Backstreet Leucadia

Bucks for Beds

The Fabulous Baking Bonanza to Support Bucks for Beds! 

Moonlight Beach, Sunday.

Leucadia Kids for Peace

click to enlarge

Fortress NCTD

Afraid that the Leucadia Town Council might conduct a covert de-blightification mission, the NCTD threw out a burst of cover fire across Leucadia while nctd crews fortified the LTC target.

Making the worse intersection along the coast even uglier, NCTD fenced in one of its utility boxes. East Berlin style. Coincidentally, the Leucadia Town Council had been seeking permission to have an artist paint the box.

At some point it is time for Jerome Stocks to come out and explain to the people of Leucadia that NCTD will never give into greasy rats and drug addicts and that they just don't give crap.

You are welcome ;)

KPBS.org Encinitas Evolves Without A Redevelopment Agency

"Cities around San Diego County face losing their dream projects if the Governor eliminates redevelopment agencies to help balance the state budget. But the city of Encinitas is one city in the region that has never had a redevelopment agency."

*the Leucadia Blog was founded in 2005 to defeat the proposed Redevelopment Agency and protect your private property from the government using eminent domain and selling your seized property to developers.

And it worked!

Public Art Comments Requested: Swamis Head

Local woodcarver Tim Richards, has been  given the green light to carve away at the 10 foot tall Torrey Pines stump at Swamis park (WITHOUT GOING THROUGH A NORMAL ART REVIEW PROCESS) . The Leucadia Blog loves the idea. We realize that we only represent the vast majority of the public and not everyone, so we think the project can be improved by letting the public comment on the project prior to installation/creation.

 How?

• The public might have some ideas on how to improve the concept. Including those comments in the decision making during execution can make the final piece true public art. Here's an example, the Rapa Nui statues apparently had eyes that made the statues more striking. If there are artists who would be willing to craft some eyes, Tim Richards just might decide to add the eyes to the sculpture!  ewwwh, collaborations among local artists?  This is the town for that!
  
• If the public thinks the whole thing doesn't fit in with the sensibilities of the site, its better to know that before, rather than after the thing is carved (or approved... but we'll work on lessons forgotten next time).
  
• This thing is not being funded by the taxpayer, so this is a different sort of animal, but there are opportunity costs to consider. Maybe there is a grossly overlooked concept that we missed.
  
• Public art forced on the public, in a publicly owned place, using public resources seem to be a prefect place for the government to set the best example of how to include the public in the decision making process. That is why someone posted a "think first" poster on the tree. The city again approved prominent art without putting the concept on display, like this.      Maybe next time. 

We can all help to increase the sense of shared public ownership of this public asset. Public art should have some connection to the public if it is to be as meaningful as it can be. We are ready to give Tim Richard's an orchid for his desire to get public feedback before he starts carving on March 14th. 

Photo: Courtesy of Tim Richards.

We know that few people will care enough to comment, but expect that almost all will appreciate Tim's willingness to include the public. Especially those who consider Swamis their real home. Please leave your comments here (www.theleucadiablog.com) or email them to leucadiablog@gmail.com. We'll pass them on to Tim.

Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrillas attacked this roundabout, leaving behind new landscaping where there had been dirt.

Jerome Calls Out Houlihan

Over at SD Rostra Jerome is back to blogging. Most of his blogging is either boring, patting himself on the back, or inane, but Jerome decided to spice it up and call out his arch-nemesis Maggie Houlihan.

Jerome pulls out a quote from a NCTimes op-ed that ran prior to transnet's passage.

“…It’s important to note that the billions of TransNet dollars identified for highway and transit construction will be matched dollar for dollar with federal and state funding. Above the merge, Interstate 5 will be widened to 14 lanes…”

Houlihan was an author of the op-ed.

Jerome spikes, "My goodness how times and some opinions may have changed…" 

Maggie endorsed TransNet which clearly included a plan for widening the I5. That plan was ratified by the voters (pushed by a government sponsored propaganda blitzkrieg to get it to pass). Even so, not everyone supported TransNet. Not everyone had to go along to get along.

The County Sup's Position

"If the plan is meant to target congestion, it's focusing too much on public transportation," said county Supervisor Dianne Jacob. "(Congestion's) not in our transit system, it's not in our trolleys. It's on our freeways … . The plan as it stands now is flawed."

