It took a federal court ruling and a $28 billion budget deficit for California to finally do something about its obsolete prison system. San Diego County’s Chief Probation Officer, Mack Jenkins, told the Carlsbad City Council last month that implementing AB 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act will be “the most significant change in California’s correctional system in at least 30 years.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that conditions caused by crowding 167,000 inmates into buildings built for 90,000 were in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Now it’s a question of how to reduce the prison population while protecting the public and reducing the deficit. San Diego County’s community corrections plan is on track to do all three.
Contrary to a wealth of misinformation, no state prison inmates are being transferred to local jails. Those who’ve served their sentences, are at low risk for re-offending, and are eligible for parole are being assigned to local probation officers who will engage in far more proactive follow up than the state parole system. Jenkins said it will include both announced and unannounced visits and more careful tracking.
Only four of the 1,000 parolees shifted to San Diego County to this date reside in Carlsbad. Vista has 61, Escondido 55, and Oceanside 41. Carlsbad Police Chief Gary Morrison reported there’s been no increase in the city’s crime rate. [click to continue…]
Wouldn’t it be nice if grocery stores and gas stations would sign pledges to stop taxing us with higher prices until they cut their business expenses an equal amount? They could protect their profits by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in their operations. We customers could help them find the waste to prove they don’t have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem.
Sound familiar? That’s the thinking behind a local political activist group that’s asking state office holders and candidates to sign its Promise to California Taxpayers pledge. Signers must promise to vote against all tax increases, amendments to Proposition 13 and increased taxpayer contributions to public employee pension plans.
I was disappointed to learn that Carlsbad City Council member and candidate for the 76th District seat in the California Assembly, Farrah Douglas, was one of the first five signers.
As they plan for next year’s budget cuts, Carlsbad school officials are confronted with options reminiscent of Hobson’s and Sophie’s choices. Thomas Hobson was the 16th Century English livery stable owner who advertised the availability of 40 horses but restricted choice to the one nearest the stable door—a take it or leave it option. Sophie Zawistowski was the mother in William Styron’s novel who is forced to choose which of her two children to save from being put to death by the Nazis.
Closing schools because of budget cuts embodies the same kind of no-win solutions.
Preparing for an expected $8 million budget shortfall next year, school officials are considering the closure of two schools that are substantially more costly to operate per pupil than other district schools because of their low enrollments. Abandoning Buena Vista Elementary and Carlsbad Village Academy would save the district an estimated $1 million. [click to continue…]
On Saturday I had an attack of déjà vu in downtown San Diego that made we wonder if Occupy Wall Street could ever come to our sleepy little Village By The Sea. Let me explain.
My wife and I had to wade through an Occupy San Diego encampment in front of the Civic Theatre, where we were headed to see the revival of the 60’s rock musical, HAIR. Karen was more excited about seeing the show than I was. Although we both have vivid memories of those psychedelic days, hers are more pleasant than mine.
She found her inner flower child in the late 60’s, leaving a stuck-in-the-50’s husband who preferred the kind of obedient wife we see today only in the popular retro TV series Mad Men. I was a high school English teacher affecting a Bono look, no not that Bono, the Sonny one who harmonized with Cher. Sporting fashionably long hair and a slightly droopy mustache, I wore paisley ties, a macramé belt and waffle-stomper boots. But my polyester sport coats gave me away. The only risk I took in the 60’s was standing too close to an open flame in that attire. I was a hippie wannabe. [click to continue…]
Carlsbad city officials can’t understand why more low-income homeowners haven’t applied for federal funds earmarked for minor home repairs, from clearing clogged drains to installing assistive devices for seniors and disabled persons.
The city pays $8,500 each year to Community HousingWorks, a San Diego non-profit, to administer the program. In the last three years, only four households have received funding.
At the city council’s March 22 meeting, Councilmember Farrah Douglas asked Debbie Fountain, director of housing and neighborhood services, to explain how the program has been marketed. Fountain told of postings on the city and HousingWorks websites, direct mailers to the barrio neighborhood, and articles and advertisements in community publications. She singled out word-of-mouth as “pretty successful.” Maybe that explains how the two homeowners receiving help last year learned of the program. [click to continue…]
Carlsbad City Council members nearly broke their arms patting themselves on the back after hearing a report on the results of the city’s annual public opinion survey at its February 8 meeting. The only councilmember to give credit where it was due, city employees, was Ann Kulchin, gushing, “This is your report card. As a parent I feel like I’d like to take you all out for an ice cream cone.”
