(rush draft) Will the UT Defend its Reasoning?

Papa Doug tosses out a last minute endorsement for Stocks, Muir, and Forrester. 


Either we are super crazy or Papa Doug's UT has no shame.

Here is some stuff the UT writes:

This trio represents the best possibility for the city to continue on its path of fiscal responsibility and economic development. 

Quietly raising business fees (Fred?), is pro-small biz?

Borrowing money and using that money to fill reserve funds is smart? Only from the perspective that you can spin the high reserves and not tell the public about how you got the reserves.

Not having enough money for the crown jewell project of the council majority, after 10 years to save up (and borrow $20 million twice), is fiscally responsible.

Blowing millions on stupid real estate deals, keeping the pubic unaware of the actual costs for borrowing (AGAIN) for building the hall park, lying to public about the costs of the Hall park and breaking the law on restricting access to financial documents, giving massive pension increases, not paying for the pension increases, hiding the true nature of the pension underfunding, lying about revenue projections, giving raises through the worst economic downturn, blowing money on stupid public records law violations, underfunding streets repairs (hiding the BDI past 4 year out) and refusing to release to the public the current roads repair underfunding levels after spending $100K on software that allows the city to update the underfunding report at a touch of a button!

The candidates most likely to be the top vote getters in this race can clearly be divided along ideological lines, with the above three pitted against Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz, who represent a more liberal point of view. 

Left versus right. Keep that in mind future anti-establishment campaign workers. Don't be greedy.

A win for Shaffer and Kranz, along with the general disposition of Teresa Barth, would flip the majority of the council in a direction that would lead away from economic vibrancy. 

Things are bad when the "liberals" are the only credible candidates supporting real pension reform.

 

Stocks...is also chairman of the San Diego Association of Governments and board member at North County Transit District. 

The UT forgot about the Sprinter mismanagement and that under Stock's leadership SANDAG  has grossly borrowed and does not have a balanced Transnet budget. It could have, and provided better long-term economic stimulus to the county.

Stocks’ calling card has been to keep the city on a path of improved quality of life and fiscal responsibility. 

There is no way someone at the UT could put there name to this statement and defend it if they knew anything about Encinitas.

When asked about his record, he points to projects like the Whole Foods mixed-use complex and the Encinitas Lofts developments as the right direction for the city. 

Jerome did that? Huh? How did he do that? Was he an investor or something?

Mark Muir is a former fire chief of Encinitas and was appointed to fill the vacancy left by the death of Maggie Houlihan in late 2011.

Also appointed to fire chief under the appearance that he was given job with no competition or a record of even applying for the job, after working on his buddies council campaigns.

Forrester would be the newcomer. He is a real-estate broker and lawyer who once served on the Olivenhain Town Council and has been on several city task forces, including the Encinitas Ranch Specific Plan Task Force. 

Did he speak out against the way ERGA was organized?  He won't answer questions about his statements that there is no open government problems in Encinitas, making it ironic if he gets elected.

All three — Stocks, Muir and Forrester — oppose the Right To Vote initiative, which if placed on a future ballot and enacted would send all zoning changes that increase density to the voters for approval. Such planning by strangulation is anathema to improving the quality of life in Encinitas. 

Why? Increasing zoning is a rare event and the Right to Vote initiative does not change anything related to current property rights. It does mean that windfall profits can't be gained by buying off a favorite council member. Remember Prop A (local agriculture to be upzoned to suburbia). Jerome and Muir loved it. The voters did not want it. The voters could have just deferred to the electeds, but they did not.

The anti-business side of the ballot is represented by Shaffer, a business ethics lecturer at UC San Diego, and Kranz, a printing company executive who ran unsuccessfully in 2010. 

This might be true, but I couldn't say that and I doubt the UT could defend this. Examples?

Their point of view on the greater intervention of government — say, as represented by support of the Right to Vote proposal — is unwelcome in a sputtering economy. 

The right to vote only moves the approval from the council to the people. No more or less intervention, no?

They also oppose Proposition K, the Encinitas ballot measure that would make the city’s mayoral spot an elected one rather than an appointed one. 

How can they be for and against the right to vote? That's really awkward.

This last minute editorial is just in time for one more mailer to include the UT endorsements. Do most people know this is Papa Doug's endorsements?  A lot do. A lot have already voted too. 

My money is on this scenario, Jerome freaked out and called in his favors at the UT. The UT didn't interview the candidates and it was believed they would not be endorsing during this election at all for local city council races. Why the change of heart and why was it written by someone who didn't know squat about Encinitas. 

You won't learn what is going on fiscally by reading the UT.