Three of the five county supervisors, Jacob, Bill Horn and Pam Slater-Price, oppose the tax-extension plan and have said that 50 percent of the money should be directed at freeways, 33 percent should go to local roads and the rest should go to public transportation.

Regardless of the plan implemented within a measure like TransNet, it was a stupid and unethical move to vote in a 40 year transportation plan, debt monster and taxation program. 40 years. There's no reason to have done a 40 year program except to be able to indebt the future for benefits we don't want to pay for now and to keep the public from becoming savvy SANDAG debt & lack of ability to deliver TransNet promises.

Lesson for voters. 1) No more super long tax/bond measures. Make SANDAG come back every 7 years with an update and evidence of efficient results that the current voters are happy with. 2) no more SANDAG tax/bond measures without including at least one directly elected representative to the SANDAG board. SANDAG is a multi-billion dollar unknown and unaccountable entity.

Question for Maggie: If you don't like the plan you helped pass, are you going to work to give the voters a chance to change the TransNet plan that they approved? Let's give the voters several options, no?  My guess is the voters are going to again  pick  a wider I5 if they think the population is going to continue to grow and our arterial roads are turned into cul-de-sacs. We can't send traffic back to the I5 if the I5 is a parking lot.

Question for Jerome: What distribution of funds would you propose (freeway/transit/local streets)? When are you going to make SANDAG show how it is even possible to complete all the projects promised in TransNet II? Because some of the TransNet money for local streets is suppose to be SUPPLEMENTAL money, maybe we can give the voters an option of taking some of the "local" streets money and turning that into congestion relief and some transit funding?

KMC

Leucadia Blog Victory #14

The Leucadia Blog continues to generate great ideas that are being put into action: Streetscape, Redevelopment Agency Free Leucadia, No Contests at Swamis and now Easter Island Heads in the city's cultural center.

The Leucadia Blog has been lobbying for Easter Island Head art for years.

During the Cardiff Kook Statue blogathon we suggested the city learn from their mistakes and put all prominent long-term public art on display for the public to review prior to installation. If the public doesn't like it, it doesn't represent the city and that's not good public art.

Because the Leucadia Blog represents the public and we like Easter Island Heads its a-okay that the city approved the art concept without giving the lay-public a chance to check out the concept before final approval.

After hybrid cars became commonplace, environmentalists turned to displaying their dedication to the movement with tattoos. Easter Island heads are the symbol for the true-green movement.

Easter Island was once home to a successful civilization. The Bible of the Environmental Movement is Jared Diamond's Collapse. Here's Diamond at TED. In his book Diamond explains how the Eastern Island civilization blew it.



The people of Easter Island overpopulated and overused their resources. Then their society collapsed. If the public had the time to reflect on the symbolism of the Easter Island Monuments it might have sparked a public conversation. It would have gotten all ugly about how we are so much wiser than Polynesians. It was better that they checked with the LB and then slipped this art concept through quickly.


Here's a whole series on one of the most extrodinary socieities the world has ever seen:

Think First

The Cardiff Kook statue has been mocked into the local surf culture. Surfers took what they saw as a symbol of all that has gone wrong in Encinitas, and turned it around and made it their's. Because of the on going contribution of the community, the statue does provide a multi-dimensional reflection of our coastal community.

 
Encinitas has a special culture, even if it is increasingly diluted. It is not unique.You can find parts of it in places like Santa Cruz or Hawaii. A large fraction of our population tie their activities, perspectives, and values to what is happening along the transition from land to sea.

In the surf culture, there is a distrust of outsiders and lack of desire to be celebrated. I don't think there is need for another Swamis Kook. It's crowded enough.

Below, spontaneous suggestions posted to the Torrey Pines Tree to be carved out.

Notice on the Tree. Good Start.

We hope the city will be respectful and tolerant of cultural diversity.

The city is going to carve the old Torrey Pine tree at Swamis into an art piece. It would be wise to include the public in the visioning of the concept for the sculpture. Put the public in public art.

Yeap, sometime art by committee can purchase a well crafted piece that lacks courage and is bland. That can be a problem with public art.

If the public is not included in coming up with the concepts, for the sake of Jim, make a giant poster of the concept like Solana Beach did for their public art and display it in place for a month. Make sure it is not going to embarass the residents of Encinitas or take away from the natural beauty of Swamis.

