Folowup of Oral statement at city coucil 8/27/14

August 27, 2014 


My involvement in city affairs, beginning with my joining the Traffic commission only to find out it had been expanded in number and in concept, to cover emergencies and police use of forcce is something for my own reasons I took very seriously.  This involved me in the city council, as my second meeting of the Commission was a dramatic showdown contesting the authority of the City Manager over stalling the evaluation of restructuring our Fire Fighting- EMS functions, a life and death issue that had been avoided for fifteen years- and still appears to be in this state of limbo.

Here's the background of this video (advance to 3:20) of a presentation at our city council

When someone like myself who values his understanding of details and is careful to be precise when discussing issues, is accused of saying something false in a public setting such as city hall, I'm deeply offended, and can't help getting angry at those who perpetrated this.  When the wagons that have circled in defending the distortion of the contracts with the Pacific View legal bond counsel include all of city hall, and the law firm itself,  discretion would dictate that I simply back away.

Nevertheless,  I'll provide this paper "The Meaning of Contingent in a Public Contract" that presents my events including the links to documens,and city council dialogue that include the actual contract whose nature is being contested,  Each person should check the references provided, and should read it to evaluate what it means, as the larger issue at stake here is that contracts should be understandable by those literate citizens who are bound by them.

While the above article relates to a rather clear case of a false description of a city contract, the following article is on Peak Democracy, that's also known as "Open Town Hall" and "E-Town Hall.  The title displays my own personal point of view that I'm sharing with this audience: Peak Democracy Company, a virus for democracy.  Whatever happens about my continued involvement with city government, I will continue to push to expose the danger of this company's products no matter what my official involvement in the city's government.

References for Vehicular noise ordinance for Encinitas

Work sheet for consideration of vehicular noise ordinance for Encinitas 

Article and video on 2015 Jaguar Sports that comes equipped with a special "sport sound" noise enhancer that was measured at close to 100db.  With this feature, disturbing damaging, and physically harmful noise will become a feature for the conspicuous consumption set. 
 
Link to Journal article:  Noise Pollution: A Modern Plague
 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/554566_3

"Uninterrupted sleep is known to be a prerequisite for good physiologic and mental functioning in healthy individuals.^[28] Environmental noise is one of the major causes of disturbed sleep.^[1,10] When sleep disruption becomes chronic, the results are mood changes, decrements in performance, and other long-term effects on health and well-being.^[3] Much recent research has focused on noise from aircraft, roadways, and trains. It is known, for example, that continuous noise in excess of 30 dB disturbs sleep. For intermittent noise, the probability of being awakened increases with the number of noise events per night.^[1]"

This article is a survey of  the myriad harmful effects of interrupted or fractured sleep
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/820529
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Vehicle noise regulation,  a detailed introduction from Conn. on legal and physical issues,

California vehicle noise code, 27200 et seq,
Note clause  27202-1 (3)  that excludes state preemption that may allow city ordinance to be enforcable.
  
Loud Pipes' Cost: Harley-Davidson Tries to Quiet Motorcycle Noise

This is a list of noise of various automobile Mufflers listed by Decibels at idle and full throttle of over 110 DB

Extensive public forum on "loud motorcycles, laws against and push back by bikers. "

Integrity or poliitcal expediency- Priciples and Case Study

Those who read this complete story from Leucadia Blog archives of 6/2011 (about half way down to read comments)  will be taken back to a proposed California legislation, Chelsea Law, that had all but universal support.  It tells of  one member of the Encinitas city council, maybe the only person in elected political life, Maggie Houlihan, who had the courage to oppose it. 

Another member of that council,  Teresa Barth, made a different choice, that must have haunted her, as she felt the need to publicly proclaim her reasons years later that is described below.  Lack of political integrity is pernicious, as while avoiding the immediate pain of public condemnation;  the individual knows what he or she has done, and that she has become un-moored to her own principle, becoming adrift in the ebb and flow of public sentiment.  

Here's the story from my article in the Leucadia blog : 

Encinitas Skirmish in The War on Sex Offenders

There are two distinct bodies of literature on sexual offender law. The most important is that from the mass media, for example the "San Diego Union Tribune," that printed close to a thousand articles cheering on Chelsea's Law. Columnists vied with each other to most floridly express their loathing for the perpetrator of the crime, while praising this law and it's sponsor, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher. There was so little space given for serious analysis, that the rare articles that made it to print died of isolation. This includes a single editorial that demanded elimination of excessive residence restrictions. It was ignored in the legislation and never mentioned again in the newspaper.

