue to significantly decline.  Location: the west side Gardenview Road, between Via Cantebria and Leucadia Blvd.   

A local arborist responds:
The reasons cited in the removal list hardly seem sufficient as that species is noted to have the "problems" cited in the list. Those so called problems rarely lead to a significant decline in tree vigor. It is another case of [the city] not really knowing what to do with the tree population.

Note: Most of those tagged trees hardly look like they are dead, almost dead, or certain to die or certain to have faults.

Read more about the city's tree management contract here and here.

PV Fundraiser

From the in box:

Come join us at a "Rally for a Pacific View Cultural Arts Center" Saturday, Nov 20th at 7:30 pm; donation is $7.

Now that the Encinitas City Council has voted unanimously not to change the zoning/public/semi-public usage for Pacific View Elementary School, the property most-likely will not be developed for residential use. This means the community has a shot at giving it a second life as a downtown Encinitas cultural art center for the 101 Artist's Colony that has been searching for a permanent location. Join us for an 'Art Rally' at the Elks Lodge, 1393 Windsor Drive, Cardiff. Nov. 20th, 7:30 PM.
   
The 101 Artists Colony's favorite band, Rocket Science,  will be playing and the dance floor will be wide open. There will be some discussion about how to proceed with a proposal to the Encinitas Union School District to lease the school out and create an income stream for the school district, but, for the most part we will be just kickin' up our heels before we start the hard work of making this dream a reality. For more info call Danny at 944-6027.

We believe any future project on the Pacific View site should have four guiding principles:

1.       Ongoing education; including art and nutrition along with our children’s access to the site.
2.       Historic Preservation and adaptive re-use of the existing buildings.
3.       That it remain in a public use; zoned public/semi-public.
4.       That it provide revenue to the EUSD and/or Encinitas Education Foundation for the benefit of our schools

 CONTACT: DANNY SALZHANDLER 760 944-6027

Caltrans to Leucadia: Don't Send Regional Traffic to the I5

Dated March 2010, Caltrans sent this letter to the City.

Update at Patch: Council moves forward. According to patch the new contract approved was for work to be done in response to Caltrans and Carlsbad. Did they say why it has taken over 8 months to decide to do this?

Where do you stand with the General Plan?

Encinitas General Plan Workshop Tuesday, Nov. 16 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Senior and Community Center. 1140 Oakcrest Park Dr

Be there, tell your friends, bring your kids and dogs (well, maybe not). But be there.

more info: www.encinitas2035.info

Post meeting update: Article by Patch Here

CPRA Doesn't Apply to the City

The city released the final pavement management report. The city has been underfunding streets work.

During the summer of 2010, city staff denied access to the report and claimed that the report was not finalized (which doesn't exempt documents from disclosure anyways).

A lawsuit was filed to gain access to the draft (according to staff) document and to the correspondence between the city and the consultant about the report.

The report was subsequently released and the final report was dated March 2010.

The lawsuit continues to gain access to the draft document (or an explanation of how a draft can exist when the final has already been produced) and correspondence with the consultant, which are likely to demonstrate that the city was not being honest about the condition of the report. Instead of addressing the issues of the case it looks like the city's strategy is to obfuscate. Here is the response to the city:

Petitioner and Plaintiff (“Cummins”) brings this motion to strike portions of Respondent and Defendant City of Encinitas’ (“City”) Answer to Cummins’ Verified Petition for Writ of Mandate and Declaratory Relief (“Petition”) to stop the City from jerking this Court and the parties around any further. For example, the City admits it is a municipal corporation but denies that it is subject to the California Public Records Act applicable by law to all cities in California (Government Code § 6250, et seq., “CPRA”). The City unqualifiedly denies that it received a demand for records then denies the authenticity of the responses from City employees to the CPRA demand.

In eleven instances, the City denies (usually on lack of information and belief) verified allegations as to matters which are presumably within its knowledge or matters of public records. Such sham answers should be stricken.

It's funny that the city denies the records requests, as the requests were discussed openly in front of the council by Tony Kranz. All the filings can be found at the bottom of this post.

People have been asking me for an update and how to help. Well, this is the update and how to help? Easy, write letters that suggest the council takes on a sunshine ordinance that truly makes open government a policy that is difficult for staff and the council to selectively ignore. If that doesn't work, let me know if you're ready to get signatures for an initiative. We could piggy-back a couple initiatives if that's what we have to do.

