I'm a retired university administrator with a second career as a free-lance op-ed columnist for San Diego's North County Times daily newspaper, circulation 94,000.
I'm also an in-the-closet folksong picker of guitar, banjo, mandolin and ukulele.
Our three San Diego County Republican congressmen voted against repealing "don't ask, don't tell" on a bill passing the House Wednesday. Last month, Representatives Bilbray and Hunter told this newspaper ("Marines lead opposition to 'don't ask, don't tell,'" Nov. 30) the Defense Department's survey of service members didn't change their minds.
"Making any changes to current policy during wartime must be done with extreme caution," Bilbray said, apparently unaware of Secretary of Defense Bob Gates' promise that nothing will change without extensive training.
Hunter conceded that DADT will probably end someday, but not with his support. He claimed repeal would endanger unit cohesiveness and "won't make the military any better."
Although the 52nd District's congressman is a combat veteran, his views are not shared by a large majority of those serving on the front lines. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said repeal would have either a positive effect or no effect on their unit's cohesion, rising to 73 percent of those who've served with someone they believed to be gay or lesbian. Even though Marines, who compose 16 percent of enlisted personnel, have been least supportive of repeal, 60 percent of them agreed unit cohesion would not be harmed by it.
As for repeal not making the military any better, Hunter is apparently unconcerned by a Pentagon report that 11,000 service members have been discharged because of "don't ask, don't tell" since 1997, including nearly 1,000 with special skills, like Arab linguists.
The Department of Defense reports that two out of three recruits come from the small towns and rural areas of Southern and Midwestern states and are predominantly male. Their acceptance of gays and lesbians serving openly with them, given their conservative backgrounds, is remarkable. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 35 to 40 percent of Southerners and Midwesterners believe same-sex marriage should be legal, while 53 percent of those living elsewhere think so.
A national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University shows 51 percent of men favor repeal of DADT, while 62 percent of women do. Maybe that explains why Marines, 93 percent male, are least supportive of gays and lesbians serving openly. The other branches of the service range from 79 to 85 percent male.
The practice of an earlier version of "don't ask, don't tell" during the Civil War caused women who were banned from enlisting in either the Union or Confederate armies to disguise themselves as men to join the fight. They had to remain as invisible as today's gay and lesbian service members must be.
Our local Republican congressmen want to keep it that way, shortchanging our military while depriving thousands of Americans of their civil rights.
When my high school basketball coach wasn't putting us through our paces on the court, he was in the classroom teaching math to 10th-graders. He told those struggling with algebra the brain was a muscle that needed exercise. That didn't persuade those of us who thought of our brains as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge and reasoned that some students had larger containers than others. And if our brains are muscles, we asked, couldn't they be exercised in less boring ways?
Today's California teachers can tell their students they need to master math so they can solve those eighth-grade algebra problems on the high school exit exam. They can appeal to their school spirit by explaining how low test scores categorize schools as losers.
Math and English are understandably the two untouchable subject areas when it comes to budget cuts. The most vulnerable are the arts, for which student proficiency goes unmeasured, and schools neglecting them go unpunished.
The latest example of our academic pecking order can be found in the Vista school district's plan to eliminate music education for 10,000 students in the district's 16 elementary schools next year. The seven music teachers facing layoffs have added fundraising to their teaching duties to try to raise the $400,000 required to keep the program alive.
The teachers have been praised on this newspaper's editorial page for seeking private funding ("Teachers who don't wait," Nov. 23), acknowledging the merits of music education, but tacitly relegating it to an academic frill by not questioning the need to depend on the generosity of individual donors to save it.
It's hard to imagine English and math teachers having to go hat in hand to save their jobs. But a recent report on brain research by Northwestern University neuroscientist Nina Kraus ("Music Training Helps Learning and Memory," Psychology Today, William Klemm, July 31, 2010) shows music instruction may be equally as important in a child's education.
Kraus's study focused on the ability of the brain to change chemically and physically as the result of learning experiences. Music training, her research shows, can improve learning skills, language learning and listening ability. It's akin to physical exercise for body fitness, toning the brain for auditory fitness. In other words, there's evidence music education could help students improve their test scores in math and English.
Depriving economically disadvantaged kids of music in school is especially troubling. Sixty-one percent of Vista's elementary school students are from low-income families qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches. The Northwestern study suggests they will face one more obstacle to their success in school next fall if the music teachers' fundraising campaign fails.
Ever since a handful of elected officials in a small town in Los Angeles County were caught helping themselves to astronomical salaries at taxpayer expense, the press has declared open season on public employees.
A recent example is an article appearing in this newspaper a couple of weeks ago ("Salaries up for county employees," Nov. 7). The lead-in claimed, "Base pay for some increased by 31 percent from 2007 to '09." This may have been an eye-catching introduction to a front page story, but it fell well short of the truth.
The increase was not in base pay. It was in the share of county employees earning more than $100,000 after nearly 600 temporary and student jobs had been eliminated. With 18,700 employees, a more accurate headline would be, "Ninety-five percent of county employees make less than $100K."
Here's a comparison of the county's public employee pay with the wages of workers in the total work force, as reported by the California Employment Development Department.
The average salary of the county's 2,700 chief executive officers is $201,000. That's .2 percent of the total work force. The 25 public employees who earn more than $200,000 a year represent .1 percent of the taxpayer-funded work force.
The county's chief administrative officer's base pay is $296,000. He's the CEO of an organization with a $5 billion budget that serves 3 million residents, exceeding the population of 20 states.
In comparison, the San Diego Business Journal reports the highest-paid banking executive in the county, PacWest CEO Matt Wagner, earned a base pay last year of $750,000, with a bonus of $562,000, for total compensation amounting to $1.5 million. The bank's total assets are $5.2 billion. By that measure, I'd say we're getting a bargain for our county's top leadership.
What about those other public employees earning at least $100,000?
The average salary of the county's 2,000 physicians and surgeons is $219,000. The highest-paid medical practitioner on the public payroll is a psychiatrist earning $216,000.
San Diego County's 6,000 attorneys earn an average of $145,000. Public defender attorneys have salaries ranging from $120,000 to $137,000.