The other body of writing is from academic sources, the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, psychology and law that underlie the field of criminology. These research based, often cross cultural studies describe the political processes of creating this body of law, along with evaluation of their effectiveness. Such literature, examples of which I have referenced in my personal blog article linked below, are little read by the public, and have almost no effect on policy. I will not be writing here about this this body of research.

Readers of this blog are intensely interested in the small city of Encinitas California, and follow its council members like the general public follows Members of Congress,. So, this blog article will start with one event, a five minute segment of a city council debate over sending a letter of endorsement for Chelsea's Law. It's best to watch the video linked below and we can continue right afterwards. (for those who can't access it, or if you want the short synopsis in my recent article in Coast News along with additional references, it's here on my own blog AlRodbell.blogspot.com.) I'll continue with this excerpt from that article. In a break from a major focus of Lucadia Blog, this is not written to criticize or praise any of the members of the Council, but to illustrate a process of creating legislation in this area which transcends local politics.

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From The Coast News:

The political dynamics were clearly illustrated on May 26, 2010 when the City of Encinitas Council was asked to vote on endorsing a letter supporting the law.  (video gone but description below is burned into my memory)

The law provides for up to life imprisonment for aggravated first offenses, at a cost estimated to reach over a hundred million dollars a year. As with the truism that prevention is more effective than incarceration, the belief that early inappropriate sexual activity is predictive of later violent crimes is equally uncertain. But by the time the issue came to the Encinitas Council this law was on steamroller, and sending the letter of support to the legislature seemed assured.

One member of the council, Maggie Houlihan, suggested that while she, like everyone else, abhors sexual violence this law should be considered in the context of other social needs. She suggested a modification of the letter of endorsement that would have noted the need for this larger perspective.

Councilman Jerome Stocks dismissed this vehemently, saying, "I don't want to hear about potential problems, let the legislature find the money." Maggie wasn't intimidated. After a sharp interaction, acknowledging that her vote against unconditional support of the bill would draw constituent's anger, she concluded with, "This is a much larger problem of our penal system."

The vote to send the letter was only opposed by Maggie, with the other three members who were clearly ambivalent not willing to go on record against it. Several months later at an election forum at Cardiff, I brought this up in front of the large audience. Candidate Dan Dalager (under siege for alleged corruption), whom I confronted for passively voting for this resolution, didn't defend his vote, but pointed out that three other members did the same thing.

Then, Teresa Barth, who was also on the ballot for the council, stood up and made a statement that explains much about the political process in our country at all levels. She said, "I didn't want to vote to send that letter. But, if I had voted against it, every candidate's mailer would have blasted me for not supporting Chelsea's Law, that I was soft on child sexual predators."

Maggie Houlihan may well have been the only elected official in California to publicly question Chelsea's Law.

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I ended my Coast News essay with this:

The law was promoted, and accepted as being targeted for "the worst of the worst" the irredeemable sociopaths such as Chelsea King's killer John Gardner. Actually, the first person who was prosecuted under this law was Joseph Cantorna, a fifty five year old brain damaged man whose offense was inappropriately touching two boys whom he believed to be his grandsons. After the expense of pre-trial incarceration and preparing a prosecution under this law, it took the Judge five minutes to throw the case against this obviously incompetent person out of court.

I have written this synopsis of the half hour jail house interview with Cantorna, a man who still wants to play doctor with the little girls and boys. He doesn't want to do any harm, yet has a temper that explodes when he doesn't get his way. We, as a society, unlike others in other times, have decided to accept him, acknowledging his severe mental deficiency that precludes the development of sexual constraints that shape what we describe as acceptable behavior. Yet, when he is caught doing something rather minor, that is for his five year old mental-emotional age; with Chelsea's law, we have chosen not to segregate him from others in a protective place, but rather put him in a prison with hardened predatory felons to live out his life.

While I have a pretty good idea what is wrong with this system, getting it right is more of a challenge. And that's where I'll leave it; hoping to get some insights from others who may read this.

Al Rodbell
Encinitas Resident and frequent contributor to DailyKos.