Because of the swamis surf content stuff, there are two big email lists of people who care about Swamis. It would be great  to be able to send an email to the lists telling people that city is going to create public art out of the old Torrey Pines Tree, and that they are going to think before committing to a concept for the sculpture.

The City adopted a great idea for using the resources they had on hand, and Torrey Pine is botanically symbolic of our region. Good job so far guys. This is a great opportunity to rebuild trust with a skeptical surfing community.

Pannikan vs Starbucks Death Match 2011

From the inbox:

part of what makes this place so great is that it's not totally overrun with big multinational chain stores like so much of the rest of san diego. the community has done such a great job of keeping this stuff to the el camino real corridor so it's convenient for people but not interfering with our local culture west of the 5.

well... i got a letter in my mailbox today about a newly proposed development at leucadia blvd and orpheus. the developer is proposing a drive-thru starbucks and 2 retail tenants (fast food restaurants?).

there's a meeting scheduled for 6:30pm, 2/15 at encinitas community and senior center, 1140 oakcrest park drive, 92024.

LB: Drive-through Starbucks? Why not a bike-trough Starbucks?

Speculation Saturday

Danny knew he was going to be sentenced and his campaign slate probably knew he would have to step down after being elected, had he been. There must have been a plan.

The city has no specific rules for succession. Good chance the council would have simply appointed a replacement council member.

Who would have Gaspar, Bond, Houlihnan and Stocks appointed?

Alan Proctor wants to move to Leucadia. Maybe him?

How would that appointment have played out in terms of changes to public policy and city administration?

How to Get a Parks and Rec Commission Appointment

encinitasuneedus post to youtube

Encinitas Elephant Located

Back in November Mayor Bond said he believes Dalager's opponents acted with a "lynch mob mentality" and gained a lot of negative publicity about allegations that haven't yet been substantiated.


Encinitas Mayor Bond is good buddies with Former Encinitas Mayor Dalager. If he didn't know the extent of Dalager's issues, it is his obligation to find out and watch out for the public's interest and faith in city hall.

 
A person is innocent until proven guilty in California, Bond also said. That is not exactly true. A person is guilty or not, at the time the crime occurred. In the legal system Bond is correct, and it should stay that way. In the electoral system the people have an obligation to question fishy behavior of their elected officials. It is their democratic duty. When elected officials decide to hide relevant facts or cover over concerns, the public should NOT ASSUME INNOCENCE when it is time to cast their ballot. That would be stupid. Instead, they should use their judgment, especially when there are no assurances in this town that there will be good official investigations. They should never accept obfuscation like Dalager peddled and they should be wary of those who enabled Danny or acted uninterested in getting the issue day-lighted.

Dalager sent everyone in town a mailer saying we deserved to know the whole story, but then failed to tell the public the whole story. We now know why. He was guilty and he would have been found out. That is why he hung up on reporters, why he would not let reporters see his kitchen appliances, and why he didn't want to tell everyone all the details of kitchen-gate or the more serious charges about the loan with the developer. Dalager denied the charges and said they were all trumped up as electioneering tactics.

None of it smelled right and shame on the public for saying so. The public was... just so divisive.

Time to renew your UT subscription. Dalager would have been off scot free if the Watch Dog reporter at the UT hadn't pressed hard on the issue. It would have been swept under the rug or dodged. That is why city hall powermen have been taking shots at the Union Tribune.

At a recent meeting Jim Bond said something like, "That UT reporter couldn't track an elephant with a bloody nose through a field of snow." Good thing there were some citizens to help him track the Pachyderm.

Here is exactly what he said:


Now that Danny has pleaded guilty, I wonder if Mayor Bond will apologize to the watch dog reporter and to the "lynch mob."  After all, Mayor Bond didn't assume the watchdog was innocent before being proven guilty.

Poetry Ruckus

POETRY RUCKUS @ The DUCK

Local poets read their original poetry, with a performance by our guest poet, Derek Firenze.
Derek has been a popular participant in our ongoing series of poetry events. All ages welcome, 
no admission charge. Wednesday, February 9, 2011, 7:00 pm. Ducky Waddle's Emporium, 
414 N. Coast Hwy. 110, Encinitas. You are invited to participate and join our performance roster. 
Contact Michael ruthlesshippies@gmail.com 

Ducky Waddle's Emporium, Book Store, Art Gallery, Center for Cultural Studies

See? The city cares!