This small sample, comparing the pay of jobs requiring specialized skills, education and training, suggests public employees are paid somewhat less than their private-sector counterparts.
There are 128,000 waiters, waitresses, janitors, maids, housekeepers, cashiers and retail salespersons in the private sector who earn annual pay ranging on average from $21,000 to $26,000. That's why the $37,000 median wage of the county's work force is well below the $60,000 average of the more highly skilled, trained and educated workers on the county payroll.
It's time to cool the rhetoric about overpaid public employees.
From the looks of Tuesday's election results, it appears the steadily dwindling attendance at Oceanside tea party events over the last year was a pretty good indicator of the movement's lack of influence on local politics.
The 2009 Tax Day rally, featuring a march to the pier from the city center to toss bags of sand disguised as tea into the surf, attracted some 3,000 participants, according to police reports. This year's rally attracted less than half that number. And the number of empty seats seen in photos of last month's get-out-the-vote, four-hour speech fest revealed no more than about 300 to 400 in attendance throughout the afternoon.
While national tea partiers celebrated their role in helping Republicans take over the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening, the signs carried by Oceanside tea party members, promising an extreme make-over of California politics Nov. 2, resulted in the re-election of Sen. Barbara Boxer and the resurrection of Gov. Jerry Brown. The self-proclaimed tea party candidate for governor, Chelene Nightingale, whose campaign was promoted by a huge sign on a truck circling the amphitheater and a fellow in a grim reaper costume wandering through the crowd, attracted less than 2 percent of the vote.
Election results for local candidates were remarkably unsurprising, given the promises of change made by tea party leaders. County Supervisor Bill Horn was re-elected, but that may have had more to do with the $340,000 he spent on his campaign, compared to Steve Gronke's $39,000 investment, than his high-profile courting of tea partiers, who did not reciprocate by endorsing him. All local state legislator incumbents were re-elected. So much for the promise of change in Sacramento. And from their attack-mode campaign rhetoric, we're unlikely to hear how our two re-elected Congressmen will play well with others from across the aisle in Washington.
The results on the propositions were equally unsurprising. Fear of unions continues to run rampant with the passing of propositions A and G. Tea party fears of taxes and fees led to the defeat of Prop 21, and a general fear of politicians to the defeat of Prop. 27, which would have returned redistricting to the Legislature. Despite the tea party joining with big oil to urge passage of Prop. 23 to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act, Californians showed their true color is green and handily defeated it. Voters expressed their desire to have state budgets passed on time by approving Prop 25.
Today's tea partiers, unlike those of yore, live in a democracy that gives them the right to vote and encourages the political activism on display at anti-tax rallies at facilities built with their tax dollars, like the Oceanside Pier Amphitheater. Tuesday's election results show they have far more influence east of Nevada.
Local Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss took his act to Solana Beach last month in observance of the day the Constitution was signed in 1787. He told eighth graders at Earl Warren Middle School that "civility is the oxygen for democracy for any democracy in the world. Without simple civility, he explained, "we will die because we demonize our opponents rather than sharing political views.
Dreyfuss has attracted national attention for his Dreyfuss Initiative to promote the teaching of civics in public schools. While he seems unaware of the civics lessons already imbedded in the California school curriculum, his crusade for a more civil political discourse is a noble quest. This year's election campaign is in dire need of adult supervision.
But does knowledge of civics necessarily lead to civility? If that were the case you'd have to assume the half-truths and outright lies parading before us endlessly in today's campaign ads come from people who don't know any better.
Dirty politics is as old as the republic itself. A few of the most egregious examples: John Adams was called a "repulsive pedant" and a "hideous hermaphroditical character" by a writer secretly paid by Thomas Jefferson. Adams supporters, in turn, accused Jefferson of favoring the "teaching of murder, rape, adultery and incest."
In the 1828 election, John Quincy Adams was called "the Pimp" by Andrew Jackson's campaign. Adams fired back with a pamphlet calling Jackson's mother a "common prostitute" brought to this country by British soldiers. James Buchanan, who had a congenital condition causing his head to tilt to the left, was accused of having failed in an attempt to hang himself.
So when tea partiers carry signs with pictures of President Barack Obams sporting a Hitler moustache and allegations that he's a Marxist, a socialist and a Muslim born in Kenya, they're simply carrying on our nation's long tradition of dirty politics, beginning with a couple of signers of the Declaration of Independence.
That, of course, doesn't justify today's political incivility. If Drefuss wants to bring good manners to politics, he should focus on adult education.
He's on the right track with his announcement of a plan to link websites this fall "representing all political opinion to discuss the state of the country" in a "national conversation." With only a week and a half before election day it's a little late to deliver on that promise.
But it's not too late for the actor to speak out against the lies being spread by those who claim to honor the Constitution. It would also set a good example for those Earl Warren eighth graders.
You can tell when politicians get desperate by the way they attack their opponents with half-truths or outright lies in the final days of a campaign. Spreading fear about a lesser-known candidate is a common strategy for an incumbent running scared.
Confident candidates avoid mentioning the names of their opponents. But incumbent Bill Horn's latest mailer is more about spreading fear of what a Supervisor Steve Gronke might do rather than what Supervisor Horn has done and will do. He makes a pandering promise to "stand up for taxpayers," but unless he thinks public employees don't pay taxes, it appears Horn lives in an Orwellian world where some taxpayers are more equal than others.
You'd think Horn would feel more confident after 16 years in office. He's been able to make a lot of friends by strategically doling out his annual $2 million share of the $10 million in slush funds that supervisors enjoyed during his tenure.
Maybe what worries Horn most is that his $111,000 investment in the June primary yielded only 47,000 votes, costing him $2.80 per vote, while Gronke spent a mere $25,000 to attract 21,000 voters at $1.19 a vote.
From July through September, Horn spent another $163,000, bringing his campaign's total investment, a month before the election, to $274,000. With fewer deep pockets to tap, Gronke spent only $12,000 on his campaign during the same period, for a total of $39,000.