Public Safety Commission to be defined at Joint meeting of City Council

There will be a joint meeting with this commission and the council held at the Balour Community center, Monday Sept. 8 at 6PM , agenda and details soon to be posted,  to work out the question I describe below.  So, I only spoke briefly about the broad issue at the August eeting, and now send the below message to the city council.   It was a fascinating meeting, as it touched on what should be done when what had been a rural feeder street is built out, and crossing becomes a serious danger.   Unfortunately, while I did record the meeting it was not videoed, so the sincere words of dozens of people can not be shared with the public.  This is one of the things that should be remediated. 


8/10/14

Public Safety usually refers to functions of government that are defined by uniformed services with special police powers.  The ordinance that added this to the Traffic commission described them as relating to:  "emergency response for fire, medical and other crises, as well as the city's efforts to control and reduce criminal activities of all types"

I've been on the Traffic and Public Safety Commission since it was expanded from being the Traffic Commission early this year, and as such have been the point man my attempt to embrace the new mandate.  This has been met with less than enthusiasm by those who were comfortable with the more limited responsibilities of a Traffic Commission.  

to: Encinitas City Council, Commission Members, Active citizens

This description is of my initiated item that will be on the agenda for the Traffic and Public Safety Commission meeting for August 11.  (now for joint meeting of Sept. 8)  While including specific issues it is intended to be a discussion of the the wording and mandate of the expanded commission.   It would be useful if this meeting was attended, with participation by, members of the city council, especially Ms. Shaffer and Mr. Kranz who provided this terminology that is included in the ordinance. (this attendance  would be acceptable, per the booklet 7B-170 PP 13, Guide to Ralph M. Brown Act)

The ambiguity is in city code 2.40.040:

That first paragraph states that "the commission shall study and report to the Council upon any matter referred to it by the council"  yet also in the next paragraph states the commission shall be a "liaison" between the the public and the council-  meaning an intermediary implying in both directions.  This would indicate that the action of the commission is not limited to council directed issues.  We also include Commissioner Initiated Agenda Items, in the city code. 

Unlike other commissions such as arts, recreation or senior services, the subject matter inherently addresses the most crucial and controversial of government activities.  This committee is charged with dealing with : "traffic safety, emergency response for fire, medical and other crises, as well as the city's efforts to control and reduce criminal activities of all types" 

These are life and death issues that a city certainly should deal with proactively, and have a civic entity such as this committee that oversees, as well as works with, the agencies so described.  Those in the council who wrote this mandate may want to ascertain how it is interpreted and whether it meets the underlying goal.    To fully research new laws or enforcement regimens in the areas described in the ordinance will require more than the casual effort of other commissions that deal with less vital services. My personal view is that this function, where the end product will be ordinances and procedures for the uniformed services, it would require greater resources and authority.

If the ordinance is to be more than empty words,  this will take a consequential commitment of time by commissioners, and the authority and compensation should be commensurate with this effort,  somewhat similar to that of the Planning Commission. Since these resources were not provided to the current membership, the applicants were few; and may not desire, or be otherwise appropriate for, achieving the ordinance's goals. 

There should be a procedure for coordination with the council on major projects, so that the work product is not evaluated only after the effort is expended.  I would suggest a fast track for a preliminary approval of going forward to address a subject before details are defined by the commission. 

There has now been some experience with the expanded commission to allow the council to evaluate whether the current structure is functioning as they anticipate, or whether clarification or revision is appropriate.

Al Rodbell

Below are representative issues that could be addressed by a truly empowered citizen public safety commission. 

The first if Robert Bonde's (now in his late 80s)  proposal to merge the fire and EMS services of our city.  It has shuttled between the T&PS commission and the city council earlier this year after fifteen years of his attempting to have this addressed, and now is in some state of political limbo, with his opponents counting on the the human life span to work in their favor for never addressing this issue that could save lives and taxpayer's money.

Here's the live link for the second page that is about traffic noise attenuation, which would require substantive  change, including possible joint effort with adjacent police agencies to combat late night street racing and "rolling thunder" type motorcycle groups. 


This article in today's LA Times, demonstrates how lives can be saved by facilitating CPR using a smartphone app, but that it would take state legislation to provide liability protection, a "good samaritin law" that exists in other states and should be in ours.  This also illustrates as city public safety must include promoting action at other levels of government.