Food, Drink, Music

I'm at Le Papagayo

Yum

Haggo's Organic Tacos

Coming soon!

Hall Park Neighbors Now Bothered by Risk to Children

A couple weeks ago we got some comments on the blog about the recent substantial conformance appeal.

Like,

Most of the sports fields are in the potential adverse health effects zone where the children will be breathing the diesel and car fumes. That fact didn't seem to bother Council members Stocks, Bond, Houlihan, and Gaspar. 

And it was Stocks, Bond, Houlihan, and Gaspar who DECIDED not to talk about the toxic air pollution.  anon 12:15:What part of "children breathing toxic air fumes" don't you understand? Build the park so that the children won't be breathing diesel and car exhaust fumes.

This reflected the side that said if you were for sports fields you don't care about kids. Another, 

Toxic fumes? Please! This is a ruse to stop the park! Plain and simple. Scare people and delay the park ,that is what this is about. We are talking about exposure maybe two hours a day, two or three days a weeek a few times a year and your worried about it.  ... Oh yeah, what about all those citizens and children who live along the I-5 corridor, are you going to tell me they are going to have health issues too. 

This reflected the side that said if you brought up the health issue you must be full of crap and don't care about kids and only want to keep a park from being built.


And a quote from THE CITY OF ENCINITAS submission to Caltrans (which the city was happy to keep secret from most of the public), 

"At the request of the City of Encinitas, Scientific Resources Associated (SRA) has conducted a technical review of the Air Quality Section of the Draft EIS/EIR, and a technical review of the Air Quality and Mobile Source Air Toxics (MSAT) Analyses provided as appendices to the Draft EIS/EIR. General comments on the analysis are as follows:

• There is substantial evidence in published studies that demonstrate that residents and sensitive receptors, including children, experience adverse health effects from freeway air emissions. None of these studies were discussed or evaluated in the Draft EIS/EIR for the Interstate 5 North Coast Corridor. SRA has provided a list of current studies in the attached literature review that summarize the available evidence.

• The analysis does not address the potential for impacts to additional receptors to due the widening of the I-5 corridor, which will result in travel lanes placed from 48 to 73 feet closer to existing land uses in the vicinity of the freeway. The California Air Resources Board, in their Air Quality and Land Use Handbook, recommend that sensitive receptors not be sited within 500 feet of a freeway due to potential adverse health effects."

Does this mean the city administration both hates kids and wants to derail the Hall park?


Now, from Dr. Rothe's editorial in the Coast News makes it clear that there are legitimate health risks to living and exercising next to a freeway,

Studies by USC Keck School of Medicine indicate that, in areas polluted by vehicle exhaust, our most athletic children are three times more likely to develop asthma than inactive children....

In 2010, a new SDSU study measured UFP concentrations at 37 locations on both sides of I-5, just 3 miles south of the Hall site. These measurements contradict the erroneous assumptions on which the 2007 Hall EIR was based, namely that anyplace farther than 300 feet from I-5 is safe and that prevailing SW winds will put little pollution on the Hall site...

Another UCI research shows that children “are affected up to nine times more harshly than adults” by vehicular pollution. These results show that children exercising near freeways have a 27 times higher chance of developing asthma than inactive adults exposed to the same pollution levels. A 2000 Denver study found that children living within 800 feet of highways with 20,000 vehicles per day are six times more likely to develop cancer and eight times more likely to get leukemia.

The Hall sports fields are entirely within 800 feet of the expanded I-5...

We can't be too harsh on the city. Take a look at the alternate park plan offered up by CQL for a community park (CQL is the group Jerome loves to scapegoat for his inability adopt a balanced budget that funds the park).

CLICK TO ENLARGE.

Alternate plan for the park. Submitted by Citizens for Quality of Life to the City of Encinitas during the EIR process. The plan demonstrates two things: The group had a vision for BUILDING the park, and they wanted to put the sports fields close to the freeway. 

WalMart to be Walkable

WalMart has submitted a parking plan to the City of Encinitas for its review. As blogged here, WalMart is planning on establishing a store in the El Camino Real smart growth walkable zone. It is rumored that Walmart is asking for a parking requirement waiver in anticipation of the adoption of a more healthy and friendly lifestyle associated with the cultural shift to walking and riding bicycles. The rumor can not be substantiated until the City releases the parking study.

Thugs and Activists from around the World

Activists for a more open and just democracy

Thugs for protecting their own crony-interest