By Oceanside True Friends PAC
The other day the petitioners for incorporating Oceanside sent an email with a shouting subject line:
ENOUGH BICKERING ABOUT INCORPORATION!
Wow. Did their “caps lock” button get stuck?
OK, petitioners. “Bicker” is “argue about petty and trivial matters”. Oceanside True Friends haven’t brought up petty or trivial things, as this is serious business. We recalled this about the incorporation process and reminded the community:
- there was no true community conversation before the petition
- the conversation emphasized the “pros” and disregarded many “cons”
- the vote in the ONA was rushed so that the ONA could serve the petitioners’ needs
But wait, there’s more (or, we should say, less). OTF has shown that the incorporation proposal:
- a budget prepared by a group without a finance person
- promises of big-time road maintenance/paving without adequate money
- promises of code enforcement, again, without the money to back that up
Diving deeper, and responding to petitioners’ rhetoric, OTF has pointed out (among other things):
- the scare tactics of the petitioners (1, no 2, no, 3 hotels coming to Oceanside soon!)
- currently, residents seldom use the already-in-place stringent complaint mechanism for STRs
- the slap-dash nature of the “preliminary agreement” for the temporary city hall (i.e., there is no agreement for one)
- the fact that unincorporated Pacific City with a “business plan” received over $3.1 million in TLT funds and related support, whereas Oceanside, with the ONA requesting just one grant in seven years, received $15,000 in that same time period.
No bicker, just facts. Just political discourse. But apparently the “chief petitioners” have heard enough. These are the people, by the way, that want to be on the new city council, people that call themselves “community leaders.”
Their email went on to ask “Just what exactly will I get for my $320?” referring to the “average” city property tax paid by a homeowner to the new city. They had four answers, but they missed an obvious one:
Endless political discussion/discourse on how the new city government will deal with all of these issues that the petitioners raised and possibly some others. Or maybe that’s “bickering”.
Maybe we see emails from the new Mayor of Oceanside with the subject line
ENOUGH BICKERING ABOUT THE CITY HALL PROPOSAL!
ENOUGH BICKERING ABOUT STORMWATER!
ENOUGH BICKERING ABOUT… well you get the idea.
Enough bickering. Vote No.
This opinion was endorsed by Oceanside True Friends which is a Political Action Committee whose organizers appear on the State’s PAC registration, just as with the petitioners’ PAC. There is no official “membership roster” because of the nature of the organization. However, it is safe to assume that the supporters of the True Friends’ PAC position are the hundreds of Oceanside property owners whose interests are not represented in the effort to incorporate Oceanside; including the residents and property owners in the core Village as well as most of the residents and property owners on Radar Road, Trillium, Camelot, and Avalon neighborhoods.