Streetscape: 11 months later

 On next week's council agenda the streetscape planning contracts will be considered for extension and expansion. See here. Below are excerpts.

On January13 2010 City Council directed staff to move forward with
Alternative 4A as the preferred alternative for the North Coast Highway 101 Streetscape Project and to initiate the required discretionary permit process Plan 4A consists primarily of roundabouts reverse angle and parallel parking and at hree lane road configuration with one northbound lane and two southbound lanes City Council also directed staff to further explore alternative phasing options for the North 101 Streetscape Project As part of the original scope o f work the detailed design and ultimate construction of the first phase was designated from A Street to North Court However CityCouncildirectedstafftoexplorethefeasibilityofextendingcertainelementsand return with are fined Phase1 that focuses on walkability the tree canopy and traffic calming measures Staff will present the phasing options and feasibility analysis to the City Council on December15 2010

Authorization for a contract amendment 4 with MWPeltz Associates for additional traffic analysis in an amount not toexceed 17570 and authorization t o enter into a separate contract with AlternateStreetDesign PA in an amount not toexceed 19810 for refined traffic analysis and preliminary design work regarding the North Coast Highway 101
StreetscapeProject

Any deadlines in the contract?

An application to amend the GeneralPlan GP LocalCoastalProgram LCP andNorth101 CorridorSpecificPlan N101SP Case No 10036GPALCPAN101SPA was also filed on March 15 2010 given the proposed three lane configuration for Plan4A  North Coast Highway 101 is classified as a Major Arterial in the Circulation Element of the CityofEncinitas General Plan which is d escribed as a four lane divided roadway Additionally the N101 SP provides cross sections and design recommendations for North Coast Highway101which depict a four lane configuration and a righ t of way width of 90 feet TheGeneral Plan and the N101S Pare components of the Local Coastal Program The amendments as requested wil l specify via text that a Major Roadway may be authorized as a three lane road as long as the operational characteristics are adequate Both discretionary permit applications including project plans and traffic report were distributed to internal City departments and to the State of California Department of Transportation Caltrans North County Transit District NCTD and City of Carlsbad for review and to provide comments Staff received comments from Caltrans and the City of Carlsbad Based on the complexity of  comments received additional analysis is required to adequately facilitate responses to comments received.

Carlsbad sent us the letters from Carlsbad (from April 2010) and the July response from Encinitas. It took just a few minutes to get the letters, which were digitized and obviously archived in a well organized and easily accessible location. They didn't make me drive to city hall. It is rare in the City of Encinitas to ask for and get a file immediately.  I sent an email to the Encinitas Planning department for the same and the Caltrans correspondence Wednesday evening. Encinitas City Hall was closed today.

I've asked Carlsbad staff for  documents several times over the years. There is a qualitative difference in the customer service orientation and open nature of Carlsbad city hall when contrasted with Encinitas. KC.

Candidate Pledge Revisited

From the in box:

Free Speech vs. Fair Elections - Round one

Free societies are messy. They allow me to worship the aqua-Buddha as my God. They allow you to call me an idiot for doing so. They allow a Yemeni friend to send me a birthday present, and they almost allowed one of his countrymen to send us a bomb. They allow you to vote for the candidate of your choice, and they allow me to influence that choice by masquerading as someone you should choose. This is the case with the latest set of slate mailers delivered in a flurry over the last month to your doorstep. Democrat? Jerry Brown supporter? For Prop. 19? Against Prop. 23? We've got the candidates for you! Republican? Meg Whitman supporter? Against Prop. 19? For Prop. 23? We've got your ticket as well! Surprise! They're the same candidates! Just take this mailer with you to the polls and punch the holes knowing that you're doing the right thing. Who needs a hanging chad when I can get you to punch the right hole without your even knowing it?

The courts have ruled that this type of political activity is protected by the 1st amendment as an exercise of free speech. Fair enough. On the other hand, no one would argue that this promotes fair elections. In fact, anecdotal reports of these mailers in trash bins next to the polling booths suggest that our elections have already been distorted by these mailers. So what to do? We don't live in Singapore, although some may wish we did. In my view, the only antidote to bad free speech is good free speech. So, here's a proposal. 