Councilmen Packard confessed to having been one of the 1,000 residents whose opinions were sampled by telephone. After assuring the council he had identified himself to the caller, he crowed, “I did my very best to skew the numbers as high as I could.”
The only slight sprinkle on the evening’s parade of self-congratulations came from resident Diane Nygaard, representing the Preserve Calavera group, who reminded the council of the vote on Proposition C nine years ago to use city funds to acquire more open space. No additional natural lands have been acquired since the measure was passed.
Labor unions have been credited with the rise of America’s middle class. In the 1950’s about 40 percent of the nation’s workforce were union members. Today that number has dropped to less than 7 percent of private sector workers and about a third of public employees. Economists now warn of a disappearing middle class and the income gap between labor and management employees has widened.
In the five years from 2002 to 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the U.S. went to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population, according to researchers at UC Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics.
Politicians have jumped on the bandwagon of union bashing for ruining state and local economies. Carlsbad’s new mayor built his successful campaign on a promise to prevent a union takeover on the council that would threaten the city’s future prosperity.
As neighboring cities in North County struggle with budget cuts and fee increases for public services, Carlsbad’s city council members spent the lion’s share of their January 25th meeting listening to a proposal to set aside $4 million to redevelop its downtown.
Gary Nessim, Vice President of the Carlsbad Village Association, laid out a plan that would create a pedestrian promenade the entire length of Grand Avenue, from City Hall to the beach. Mayor Matt Hall and Councilmember Mark Packard excused themselves from the discussion since they both own property in the area to be developed.
The presentation reminded me of my seven years in the Midwest. My wife and I, both west coasters in our early years, relished our afternoon drives on weekends in search of small towns that flourished many years ago. Each had a town square, dominated by a City Hall protected by a couple of Civil War era cannons, and surrounded by a drugstore, a department store, some specialty shops, a restaurant and a gas station. They’re sad scenes today. Boarded up windows replace bustling streets as their main feature.
The words “back to the future” came to mind as Nessim described a future Grand Promenade, linking City Hall to the heart of the downtown district, creating a bustling central gathering place for residents and visitors alike.
At a September forum for Carlsbad’s mayoral and city council candidates, one city hall hopeful declared good pay for public safety personnel was unnecessary, since so many kids dream of fighting fires and catching criminals. Another claimed that if pay for public employees were cut by a third there’d be no problem finding replacements for those who quit.
Even though both candidates were losers, their comments may explain why voters overwhelmingly approved Carlsbad’s Prop G, which will prevent future city councils from increasing public safety employee benefits. Meanwhile, newspaper headlines continue their assault on public employee pay. In hard times, it seems, we need scapegoats.
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, politicians and the press have declared open season on public employees.
The latest example is an article appearing in the North County Times a couple of weeks ago (“Salaries up for county employees,” November 7). The lead-in claims, “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 also fell short of the truth.
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.
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Wouldn’t it be nice if grocery stores and gas stations would sign pledges to stop taxing us with higher prices until they cut their business expenses an equal amount? They could protect their profits by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in their operations. We customers could help them find the waste to prove they don’t have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem.
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The Riehl World: Impact Of Prison Reform
by Richard J. Riehl on March 8, 2012
It took a federal court ruling and a $28 billion budget deficit for California to finally do something about its obsolete prison system. San Diego County’s Chief Probation Officer, Mack Jenkins, told the Carlsbad City Council last month that implementing AB 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act will be “the most significant change in California’s correctional system in at least 30 years.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that conditions caused by crowding 167,000 inmates into buildings built for 90,000 were in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Now it’s a question of how to reduce the prison population while protecting the public and reducing the deficit. San Diego County’s community corrections plan is on track to do all three.
Contrary to a wealth of misinformation, no state prison inmates are being transferred to local jails. Those who’ve served their sentences, are at low risk for re-offending, and are eligible for parole are being assigned to local probation officers who will engage in far more proactive follow up than the state parole system. Jenkins said it will include both announced and unannounced visits and more careful tracking.
Only four of the 1,000 parolees shifted to San Diego County to this date reside in Carlsbad. Vista has 61, Escondido 55, and Oceanside 41. Carlsbad Police Chief Gary Morrison reported there’s been no increase in the city’s crime rate. [click to continue…]
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