Congratulations Carlsbad, California

I have been following the Citizens Initiative and voting on Proposition A and want to congratulate the voters of that city for defeating that proposition.

A developer wanted to turn a parcel of land into an upscale shopping center while wowing the citizens with how much would be saved as agriculture and open space. The current owner/lessee of the strawberry fields was all for this new development and of course, I and so many others, believe it was all about money to him. His appearance on commercials for the developer were pitiful where he recalled his child in college and how this legacy would not be passed on if the citizens did not pass this indicative. WTF? If this kid was smart enough to finish college, and they were not going to an agricultural college, wouldn't you think they just might aspire to something other than to farm strawberries for the rest of their life. Nothing wrong with farming in any way, but there seemed to be too much cash incentive to think otherwise.

The city council and many people didn't care about the quality of life for so many Carlsbad citizens, only their own pocketbooks and the fat taxes this would bring in. In fact, one of the reasons this was fast-tracked, avoiding environmental review was because the city fathers saw about 650,000 dollars in tax revenue from allowing the project to start early. Traffic congestion and the people be damned, just let the developers have their way. Just as they have done for the thousands of new homes recently built or being built with a failing infrastructure to support them. One citizen stated they are being asked to cut back on electricity and water while new construction takes away what could be used for the rest of the current population. And what amount of water and electricity the proposed shopping center would have used is just outrageous in this time of energy and water crisis. As one person put it...the City of Carlsbad never saw a development or developer it didn't like.

So congratulations, Carlsbad voters for sending the developer back to Los Angeles licking his almost 11 million dollar campaign spending wound. And whatever he wasted on wooing the city to approve his project. Hope that next time whoever wants to develop your city does so openly and with voter approval.

Maybe it is time for an initiative to require citizen approval for new housing and industrial developments? After all, if you are being asked to suffer the shortages associated with unbridled development, shouldn't you have a say?

Carlsbad, CA - Idiocy, Taxes, and Caring Less for Homeowners Quality of Life

The City of Carlsbad, California has found a new way to fill their tax coffers, while helping to add to the misery of the homeowners of the "Village by the Sea" as it has come to be known. The new misery is known as Vacation Rentals.

It's not just vacation rentals, but unbounded vacation rentals, where any homeowner west of El Camino Real can now rent their home by the day, week or month any time of the year simply by obtaining a no-cost permit from the city. Unless your Homeowners Association CC and R's expressly prohibit such rentals, the rest of the neighborhood is...well...screwed. This was passed by the City with no notice to the homeowners; such activity was prohibited in the past. 

You will now be subject to all sorts of new people in and out at all times of the day, night and week, people that you don't know. In fact, people that the person who rented their home does not know! There is no vetting process; from what I have been able to determine, it's all done over the phone, not even a face to face meeting with the owner. Information is exchanged, credit card information taken, and the code to a lock box and, if required, an access code is provided for a gated community. Thus any semblance of security that the homeowners are paying for has now been destroyed as their gate code is in the hands of how many strangers?

And who are these people? Vacationers? Kids who have their parents rent the home for them? Party animals from some local or out of state college that will ruin your life for how long? Is the solution to call the police every night that they keep you up past midnight with loud partying when you have to go to work at 5 AM?  Who cares about the security deposit when it's YOU, not the homeowner who rented the place that has to put up with the problems. He's somewhere else enjoying his peace and solitude. And, if the "vacationers" do damage outside the confines of the rental property, who will pay for that? I can see lawsuits where you have to sue your former neighbor due to his "vacationers".

Many people on vacation are truly responsible and there are hotels and homes on the beach that have been rentals for eons just for that purpose. So why did the City of Carlsbad allow this to happen? Greed! Just to collect tax revenue! The city officials claim it's good to open the doors for more tourists and places for them to stay, but not at the cost to the residents who actually live here and must be subjected to this nonsense. I'd bet if a vacation rental opened up beside one of the city officials homes, they would be quick to figure out a way to shut it down. Plus, these homes do not have to pass city inspection like a hotel! What about insurance? Do the insurance companies know these are being used as rental homes for hotel type occupancy?  If there is a fire or liability loss, do these homeowners have adequate insurance coverage or, in the case of a Home Owners Association, will the HOA have to "pony up" because of insufficient coverage? 