On the city website, in a section titled "Encinitas Campaign Practices",  let's publish the following 3-item  campaign pledge:
1) I will not allow my name to appear on campaign material which endorses candidates or ballot initiatives with which I do not agree, or whose content I have no knowledge of.
2) I will publicly identify the amount and sources of financing for campaign material on my behalf within 24 hours of the distribution of that material.
3) If I or my supporters publicly attack my opponent's character or conduct, I will either provide supporting evidence for any charges on a campaign website within 24 hours of the attack, or disavow the legitimacy of the attack. I will also allow my opponent to post a response to the attack on my campaign website.

At the start of each election, organizations such as the North County Times,  the Union-Tribune, The Coast News, The Encinitas Tax Payers Association, and The Leucadia Blog can ask each candidate whether they will take or decline the pledge. Everything is voluntary - no arm-twisting. You either take the pledge or you don't. At the least, it will save a tree, and at best it might save an election.

Tough Love



This rewrite was suggested by the Bearded Dragon:

As a candidate or election participant (PAC or major contributor):

1. I shall conduct my campaign for City office openly and fairly. I will not misrepresent, distort, or otherwise falsify the facts in any of my communications nor approve of such tactics by others. Further, I will be prepared to provide supporting evidence for all statements made on my behalf.

2. I shall clearly identify myself, or my campaign committee(s), as the sender of all of all campaign communications. The individual(s) responsible for approving and funding the content of the communications will be clearly identified.

3. I shall openly discuss the issues and participate in fair debate with respect to my views and qualifications. I will focus on the issues in all statements, debates, advertisements, and press releases, and other communications.

4. I will formally request all advocacy groups and PACs--special interests, campaign contributors, or any individual--to respect my dedication to this pledge and to refrain from making independent expenditures on materials which involve unsubstantiated negative or wholly personal attacks on my opponents.

5. Should it be discovered that false or misleading statements have been made in my name, I will issue a retraction and apology in a timely fashion. Any retraction of a false representation will be conspicuous and in the same manner as the initial statement was made. If an third party unauthorized by me has paid for such a breach of this pledge, I promise to immediately and publicly denounce any such activity and will help to identify the responsible parties.

6. I will only accept financial support for my campaign from residents of the City of Encinitas. I will use only unpaid, volunteer campaign workers and canvassers to place signs and go door-to-door. While I welcome a statement of support from any organization, I will reject any offer of financial, logistical, mass mailing, or ground support from any and all non-profit service organizations.

7. I will use local business for all my campaign materials

8. I will not participate in slate mailers. I shall publicly repudiate any and all support derived from any individual or group whose activities would violate this Fair Campaign Pledge.

9. To further public discussion of the issues I will publish all of my mass communications to the (yet-to-be-established) Encinitas campaign clearinghouse website for information and debate for the candidates’ campaigns. I will conspicuously note in all my mass communications that I am participating in the EFC Pledge and will conspicuously display the specific EFP website address on all mass communications where my opponents and I may opt to discuss or respond to each mailer, video, or other mass communications.

10. I will help any and all of my opponents respond to violations of the EFC Pledge by helping them to publish a response, if they desire, by sharing up to 35% of the space/time of my mailings (or other communications) to allow my opponents to response to any attacks until the response has reached an equivalently sized audience as offending communications.

See Also: Campaign Pledge

Pacific View Not Rezoned

Last night the council voted 4-0 against rezoning Pacific View to high density residential. EUSD could have sold off Pacific View and used the money for their general fund.

No worries. The EUSD won a vote in the election that allows them to float $44 million in bonds for a shopping spree. The payments won't be due until the next generation.

Read More at the UT

Which Option is Best for Leucadia?

Vote on the UT website

Groovy new building planned for Leucadia coast hwy

Stoked to see they are keeping those impressive twin palm trees.
Read about it via Encinitas Patch: Panaderia Planned for Vacant Lot in Leucadia

Stone Steps Contest Tribute Video

Leucadia gets new Bott's Dots!

Okay, this is nerdy, but driving down the Leucadia 101 at night is actually much nicer with our new Bott's dots. Thanks Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts!