Horn's attack piece claims, "Steve Gronke's campaign is bankrolled by special interest public employee unions."
But Gronke's campaign consultant, Cody Campbell, told me his campaign "has not accepted money from any union or affiliated labor organization and is unaware of any monetary expenditure from labor that will go to support the campaign." He said several labor organizations have included Gronke on their list of candidates they endorse. That should come as no surprise, given Horn's outspoken disdain for unions.
I e-mailed Horn's campaign for a response, but didn't receive a reply by this column's deadline.
Horn's accusation that Gronke's campaign is being bankrolled by unions arrived in the mail the same day a public employees union was busily planting a forest of signs along North County roadways. They carry Bill Horn's name in large, flaming orange letters. At the bottom, in print so small it can't be read from more than a few feet away, we learn the signs have been, "Paid for by the Deputy Sheriffs' Association of San Diego County Political Action Fund #862122."
It seems the only candidate being bankrolled by a union is a desperate incumbent, willing to mislead his constituents and spend more than a quarter of a million dollars to buy an election.
Supervisor Bill Horn’s second hit piece in two weeks landed in the mailbox the same day my absentee ballot arrived. The incumbent is using fear to keep his job for another eight years, when the new term limits law his scandal-plagued career inspired will prevent him from becoming supervisor for life. Horn’s desperate attack on his opponent, Steve Gronke, is a good example of why voters should disregard all negative campaigning in the weeks leading up to an election. It spurred me to cast my vote a month before the polls open.
In Carlsbad, North County’s Brigadoon, the campaign has been unusually civil up until now, with candidates touting their qualifications, rather than trumpeting the shortcomings of their opponents.
Mayoral candidate Matt Hall’s latest mailer refers to his opponent as “freshman councilman Keith Blackburn,” the “only council member to oppose (pension) reforms.” Well, that’s stretching the truth a bit. Blackburn is in his second year on the council, technically making him a sophomore, and he did not exactly oppose reforms.
He said he had no problem with reducing retirement benefits for new city employees, but he voted against singling out safety employees without considering the impact it might have in hiring and retaining them in a competitive local market. He is opposed to Proposition G that would give the council the power only to reduce benefits. Raising them could be done only by a vote of the people. That’s a win-win solution for incumbents who are elected to represent the people, but want to avoid hard decisions by turning them over to those who know the least about them. Blackburn’s right on both counts.
But Hall’s slight truth-stretching comes nowhere near the level of a smear campaign.
Since there’s still a month to go before the election and there’s ample time for the mudslinging to begin, here’s how I voted yesterday.
Blackburn is my clear choice for mayor. Yes, he’s been on the council for only two years, but that’s a good thing. I’ve been following the video-taped council meetings on the web during that time and Blackburn and Kulchin always seem to ask the smartest questions of staff and others who come before the council.
He and Kulchin were right about the swim complex. Had their view prevailed, Alga Norte would be under construction by now. Hall, Packard and Lewis kept that from happening. Do you suppose it’s just an election-year coincidence that the three of them joined Blackburn and Kulchin to vote to go ahead with plans for construction at the council’s September 28 meeting?
Yes, indeed, the good old boys have been good stewards of the city’s coffers, but leadership calls for more than simple stewardship.
Blackburn may be the rookie on the council, but his intelligence, educational background, service to the community, business experience, willingness to listen, and dedication to making a wealthy city even more responsive to the needs of its citizens, makes him the best candidate.
Farrah Douglas is my choice for one of the open council positions. Her unusually active experience in city government and the business community will enable her to be immediately aware of the issues facing the council. She, too, was right about Alga Norte. The money to build the swim complex was there two years ago. She was also the most articulate candidate at the forum I attended. Finally, she’ll bring gender and cultural diversity to a council badly in need of it.
My only reservation about her is her participation in the tea party events. She doesn’t strike me as someone who’s angry and believes government is the enemy. But that didn’t keep me from casting my vote for her.
Jon Wantz is my choice for the other seat on the council. He’s new to the city, but that, too is a good thing. He has the most ambitious and creative list of goals for the city with regard to attracting small business to Carlsbad, and his youth is an important element that’s been missing in a group of mostly good old boys. His service in the military required the development of leadership skills.
Wantz is far more articulate than Councilman Packard, whose questions at council meetings are remarkably shallow, and who, as a member of the North County Transit District board, cast the lone vote against installing a safety device for local railways required by the federal government. He claimed it was a symbolic vote against big government.
Take a good look at the websites and mailers of all the candidates and attend the voter forums. I think you’ll find that Hall and Packard are mostly about the past. Blackburn, Douglas and Wantz are about the future.
Now that slightly more than half of California's students are proficient in grade level standards for English, not quite half in math, State Superintendent Jack O'Connell boasts that the state's latest school test scores have shown "steady academic progress" over the past eight years.
Scores have improved by an average of 2 percentage points each year. At this rate, it will take another 20 years for California to meet the No Child Left Behind goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014.
O'Connell laments the lack of progress in closing the achievement gap separating Latinos, African Americans and the economically disadvantaged from their white classmates. The 20 to 30 percentage point difference in English and math scores has barely budged in a decade.
O'Connell announced two initiatives targeted to close the gap: the newly adopted Common Core standards and a book on research-based approaches to teaching English Learners. He says his staff will help schools implement the book's recommendations.
Malcolm Gladwell, in his best-selling book, "Outliers: The Story of Success," suggests the solution to improving school performance may be simpler than we think ---- more instructional time. He points to KIPP charter schools (Knowledge Is Power Program) as a model. San Diego's KIPP Adelante, the only one in the county, has achieved impressive results with the very student population O'Connell wants to help.
A public charter school enrolling 360 students in grades 5 through 8, Adelante features an extended school day (7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), a longer school year, and monthly Saturday classes. All students are economically disadvantaged, 87 percent are Latino, 64 percent are English learners. Forty percent of their parents did not graduate from high school.
So how did they do on this year's California Standards Test? While just 28 percent of Adelante's first-year fifth-graders were proficient or above grade level in English, 75 percent of eighth-graders had attained that level. In math, 22 percent of fifth-graders were proficient, while 75 percent of eighth-graders were. The school's Academic Performance Indicator (API) places it in the top 10 percent of similar schools and top 20 percent of all schools in California.