Lots of questions and few answers. Unlike how things used to be, you no longer have any expectations on who might be in the home next to you tonight...or tomorrow...or the night after.

My suggestion to the good homeowners who are the true victims of this governmental snafu is to call the police department when they are disturbed by loud parties or problems with these vacation rentals. Enough complaints will put the city on notice that we are not happy with this transgression. And, enough complaints will also let the vacation home renters send a message to the owners that we might not be the most welcoming community they could wish for. After all, we do not have to like what the City has shoved down our throats! Bad reviews by renters will result in vacation rentals dropping fast! Like they used to say...welcome to Carlsbad..now go home! 

Apartment Rent - Hard Times for The Real Working Class

WTF?? When did apartment rents become so unaffordable that a full time working person could hardly afford to put a roof over their head? Oh, wait, that excludes the illegals and the unmentioned families who stuff eight and ten people in an apartment, and each chips in a couple of hundred for the rent, while they collect welfare and live on the dole! Forget about those losers!

I'm talking about the single income man or woman, or single parent, who works their tail off, full time, and maybe overtime, at a decent job, and tries to live in a decent place. They go to an apartment complex and are told the rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1200 a month! Plus they pay for their own gas and electric as well.

Lets do the math here. A person makes $14 an hour times 40 hours is $560 a week. After taxes, Social Security, health insurance (they don't get it free like the losers do!) it's probably around $475. That comes to $1900 a month and when you soak them for $1200 for rent, they now have $700 to live on the rest of the month. Subtract utilities ($50) gasoline ($100 at least!) car insurance ($60) laundry and cleaning ($20) Medical and Prescriptions ($30) it leaves them with $440 or less than $110 each week. That's with no credit card bills, no car repairs, no car payments, no doctor bills that are not covered by insurance, nothing else. They have to eat, pay all their other bills, and survive on a hundred and ten bucks a week. Folks, three meals a day at Carls or Mickey D's will blow most of that money, and that's junk food! You won't see the people from the apartment complex owners families living on the cheap!

We lived in a condo rental in Carlsbad, California about ten years ago and in the sixteen months we lived there, the rents went from $1200 to $1500 a month; we moved out as they were increasing to $1800 a month, and I understand they are now $2200 per month for the same 2 bedroom unit. That's insanity!

I believe the apartment complex owners are preying on those who cannot afford home ownership, and that it will continue to get worse. They all decry rent control, but I believe it will come. Those who have lost homes are now renting and have no choice but to move into apartments. The number of available, decent apartments is just not that great, and the owners are getting a premium price for the units. It seems to be whatever the traffic will bear.

Same with rental homes that can't be sold, yet are renting for obscene prices. I understand some might be high, as the owners need to make the high mortgage payments. But what about the speculators who buy homes simply to rent? In Harbor Pointe in Carlsbad, homes that originally sold for less than $200K are renting for over $2000 per month. Why? Because many of the homes in what is known as the Village were apparently purchased simply to rent as income properties; the owners are able to rent for that amount to people who can't afford the down payment to purchase a house, where their monthly payment would possibly be less than rent.

The shame is that a good portion of Harbor Pointe is turning into a community of renters with a significant turnover. Not good for the resident owners. Nor for the renters who move in and out trying to find the ideal place to live, moving children from school to school, and losing friends along the way. Were housing more affordable, regardless of apartment or single family homes, maybe people would settle and find roots in a community.

VOTE NO on Tri-City Proposition A

Once again, and for the third time, Tri-City Medical Center is pressing the North County residents to accept a new tax to fund hospital improvements and modernization. That sounds all well and good, except it wouldn't be needed if the hospital administration ran the place like a business instead of a charity, while making huge salaries and perks and failing to competently run the hospital!