Elections are the democratic pivot (not war)

The purpose of proposing an Encinitas Fair Campaign (EFC) Pledge is to make all aware of the city’s desire for more useful and comfortable campaigns. Voluntary campaign pledges come in many forms. What is below is a place to start. Please suggest edits and additions.

The Draft City of Encinitas Fair Campaign Pledge

As a candidate or election participant (PAC or major contributor) I shall:

1.I shall conduct my campaign for city office openly and fairly. I will not misrepresent, distort, or otherwise falsify the facts in any of my communications.

2.I shall discuss the issues and participate in fair debate with respect to my views and qualifications. I will focus on the issues in all statements, debates, advertisements, and press releases, and other communications.

3.I shall not engage in, or permit, the unfair representation of the character of my opponents; nor shall I engage in unwarranted invasions of personal privacy unrelated to campaign issues.

4.I shall not, at any time, use or permit the use of any campaign material or advertisement that misrepresents, distorts, or otherwise falsifies the facts regarding any candidate or the candidate’s position on issues.

5. I will at all times be prepared to provide supporting evidence for statements I have made, and will issue a retraction and apology, in a timely fashion, should I find that I have been in error. Any retraction will be conspicuous and in the same manner as the initial statement was made.

6. I shall clearly identify myself, or my campaign committee(s), as the sender of all of my campaign communications. The person(s) responsible for approving and funding the content of the communications will be identified.

7. I will not condone personal attacks in my campaign. I will not discuss during the campaign or issue any statement or communication whatsoever discussing my opponent's family, children, race, religion, personal associations, or sex. I will not discuss or issue any statement or communication related to my family, children, race, religion, personal associations, or sex.

8. I will formally request all local advocacy groups and PACs--special interests, campaign contributors, or any other--to not make independent expenditures that involve negative or personal attacks on my opponents, and I promise to immediately and publicly denounce any of this activity if it occurs.

9. I will help my opponents respond to violations of the EFC Pledge by helping them to publish a response, if they desire, by sharing up to 35% of the space/time of my mailings (or other communications) to allow my opponents to response to any attacks until the response has reached an equivalently sized audience as offending communications.

10. I shall publicly repudiate support derived from any individual or group whose activities would violate this Fair Cam­paign Pledge.

11. I will not participate in slate mailers.

12. I will take responsibility for managing the actions of my campaign teams.

13. To further public discussion of the issues a website will be provided as a clearinghouse of information and debate for the candidates’ campaigns. I will publish all of my mass communications to this website. I will conspicuously note in all my mass communications that I am participating in the EFC Pledge and give the specific EFP website address where my opponents and I may opt to discuss or respond to each mailer, video, or robocall (mass communications).

14. I will not tie nonprofit organizations into my mass communications.

15. I agree to participate in regular private meetings with the other candidates to discuss campaign issues.

16. I will recognize that no candidate or campaign will be without flaws.

I’d just say this is mostly crazy talk, but there are pledges out there that contain most of the elements listed above. Please suggest edits and additions.

Moderation rules will be applied to this post. Only comments that are constructive will be retained. Do not rehash the last election in this thread.

Election Roundup

Encinitas mayor voted out of office

You know, I always like Dan Dalager as a person and enjoyed talking with him. But he drove me crazy with the way he tried to achieve things. I think he made things harder than they had to be sometimes. It was hard to blog about him sometimes because I always liked him growing up. I wonder what he will do now?

Encinitas City Council, two seats open

Unofficial Results with all precincts reporting

• Kristin Gaspar, 8095 votes, 28.73 percent

• Teresa Barth, 7292 votes, 25.88 percent

• Tony Kranz, 6419 votes, 22.78 percent

• Dan Dalager, 6368 votes, 22.6 percent

A lot of people are having a panic attack about Kristin Gaspar sweeping into a city council seat out of nowhere. Cynics say she is a puppet with no real ideas of her own. It is astounding she got over 8,000 votes. I mean, that is pretty epic.

I say give Kristin a chance to let us get to know her. Because now it is real. Now she is an actual city council person and that comes with serious responsibilities. The big money and prestiges people and groups that backed her, they better hope they bet on the right horse, because if she does poorly it reflects poorly on them. And after that ugly campaign a lot of people in this town are not willing to cut her any slack. I personally believe she will prove to be more of an independent thinker than people believe. Some people say she will just do what her husband tells her to. Those people have never been married.