In comparison, only 61 percent of Vista's eighth-graders scored at or above proficiency in English and only 49 percent in math, despite the district's multimillion-dollar investment over the past several years in an off-the-shelf, proprietary reading program designed to be a quick fix for low test scores.
Rather than placing his faith in revised school standards and another how-to book for teachers, maybe Superintendent O'Connell should spend more time helping California compete successfully in the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" school funding program.
It's intended to help states replicate the success of schools like KIPP Adelante.
Every hundred years the slumbering residents of Brigadoon awaken for a day to celebrate their unchanging lives, united in the knowledge that if anybody leaves town, their enchanted village will disappear forever.
Last week at the Dove Library, Carlsbad’s 2010 state of the city video (embedded above) gave a hundred local residents their annual reassurance that all is well in their village, and they can keep it that way by not leaving town to shop.
Mayor Bud Lewis explained there’d be no questions allowed from the floor because he didn’t want the event to become an election forum. You could approach staff and council members individually with your questions after the show.
Mythical cities dislike public discord.
The mayor then introduced city council members and candidates for the November election. Since nobody but current office holders showed up, skeptics might ask if challengers had been told they’d be introduced, especially since the mayor has been a strong supporter of Matt Hall for mayor and Mark Packard to retain his seat on the council.
Despite Lewis’s promise to keep politics out of the evening’s presentation, he couldn’t resist putting a spin on how he wants folks to vote in November. He outlined what he considered to be the four most important issues facing the city next year. Only one of them, the sustainability of Carlsbad’s water supply, was non-political. The others: his successor’s vision for the city, a warning about union control of the council and public employee pensions were all about politics.
Lewis urged passage of Proposition G, on the ballot this fall, which would require a vote of the people for future increases in police and firefighter retirement benefits but only a majority vote of the council to reduce them. He didn’t explain why safety employees should be singled out. Nor did he say why our elected representatives can’t be trusted to take full responsibility for fair and competitive pay and benefits for all city employees.
Prop. G amounts to a no-lose strategy for office holders. Given today’s anti-government rhetoric, a politician’s future is more threatened by raising city worker benefits than by cutting them. It’s a familiar game: when you campaign for office boast of your knowledge, experience and wisdom to do the right thing; then, after you’re elected, turn over the tough decisions to voters—the same ones who voted for you because you claimed to be smarter than they were.
The 17-minute video was an overview of the city’s efforts to retain its natural beauty, quality of life and economic stability. It celebrated Carlsbad’s commitment to desalination, water recycling and energy conservation.
During a five-minute segment on financial planning, seven charts flashed across the screen at the rate of 8 seconds each, depicting the city’s expenses, taxes and revenues. The narrator’s brief commentary raised more questions than answers. It was a kind of shell game for viewers to guess what nuggets of information might be uncovered before a chart disappeared from the screen.
We learned, for example, that $10 million was slashed from the general fund and 25 employee positions were eliminated over the last two years. But we weren’t told what services were sacrificed, other than the delayed construction of a park, identified by name only, rather than as the site for a long-promised community swimming pool.
Viewers were left to conclude that having to wait for a new city park has been the city’s only hardship caused by the recession.
There was no mention of Carlsbad’s unemployment rate. Or whether anyone cares about how many jobs will be lost with Callaway Golf’s announcement of moving its operations to Mexico. Or how much longer taxpayers will be required to bail out the failing golf course. Or what’s become of Proposition C, the 2002 voter-approved plan for the city to purchase more open space.
This state of the city report was all about business-friendliness, infrastructure repairs, careful planning and prudent spending. Support for the arts, youth activities, the growing senior population, the community’s burgeoning ethnic diversity, and affordable housing went unmentioned.
The only challenge facing the city next year, according to this feel-good video, is to stop a power plant from being built near the beach so developers will be able to descend on Ponto, identified only as the “South Carlsbad Redevelopment Zone.”
Are North County’s Brigadoon villagers content with their yearly bedtime story? Stay tuned for November’s election results.
Every hundred years the slumbering residents of Brigadoon awaken for a day to celebrate their unchanging lives, united in the knowledge that if anybody leaves town, their enchanted village will disappear forever.
Last week at the Dove Library, Carlsbad's 2010 state of the city video gave a hundred local residents their annual reassurance that all is well in their village, and they can keep it that way by not leaving town to shop.
Mayor Bud Lewis explained there'd be no questions allowed from the floor because he didn't want the event to become an election forum. You could approach staff and council members individually with your questions after the show.
Mythical cities dislike public discord.
The 17-minute video was an overview of the city's efforts to retain its natural beauty, quality of life and economic stability. It celebrated Carlsbad's commitment to desalination, water recycling and energy conservation.
During a five-minute segment on financial planning, seven charts flashed across the screen at the rate of 8 seconds each, depicting the city's expenses, taxes and revenues. The narrator's brief commentary raised more questions than answers. It was a kind of shell game for viewers to guess what nuggets of information might be uncovered before a chart disappeared from the screen.
We learned, for example, that $10 million was slashed from the general fund and 25 employee positions were eliminated over the last two years. But we weren't told what services were sacrificed, other than the delayed construction of a park, identified by name only, rather than the site for a long-promised community swimming pool.
Viewers were left to conclude that having to wait for a new city park has been the city's only hardship caused by the recession.
There was no mention of Carlsbad's unemployment rate. Or whether anyone cares about how many jobs will be lost with Callaway Golf's announcement of moving its operations to Mexico. Or how much longer taxpayers will be required to bail out the failing golf course. Or what's become of Proposition C, the 2002 voter-approved plan for the city to purchase more open space.
This state of the city report was all about business-friendliness, infrastructure repairs, careful planning and prudent spending. Support for the arts, youth activities, the growing senior population, the community's burgeoning ethnic diversity, and affordable housing went unmentioned.