Each time this has come up for a vote, Tri-City has put a different spin on the concept. The first two times it was to build the "Taj Mahal" of all hospitals while making the requisite earthquake improvements, and those propositions were soundly defeated by the voters. Now, Tri-City has hit on a mail-only ballot and telling everyone it's only for improvements and not for the original showplace. And that none of the money will go to administration. Hmm, I think my cat even wouldn't hit the yes button if it were filled with catnip on that ploy!

We all know there is a supposed budget and if you place the money that was supposed to go to building maintenance and other physical plant activity in abeyance as it's now being handled by a bond passage, that money will be diverted somewhere else. So, in reality the facts are that they could really not be using the bond money for administrative issues, but can divert other monies that would normally be used for the buildings to that purpose anyway. In short, the voters get screwed in any case.

There is no question an expansion of TCMC is long overdue, perhaps if only to shore up the earthquake solidity of the building, and serve the burgeoning illegal population that overruns the ER daily, but that's not the question. TCMC should be building and funding with its own money. The last I noted it is not a institution or hospital owned by the state, county or any municipal entity, nor is it a military or VA facility. It's a private not-for-profit hospital that seems, for some reason, to forget that balancing a budget does not happen while loading the pockets of it's top heavy administration. They keep getting huge salaries, voting themselves even more while crying about the needs of the hospital. Add to that the questionable practices of handling the massive pass-thru ER masses, and the unreimbursed free care to illegals and uninsureds and you can see where this is headed. No amount of money is going to fix their problems if they don't fix their internal problems first!

You've seen all the TV advertising and, the paid advertising in the North County Times of course. Guess why? Rather than face the people of North County in a Proposition on the ballot, like is usually done, Tri-City is sneaking a $589 million dollar bond measure mail ballot into your mailbox surreptitiously in the hope you'll:

• a. vote for it because you're tired of hearing about it
• b. toss the vote away and only those in favor will vote for it
• c. vote for it based on all the hype you'll hear over the media

Better still would be:

• e. Dump the bond measure, dump the current board, TCMC sells to a private not-for profit health care consortium and grows as the hospitals in Orange County have with no tax dollars involved.

Unless you have money to throw away and like being taxed over and over again, VOTE NO on this Proposition A. Don't be fooled into thinking your healthcare will suffer if you don't give Tri-City your money. The proponents try and make you think you'll be dying on the sidewalk without this tax increase, but that's not the case. There are other hospitals and frankly, when Tri-City's ER is jammed, often other ER's are almost empty. That's because of the type people using the ER there as their family doctor and clinic. A recent article says they're trying to push the people to use the community clinics for follow-ups, but that doesn't work for the first visit, nor does it work when there's nobody to drive the patient until after working hours. TCMC will still be jammed. Funny how some other hospitals don't have the same problem.....

Finally, TCMC is NOT a bad hospital in any sense of the word. There are great people there doing great work. The problem is simply the administration, from the top down! In my humble opinion, they hire based on level of incompetency in many areas, and that inspires lackadaisical attitudes and incompetency which is supervised by more of the same. The "worker bees" who do the great job at TCMC are on the short end of the stick every day, and many grow tired of feeling beat up by the system and eventually leave, taking with them expertise, experience and abilities that just are not easily replaced. Thus the revolving door policy that has become the norm in so many areas, making for low morale and people having to double up and do the work of others who either cannot or just will not work. Unfortunately, management either turns a blind eye to these problems, or just doesn't care in some cases I guess. Poor management is a trickle down disease and contaminates as surely as any biohazard in the healthcare setting, or any other for that matter. It's contagious and very difficult to eliminate once it takes hold. It must be eliminated at the source before any regimen of control becomes effective.

Why Not Just Tax US to Death, California!

I just received a notice of the proposed water, and sewer fee increases for the Carlsbad CA Municipal Water District. While I recognize costs have increased, this seems to be an annual event with the last increase on October 1, 2007 according to the the city's own web site.