In a weird way she is like Obama, coming in full of hope and promise. Now Obama has gray hair and has to deal with crazy people screaming him at 24/7. Welcome to your new life Kristin!

The Leucadia Blog will give you a fair shake (remember the anonymous commenters are a whole separate deal) but we are taking to heart that you reminded us again and again that you are a CFO who can make responsible money decisions. Plus, you like comic book superheroes which is a-okay with me. Good to see geeks and nerds infiltrating mainstream society

Teresa Barth: No good deed goes unpunsihed. Face it mudslingers, Teresa is a really good council person and your disturbing and low class smear campaign failed. Your bizarre lies about Teresa have put your golden girl Gaspar in a tough position (like mistrust and now Gaspar can never attend an important conference due to hypocrisy over using the city credit card). Congrats to Teresa on her second term and taking the high road this summer.

Tony Kranz: Tony is a cool cat and has lots of contributions to make to the city over the long run. The whole Obama is Hitler sign guy probably did nothing to harm Tony's run, but it sure was weird and lame and distracted from important Encinitas issues.

Hall Park: So, Gaspar was elected to build the Hall Park. Great! Time to create a solid and realistic financial plan that doesn't involve a ponzi scheme or raising taxes. The city can't hide behind it's phantom NIMBY opposition anymore. This will be interesting to watch.

Billionaires Fail to buy California: Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina you both suck.

Prop 19 Fail: I knew Prop 19 was doomed when a stoner kid who just moved to Leucadia from Poway came into my store on Monday and tried to sell me a bag of weed. I asked him if he was looking forward to voting yes on Prop 19. His response, "Whatcha' you talking about dawg?"

Republicans retake House: Thank god Pelosi is no longer speaker of the house so now I don't have to listen to those fat old grumpy retired city workers that hang out in the Swamis parking lot complain about her anymore. Man, dudes of a certain age really have a creepy obsession with Pelosi. Please never speak of her again and try to enjoy your pension for once dudes. Go see your grandkids you fat lazy slobs. And try wearing a clean shirt for once. That VG's coffee stain has been there all year.

And, John Boehner cried not out of joy but out of fear. Because it was easy to snipe at Obama from the sidelines day in and day out. Now he has to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. And he has no plan and now has an impatient unemployed American public as a monkey on his back. Have fun with that Boehner!

The Leucadia Blog: I started this blog in 2005 because I was pissed off about the redevelopment district scam. Since then the blog has become a weird part of my life. I get a lot of grief about this blog. A lot of it is because the internet still scares some people. Interested parties who once tried to pretend the blog didn't exist now use the anonymous comments feature to try to push their agendas. I'm not sure just how effective these agent provocateurs are, personally I think they are just spinning their wheels. The mainstream press even acknowledges the blog from time to time. I just want everyone to know that this blog is a hobby, Kevin and I don't make money off it. In fact it's a pretty heavy time suck. We will keep it going though and should probably upgrade to the new Blogger platform soon.

Encinitas poised to elect nerd girl

Yes, that is Kristin and Paul Gaspar in the above photo (swiped from the North County Times website).

Well, I am a pretty big comic book fan so maybe this is good? Or is this some crazy Tea Party thing? Anyway, it's looking like Gaspar is going to be our newest city council member. Fun times ahead?

Our town on the brink

Whatever the election results turn out to be for our beloved little town I would like to put out a call for civility for all everyone in the community to embrace.

What an ugly, ugly mess this election run was. I mean, just gross and low class.

The sad thing is that most of the players involved are parents and grandparents. Yet, the behavior was despicable. The lying, the backstabbing, the anonymous comments and impersonations of candidates on the blogs. All very disturbing.

The deceptive mailers, the half truths and flat out lies were evil and immoral (they may have worked too which is truly depressing).

It has to stop. We can't let this be the path of Encinitas politics. We have to be better than this. The seething anger in this country towards anyone who disagrees or is different, it's seeping into our sleepy little beach town and it's going to destroy us.

Everyone take a deep breath, have a nice dinner, enjoy your family, take a hot shower to wash the filth out of your hair and get a good night's sleep. Let's start over in the morning.

We can all be better than this.

And now, watch this...

I shall think of this video as the caboose on this year's crazy train.
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