The only challenge facing the city next year, according to this feel-good video, is to stop a power plant from being built near the beach so developers will be able to descend on Ponto, identified only as the "South Carlsbad Redevelopment Zone."
Are North County's Brigadoon villagers content with their yearly bedtime story? Stay tuned for November's election results.
Nannies made the news in North County last week, on this page and in local theaters. An editorial suggested that state lawmakers, minions of a nanny state, may be plotting to take away our favorite toys, beginning with plastic grocery bags. Meanwhile, a nanny named McPhee tamed unruly kids on the area's big screens.
We're happy to see fictional caregivers like Nanny McPhee and Mary Poppins take firm control of our kids. They do the right thing in ways that are not always the most popular at the outset with either kids or parents. Kind of like nanny states.
A closer look reveals how nanny states vary according to the politics of those who complain about them. Nannies who want to regulate our behavior in the bedroom, for example, are not usually the ones who want to regulate it in the boardroom. It seems the definition of "nanny state" lies in the eyes of the beholder.
Take, for example, 50th District Representative and immigration nanny Brian Bilbray (R-Solana Beach). He wants to save us from immigrants. Not just the ones who sneak in. Bilbray chairs the Immigration Reform Caucus, which he calls "bipartisan" because the 96 member committee includes four Democrats, one of whom hails from north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
The caucus was established in 1999 to "address both the positive and negative consequences of immigration." But a search of its website reveals it's all about closing doors. A more accurate name for it would be the Anti-Immigration Caucus.
The only legislation proposed by the group that doesn't target illegal immigrants would keep legal immigrants away. Bilbray's committee boasts that H.R. 878, The Nuclear Family Priority Act, could reduce legal immigration by as much as 50 percent.
They don't say it would also put us at a disadvantage in competing for scientific and technical talent in a global marketplace. Fortunately, the bill was relegated to a subcommittee a year and a half ago, where it's dying a quiet death.
In a recent Fox News interview, Bilbray explained why he wants to redefine birthright citizenship. American Indians, he observed, weren't originally recognized as citizens by the 14th Amendment because they were not deemed "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction. It wasn't until 1920 that Congress made them citizens. In a breathtaking leap of logic, Bilbray asked why pregnant millionaires from other countries, residing here legally on temporary visas, should be allowed to give birth to instant citizens.
You'd think a flood of wealthy immigrant babies would be good news for the economy.
The congressman should be reminded of the lady holding a torch aloft in New York Harbor. That nanny has served us pretty well over the years.
Why does mayoral candidate Matt Hall continue to mislead Carlsbad voters about a measure on the November ballot?
His website was revised a day after my July 30 Carlsbadistan column criticized him for wrongly claiming the city charter amendment up for a vote would create a two-tiered pension plan for city employees. He now says he “successfully persuaded” his fellow council members to adopt the plan last spring, continuing to imply it covered all new city employees. He failed to point out that only police and firefighter benefits were affected.
The charter amendment would require a vote of the people for future pension benefit increases for safety employees. The council would retain the right to reduce them. Hall says he supports “fair” and “balanced” public employee pensions. He doesn’t explain why he should only be trusted to cut them. Retiring Carlsbad mayor Bud Lewis and council member Mark Packard are proud members of the Matt Hall for mayor fan club. If you like the troika of good old boys, Lewis, Packard and Hall, you’ll probably vote to keep two of them on the council.
But incumbents who boast of records of fiscal responsibility might be asked how that led to continued investment in a $60 million golf course that can’t attract enough golfers to stave off a million dollar taxpayer bailout each year, while putting the construction of a fully-funded community swimming pool on hold.
Two newcomers, Farrah Douglas and Jon Wantz, are running to replace Packard and fill the council occasioned by the Hall mayoral bid.
After opposing construction of the Alga Norte swim complex last year, Packard now says it’s his “ambition to see Alga Norte Park open for the citizens in 2013.” Voters must decide if a politician’s “ambition” equals a promise.
Last year Packard opposed a federally required safety device for local trains, which would have meant the end of local rail service by 2015. He was the only NCTD board member voting against it, putting political pandering ahead of civic responsibility by casting a vote that wouldn’t keep the board from doing the right thing.
Farrah Douglas, an immigrant with a fascinating life story of fleeing Iran after the fall of the Shah, is a successful businesswoman with an exceptional record of civic involvement. She pledges to spend the money set aside to acquire open space by the 2002 Prop C vote, complaining that after eight years it has remained unspent.
Her appearance as a speaker at Oceanside’s April tea party was puzzling, given the group’s disinterest in local politics. Nothing in her platform reflects the group’s single-minded focus on less government and lower taxes.
Jon Wantz, the most visionary of the candidates, offers a cornucopia of ideas, beginning with his list of initiatives to spur small business growth. He’s a strong proponent of the arts and culture, with an emphasis on youth, including support of the proposed skateboard museum and skate park.
He brings to his candidacy seven years in private business and military service in Iraq. He vows to hold regular office hours at City Hall every week and neighborhood meetings each month.
The median age of the current male-dominated council is 62, while nearly two thirds of Carlsbadians are under 50. More than half are female. The addition of Douglas and 28-year-old Wantz would make the council more representative in culture, age and gender.
With Kulchin’s 30-years of council experience and Douglas’s 20 years of civic involvement, voters could get the best of both worlds by dumping the incumbents.
With the retirement of a mayor who has been in office for a quarter of a century and two City Council seats up for grabs, Carlsbad voters will have their first opportunity in decades to make a substantial change in city leadership.
The incumbents have a lot going for them. The city's in better financial shape than its neighbors, and public opinion surveys show three out of four Carlsbadians have faith in their city government.
Here's a peek at the candidacies of two council members who say they want to be Carlsbad's next mayor, Matt Hall and Keith Blackburn.
Hall's website carries misinformation about a measure on the November ballot.
The 16-year council veteran urges passage of an "initiative calling for a two-tiered pension system for city employees." Unless he's busily gathering petition signatures, no such initiative exists.
The two-tiered system is already a done deal for police and firefighters, imposed on them in May at the same time council members voted to place a city charter amendment on the ballot. Replying to my request for clarification, the Hall campaign supplied me with the amendment's language. It would give the council the right to reduce pension benefits while requiring a vote of the people to increase them. It applies to public safety personnel only, not all city employees, as Hall's website claims.