Here we are, in what the politicians hate to call a recession (hurts the economy I guess or maybe it hurts to tell the truth that we're headed on the death spiral toward a real depression) primarily due to the idiocy of the free spenders in our governmental agencies, no matter which level they be affiliated with; state, federal or municipal.

Yet in the interim, Carlsbad has managed to complete what is stated to be the most expensive municipal golf course in the nation, over 70 million dollars to build, yet it won't make a profit for many years. In the interim, guess who's going to pay for it? You got it, the taxpayers! Yes, Carlsbad generally has a budget surplus; too bad it's not put to use for the good of the general residents rather than a few who might be able to play golf and afford the fees! What about those on a fixed income, retirees and the disabled whom the increases in water rates will impact most. Our city father's obviously never gave any thought to the potential for a troubled economy when they spent the tons of cash on this one, did they?

And someone in out City Government even has the audacity, the unmitigated gall, to put forth the idea to pay the State of California hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps even a half-million, annually to provide free parking at Tamarack Beach, so the State won't put up pay parking sites. Hey, city fathers, get a grip. Use that money and put it toward the water bills! I even note you used our tax money to sue the state to stop them collecting the eight bucks. Maybe THAT could have gone toward the water bills? You're not doing Carlsbad residents a big service here. That parking serves the residents of the entire coastal communities and the tourists too, and most of the time locals can't find a parking spot, so it turns out we're paying for everyone in the county to park free at our local beaches while we have to pay to park at theirs, like Oceanside and La Costa and everywhere else? If beach goers are that fervent about using the beaches all year round, let them buy an annual pass and they can avail themselves of most of the beach parking in the State as often as they wish for a single price. (There are some exceptions, like Moonlight and Leucadia, so check the list http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/737/files/dpr335.pdf )

These are tough times and we're being taxed and fee'd to death. The water increase comes at a time when we're being hammered by Tri-City who wants us to vote on a bond issue that will cost us tax dollars for 40 years, and the County wants us to pay $52 more per parcel for fire protection that we already have, to assist those who built in areas where they should have made developers pay for ADEQUATE fire protection. Now they want everyone in the county to pay for what the county failed to do when they allowed unbridled building to occur, and failed to require contractors to pay for fire protection that would serve those areas into the foreseeable future. The wildfires came, unfortunately destroyed homes, and now the county wants residents of cities who have paid for their fire departments and fire protection improvements, to pay for improvements for far flung parts of the county, because people choose to build in the back woods or on the urban wildfire interface. Bottom line is if you choose to live in those areas, you should bear the burden of paying for improved fire protection. We're already paying for law enforcement for the rural areas in the form of the Sheriff's Department!

Every time I look at the newspaper, some politician trying to figure out how to squeeze us a bit more and tax us again. Enough is enough. As for the beach, let the people who use the parking lot pay for the parking. These are the same people who think nothing of a four buck Starbucks, or an 8 dollar six pack of beer or a few cold drinks at a local watering hole or a meal at a restaurant that will cost lots more. Surely you don't think the cost of parking will keep them from enjoying themselves?

Finally, to loosen up parking spaces, how about restricting the motor homes, campers and vehicles with trailers from the road adjacent to the beach? Some of these take up three, four or more parking places that could be utilized for free parking. One "toy box" with the ramp open attached to a Suburban took enough space for at least 4 vehicles to park free. Some motor homes have vehicles in tow! And, tighten the hours on these vehicles if you're going to allow them to park there at all. Some come at 6 AM and stay until after dark, hogging those 3 or 4 parking spots all day. No wonder there is insufficient parking!

In this economy, let those who want to play, pay. Those who want to golf pay the higher fees to pay for the golf course. Those who want to park at the beach pay the parking fees. And give the taxpayer a break for a change. For one day there will be another taxpayer revolt in California and the people will say absolutely no more...and it will make Proposition 13 look like childs play. The stirrings and rumbling seem to be heard in too many circles to be ignored.