Is the Solana Beach City Manager, David Ott, electioneering against Paul Frankel?
Is he protecting incumbent Lisa Heebner, County Supervisor candidate Dave Roberts (outgoing Councilman), and the agenda of the Democratic Party-endorsed slate (Heebner, Zito and Zahn)?
Heebner and Roberts mismanaged the City’s finances as Council members last decade. Ott served as Director of Public Safety, then as City Manager throughout the decade until his retirement in 2010. He stayed on as an interim employee but was rehired in 2011.
In 2010, Solana Beach voters rejected Proposition L, a business and occupancy tax, which was proposed because the City had been running a budget deficit. I opposed such a tax, explained how City payroll costs rose some 40 percent, for the first four years of the recession (while private sector citizens were taking pay cuts), and suggested austerity with robust pension reform. Proposition L was defeated. Soon thereafter, the Council announced that it had miraculously found some anonymous revenue source and declared the City budget balanced.
Right before the Proposition L election, the City Council announced a tepid pension reform plan and claimed to be one of the first cities in the County to address the issue. In 2011, under the leadership of Heebner and Roberts, the City Council projected yet another budget deficit this time, directed the blame at the Solana Beach Firefighters, giving Ott the charge to cut overtime pay. I applauded the Council for “getting tough” but noted that they were avoiding the elephant in the room; robust pension reform. Rather than address structurally unsustainable employee pensions, the Council decided to single out the Firefighters as the sole reason for the budget deficit.
In this election cycle, Republican Party-endorsed Council candidate Paul Frankel joined with independents Driver and Powell, to call to the Solana Beach taxpayers attention that Roberts and Heebner were complicit in the back-door tax hikes and fiscal mismanagement:
The mailer says the city is in “serious financial trouble” and points to budget deficits and high litigation costs spent defending lawsuits, in addition to calling out City Councilmember and candidate Lesa Heebner specifically for increasing taxes and fees — including a $3,000 home remodeling fee, a 30-percent increase in the hotel tax, a trash fee, increases in two business fees and a new business tax.
Ott overstepped his bounds by trying to influence the election:
City Manager David Ott said the city’s financial trouble was “significantly overstated” in the mailer, which also attributed the city’s borrowing of $3 million from the city’s sanitation fund to being a means to cover increased employee pension costs that were a result of the “overly-generous benefits approved by Lesa Heebner.”
The past City Council, and 25 or so liberal activists, control the agenda of tyranny in Solana Beach. They have grossly interfered with private property rights by restricting how private residences are built or remodeled, interfered with private property business decisions regarding outdoor smoking, and most recently passed an ordinance forbidding Solana Beach supermarkets and retailers to use plastic bags and requiring them to collect a 10 cent paper bag tax.
Paul Frankel is going to stop that kind of nonsense. He has been endorsed by three former Solana Beach mayors, an Assemblyman, the Lincoln Club, and the Republican Party of San Diego County.
Maybe David Ott doesn’t want to deal with Frankel or any other reformer running for Solana Beach City Council. He really shouldn’t be campaigning for the Democratic Party slate though; it makes him look like a partisan hack.
Comments 3
Believe me it’s a well known fact in Solana Beach that Ott has Heebner’s back and she has his.
When we have to make SIX spelling and grammar corrections in one short sentence, people are clearly not paying attention. Yes, we know it’s just a blog, but please try.
As a former Mayor and Council Member for 14 years, I am recommending a new majority for Solana Beach. Driver, Frankel and Powell will make a different at City Hall. The “I know what’s best for you” attitude and listening to only a select few who have an controlling agenda of only their point of view needs to change.
We need more business support, more parking, more attention to budgeting, more involvement with the entire community, not just the small area of the City where most of them of the OTHER CANDIDATES live. The new majority will consider all of Solana Beach in their thinking and their residential locations around town. SUPPORT DRIVER, FRANKEL AND POWELL.