Whether it was intentionally deceptive or not, the misinformation shows how politicians lose their credibility.
In April 2009, Hall voted against starting construction on the Alga Norte swim complex, despite an $11 million surplus in the construction budget.
As it turns out, the city wound up with a $5 million surplus, another $1 million bailout for the failing golf course, and a vacant lot waiting for a pool. Hall says he can't wait to build the pool now that a $1 million surplus has been forecast for next year's budget.
Blackburn voted with Ann Kulchin to begin construction of Alga Norte last year.
The council's rookie and the lady were the visionaries. Had their view prevailed, the city's return on its investment in Carlsbad's recreational health and safety would be a lot closer today to paying dividends.
When it comes to city employee benefits, Blackburn's primary concern is to keep them competitive with surrounding cities. He's not opposed to reductions in pension formulas. But lower benefits, he points out, could hinder the city's ability to compete for and retain the best employees, increasing training costs caused by higher employee turnover.
Those who claim Carlsbad's enviable quality of life will always attract the best people have apparently not heard about commuting.
Tune in next time for my take on other council contenders.
Mark Twain once complained that everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. The same could be said today of school reform.
This newspaper's call for a dialogue on how to improve schools has so far produced only a handful of editorials suggesting the key to better schools is to free them from obstacles created by unions and state regulations.
The community's response has been a collective yawn. Maybe that's because the call for reform has been mostly about cutting costs for what schools are already doing. Except for upgrades in technology and classroom furniture, students continue to trudge from one grade to the next in much the same way they have since the days of one-room schoolhouses.
Herded by age group through 12 years of schooling, all are expected to learn the same things in the same way at the same rate. Those who can't or won't conform to the norm lose interest. Accelerated and remedial classes are designed to individualize instruction, but the dominant one-size-fits-all culture causes students on both ends of the spectrum to either drop out or seek the path of least resistance through social promotion each year.
An example of actual reform can be found in the Kansas City, Mo., schools, where this fall 17,000 students will transition from being grouped by age to being grouped by competence in each subject. School districts in Maine and Alaska have already begun to move away from a system where students move ahead based on how much time they warm seats in a classroom.
A competency-based approach allows students of varying ages, assisted individually or in small groups by their teachers, to work at their own pace on projects matching their skill levels. The stigma of not fitting in with peers will be reduced, since students will see that learning depends more on varying skills and interest in subject matter than age.
Math and science whizzes may take longer to master the English and arts courses that are easily aced by those struggling with math. While some students may complete all the requirements necessary to graduate early from high school, those who need more time may take an extra year.
Meanwhile, here in North County, each time test scores are released, we're reminded that a school's academic ranking reflects the average family income of its students.
In districts where failing schools face state sanctions, board members, rather than tackling school reform, wrangle with teacher unions, seek off-the-shelf quick fixes for low test scores and decide whether to honor a former student for voicing her opinion about gay marriage as a contestant in a beauty pageant.
Oscar-winning actor and Encinitas resident Richard Dreyfuss warns that if America's public schools do not adopt a national civics curriculum, our democratic republic is doomed. If kids aren't taught how to run the country, his Dreyfuss Initiative website proclaims in a burst of overblown rhetoric, "government by, for and of the people will have failed."
His proposed curriculum would include "the telling of glory tales and myths to the very young" and, "as the brain develops," include the teaching of reason, logic, clarity of thought and critical analysis. The final two years would focus on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Dreyfuss should check out the current standards for the history and social science curriculums of California schools. He'd discover that kindergartners learn about personal responsibility and patriotism from stories and folklore.
Fifth-graders gain an understanding of how a representative democracy works and the role and responsibilities of its citizens.
In the 11th grade, they learn about the significant events in the founding of our nation. They analyze the Declaration of Independence and the debates involved in drafting and ratifying the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Seniors are expected to evaluate and take positions on the scope and limits of their rights and responsibilities in a free and civil society.
That sounds like civics to me.
Dreyfuss's plea for a more reasoned and responsible political discourse is understandable, given the constant stream of angry invective erupting from the mouths of cable-TV talking heads. But implying that the absence of civics courses has caused the nasty discord shows an ignorance of what schools are teaching today, as well as the misguided notion that knowledge of civics assures civility.
The commendable skills Dreyfuss espouses ---- reason, logic, clarity of thought and critical analysis ---- are best taught by good teachers exemplifying them in the classroom, regardless of subject matter.
While a national civics curriculum is not the answer, Dreyfuss proposes several other public education projects more in keeping with the actor's considerable dramatic talents.
One is the production of a television special that brings together historians, comics, thinkers, artists and stars in a narrative of the life of our democracy as a Dickensian tale. Another is a multi-part series titled "Miracle at Philadelphia," a political thriller about the Founders. The most ambitious is experiential learning conducted on a train running from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., via Gettysburg, carrying students and luminaries of the political left and right engaged in spirited discussions of the Civil War.
Richard Dreyfuss is a fine actor, but in this case it seems he's miscast himself as a school reformer.
For those who take tea partiers seriously, the most surprising thing about last week's election results was the lack of surprises. It was pretty much business as usual at the polls.
The 36 percent turnout of San Diego County's 1.4 million registered voters fell short of the 37 percent turnout for the 2006 gubernatorial primary. All incumbents came out on top. The three candidates endorsed by local tea party sponsors, Stop Taxing Us, lost by large margins, despite the organization's frequent opinion pieces in this newspaper, regular interviews of its leaders on the local Fox News channel and the group's endorsements touted on its website.
The only real surprise came in the county Board of Supervisors' two races, where incumbents face November runoffs for the first time in more than a decade.
You have to wonder why Stop Taxing Us did not endorse Bill Horn, given his shameless pandering to its demands for lower taxes and smaller government.
In his spring newsletter, Horn boasted of attending a local tax day tea party.
He bashed legislators in Sacramento and Washington for "bailing out entire industries, damaging our free enterprise system, threatening to undermine the best health care system in the world, and worshiping at the altar of environmental extremism." Sound familiar? You'd think he'd borrowed the script from Oceanside's latest tea party rally.
On his county website, Horn sang the praises of San Diego Design Center's President Robert J. Basso, who wrote to the 5th District supervisor to explain why this country's manufacturers are rapidly disappearing. Basso recalls the good old days, specifically 1955, when he opened his small manufacturing business at a time when "burdensome and obstructive restrictions and regulations were mostly non-existent." Horn proudly posted Basso's letter on the 5th District website at http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/cnty/bos/sup5/news/letter20100319.pdf.
After reading this business owner's long list of government restrictions, condemning regulations covering discrimination, sexual harassment, the disabled, worksite safety, hazardous materials, funded vacations, retirement plans and unions, it became apparent Horn's hero believes these regulations destroyed a business climate ideal for sweatshops managed by able-bodied white males.
Horn told this newspaper he's confident he'll defeat Steve Gronke in the runoff, calling him a stooge for the unions. Political pundits say the odds are heavily stacked against Gronke growing his 20 percent primary vote into a majority.
But with Horn seen as the stooge for wealthy developers, his "let 'em eat cake" eagerness to slash social services budgets to preserve the county's $707 million reserve, the 70 percent of San Diegans voting for supervisor term limits, and his failed courtship of kindred-spirit conservatives, many are rooting for David to slay Goliath at the polls in November.
At the close of the Carlsbad City Council's May 18 meeting, Councilman Matt Hall observed, "History keeps repeating itself. When this issue first came before us in 2001, the mayor and I both voted against it."
He was referring to an increase in retirement benefits approved nine years ago on a 3-2 vote. This time he joined the mayor on the winning side of a 4-1 vote to roll back those benefits.
Hall's parting shot was self-serving and unnecessary, unless, of course, you're running for mayor as the incumbent's clone.
The new contract reduces benefits for new hires, requires current employees to increase their contribution to the state's pension fund from 1 percent to 9 percent of annual salary and rejects a request for a 5 percent salary increase to partially offset that pay cut.
The council has been praised for saving the city from bankruptcy and showing leadership for other cities to emulate. But a closer look suggests city officials were motivated more by payback than prudence.
The city's negotiator claimed costs would continue to be driven up by guaranteed benefits, the stock market crash causing dwindling returns on state retirement system investments and longer retiree life spans.
A case can be made for raising the retirement age for future employees. But CalPERS and the Legislature are addressing the recent spike in costs for the state's pension program, and Wall Street has begun its recovery from the recession. Given those developments and the city's enviable financial position, there was no need for Carlsbad to take urgent action.
Are firefighters overpaid? The city says the average gross salary of paramedic/firefighters exceeds $97,000. But $20,000 of that is in overtime pay not included in pension calculations. The base salary ranges from $63,000 to $77,000.
Mayor Bud Lewis claimed the average salary of the city's "male breadwinners" ranges from $75,000 to $80,000, although city staff in attendance had no idea where those numbers came from. SANDAG reports the city's median household income exceeds $101,000.
Regardless of his antiquated view of the primacy of male breadwinners, you have to wonder if the mayor really believes those we entrust with saving our lives and property should be paid no more than the average adult male Carlsbad resident.
One week after the council stiffed the firefighters, the mayor announced a tentative contract with the police union: 2 percent pay hikes this year and next and a phased-in increase in the amount they must pay into the pension system.
In contrast, firefighters agreed to reduced pensions for new employees and an immediate increase in their retirement contribution. In return, they got a one-year contract with no pay raise.
Before Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer issued her executive order requiring law enforcement officers to be trained to avoid racial profiling, Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, explained in a nationally televised interview how police could enforce Arizona's new immigration law without such training.
"They will look at the kind of dress you wear," he told Chris Mathews, "There's different type of attire, right down to the shoes."
North County Times political cartoon freelancer John Webster depicted our 50th District representative in oversized clown shoes, asking a cop writing him a ticket how he could tell he was a congressman.
Bilbray has yet to disavow shoe-style profiling, but in an apparent attempt to gain gravitas after his interview went viral on YouTube, Bilbray wrote an opinion piece for this newspaper ("Arizona law result of federal failures," May 9).
Here's a fact check:
Claim: Growing threats to its economic security and public safety forced Arizona to take action.
Fact: The year before the law was enacted Homeland Security and the FBI reported an 18 percent decline in the state's illegal immigrants, a 9 percent drop in violent crime and 6 percent fewer burglaries. That suggests the new law is more about politics than public well-being.
Claim: Arizona is simply enforcing federal law.
Fact: A half-truth. Section 287g of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes Homeland Security to sign agreements with state law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws only if designated officers are trained and supervised by federal immigration and customs officers.
Placing training and supervision in the hands of local law enforcement agencies gives the green light to rogue sheriffs such as Maricopa County's Joe Arpaio, who has come under federal investigation for alleged civil rights violations.
Claim: Requiring employers to use E-verify will stop the hiring of illegal workers.
Fact: A recent study by a research company hired by Homeland Security to evaluate the program showed E-verify failed to catch more than half of the unauthorized workers it checks.
Claim: Immigration reform has been hindered by "radical, pro-amnesty partisan lawmakers."
Fact: Requiring illegal immigrants to pay a fine, undergo criminal background checks, learn English and go to the back of the line to apply for permanent residency is not amnesty. The only president favoring amnesty in the last 25 years was Ronald Reagan, signing the 1986 law that allowed border crashers who had lived in the U.S. continuously up until 1982 to be legal residents with no financial penalty and few questions asked.
Our previous 50th District representative is in prison. The incumbent's bizarre national interview, attracting more than 44,000 YouTube views and counting, may have his constituents wondering if, as Webster's cartoon suggests, they've exchanged a crook for a clown.
There's no shortage of complaints about our "broken" public schools or suggestions about how to fix them. But if success is measured by student test scores alone, only a handful of schools in North County are in urgent need of repair.
Each time test results are released, we're reminded that schools with the best scores are attended by students from the wealthiest families. That doesn't necessarily mean those schools have the best teachers. Students from affluent families don't have to lean so heavily on teachers to succeed. In fact, a case could be made that teachers with the greatest influence on student learning can be found in schools with the lowest test scores.
So how do you mend a broken school? For starters, we could fix a school financing system that punishes the poor while rewarding the wealthy.
Here's how it works in North County. The test score gap between Vista schools and San Dieguito schools in Encinitas, Del Mar and Solana Beach matches the $45,000 difference in median family income separating the two districts. While Vista faces sanctions for low academic performance, the award-winning San Dieguito district boasts on its website of being "one of the nation's finest."
In her March 25 budget message, Vista Superintendent Joyce Bales noted enrollment had plunged by 3,000 students during the last decade. Since funding is based on daily attendance, budget cuts have resulted in "more than a $50 million decrease for three consecutive years." That means fewer teachers and larger classes, hardly a recipe for fixing broken schools.
Meanwhile, San Dieguito Superintendent Ken Noah announced his district is now getting more revenue from property taxes than from state funding. Unlike Vista, when enrollment falls, San Dieguito schools prosper. As a result, the district faces a manageable $8 million cut in state funding for special programs during the next two years. That will require belt tightening and turning away transfer students from other districts. But there's no talk of larger classes or teacher layoffs in North County's wealthiest school district.
Some say unions are to blame for our broken schools. But if that is so, why don't they have the same effect everywhere? The district and faculty union collaborate for the good of their students in San Dieguito.
But in Vista, where a multimillion-dollar commercial reading program, imposed by a divisive superintendent, has shown questionable evidence of success, and where the primary concerns of two recent school board members have been to oppose unions and gay marriage, the teachers aren't happy.
This tale of two districts suggests irrational school funding, combined with dysfunctional leadership, are more to blame for our broken schools.
By RICHARD RIEHL -- For the North County Times | April 23, 2010
Has the local tea party movement reached its peak? Comparing this year's Oceanside event with last year's led me to that conclusion.
Last year's crowd, after being revved up by speakers at the Civic Center, marched to the pier to dump sandbags marked "tea" into the sea. It was a family affair, with lots of kids, a few of them in strollers. As they marched along, the angry crowd chanted "USA! USA! It was a festive affair, but the signs claiming our elected leaders were traitors were unnerving.
Organizers said there were at least 5,000 in attendance.
This year's event attracted only about 1,500 true believers to the pier amphitheater, according to police estimates, and produced a more sedate, sit-and-listen crowd. Promoted as a family-friendly affair with face-painting for the kids, I was struck by the shortage of children. On average, this year's partiers appeared to be about 10 years older than last year's.
The scheduled headliner, San Diego's favorite conservative radio talk jock Rick Roberts, failed to show up. A lesser known media personality, feeling the need to fire up his audience, repeatedly begged, "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" The tepid response indicated many were not familiar with that kind of rocking.
Despite the crowd's indifference to matters of municipal politics, a few City Council hopefuls showed up. When Oceanside recall survivor Jerry Kern breathlessly boasted of his victory over labor union attacks, the response was underwhelming.
Organized labor was not among the day's favorite targets.
Pandering reached its peak, though, with the arrival onstage of gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner. Dramatically declaring, "I don't like to pay taxes, do you?" he promised to cut taxes, put a stop to illegal immigration "once and for all," and sue the feds "all the way to the Supreme Court" to eliminate California's "man-made water shortage."
He failed to mention his Web site promises to make a "massive" investment in education and to build environmentally friendly water-supply infrastructure projects.
Less government spending, not more, was the red meat this crowd hungered for.
Here's what we learned about this year's tea party supporters from the recent New York Times/CBS News Poll:
-- 58 percent think our best years are behind us when it comes to good jobs.
-- 75 percent are over 45, including 29 percent seniors.
-- 89 percent are white.
-- 59 percent are men.
-- While 84 percent of tea party supporters believe their views represent most Americans, only 25 percent of Americans think they do.
Only time will tell, but I'd say a collection of cranky old white guys vowing to bring back the good old days is unlikely to have much of a political future in this country.
Published in San Diego's North County Times, April 9, 2010
This newspaper's editorial board has issued an invitation for the community to engage in a discussion of how to improve our schools, narrowing the topic to five areas: teacher tenure, class size, school finance, union influence and leveraging technology. My thoughts about teacher tenure and union influence were shaped by five years of teaching high school English, followed by a 30-year career in public university administration.
Recent studies show that as many as half of all beginning teachers leave the profession in five years. I was a member of that group. When I left teaching it wasn't because of the pay, or that I didn't like working with students, or that I was a failure in the classroom. My principal offered me a pay raise to persuade me to stay.
I quit because I saw no career advancement as a classroom teacher and had no interest in being a school counselor or principal. Had there been a career track leading to a "master teacher" status, with a modified teaching load and responsibilities for mentoring beginning teachers, I might have happily remained in teaching.
Instead, I took a pay cut and an extension of my work year from nine to 12 months to accept a job working with students as a college admissions counselor.
I wonder if other former teachers have left the classroom for similar reasons.
My brief teaching career began in a small rural school in Washington in 1965, at an annual salary of $4,800. An online inflation calculator tells me that would equal the buying power of $33,000 today. If there was a teachers union at the time, nobody told me about it. But there is one today. This year's union-negotiated salary schedule in my old school district shows a first-year teacher's pay has risen to $34,000. Union influence over the years had boosted a novice teacher's buying power by a whopping $83 a month.
The Vista Unified School District's 2009-10 salary schedule lists a beginning teacher's pay at $38,771. That would be the equivalent of $5,450 in 1965 buying power. I'd say the ghosts of Sam Gompers and Jimmy Hoffa are not exactly exchanging high fives about union clout over teacher pay in those two school districts.
While most would agree today's teachers are not overpaid, some say unions are to be blamed for making it hard to get rid of bad teachers and impossible to reward the best. In a future column I'll have more to say about why I think blaming unions is often used as a smokescreen to hide administrative incompetence and a lack of financial commitment to school reform.
