Editor’s Note: The following is a Letter to the Editor written by Encinitas Mayor Jerome Stocks.
A response to: The Letter to the Editor written by Encinitas City Councilwoman Teresa Barth.
Barth writes: “I have been passed over for the position of Deputy Mayor or Mayor for three years and been denied a position to affect change or implement any creative solutions unexplored by the majority.”
This is completely false and a little bit sad. Ms. Barth is exhibiting a sense of self-entitlement for all to see, but in fact the law of the land in Encinitas states that “the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are elected by a majority of their peers.” Nothing further. There is no such thing as being “passed over.”
However, your City Council recently changed the system to place the voters in charge of who becomes Mayor. Ms. Barth voted against giving you that right, and she is so angry that she didn’t get her way, she published her letter to the editor about it.
This policy change is about good public policy, not personalities; but Ms. Barth is stomping her foot in objection to you being in control because she wants to be and isn’t.
Additionally, any two Council Member can place any item on a future agenda in Encinitas, so all Ms. Barth needs is one other City Council Member to agree and an item she finds to have merit will be agendized, and in fact many items have been agendized at her suggestion.
Barth writes: “I have been put into an unwholesome place, marginalized and disrespected. It poisons all discussions.”
Well, I must say that if that’s where she feels she is, she got there with her own behavior by hurling false accusations, insulting her peers, as with her editorial published here, causing the city to spend thousands of dollars investigating those false accusations, and in general having a very caustic attitude toward her Council Peers. I agree that many discussions have been a bit “poisoned”, but by Ms. Barth, not the balance of the city council.
Ms. Barth says now that she is proud to be a stone thrower, and also treated with courtesy. Frankly, in the real world if one wishes to receive professional courtesy and civil behavior, one exhibits the same. Ms. Barth has made a practice of not doing so and most adults would expect the same in return. Again, her sense of self-entitlement is astounding.
In her editorial she goes on a bit more actually making my earlier points about her lack of civil behavior and professional courtesy all too clearly, but I will say that Ms. Barth has been and continues to be petty and rude, and did duck hard votes (fire station in Cardiff) as well as pander to a group of upset mobile home owners by voting in an irrational way to gain their support, then actually say directly to Dan Dalager and me “I knew you guys would vote the right way.” And that is not leadership.
Barth writes: “Yet at last Wednesday's council meeting my colleagues pretended that the process was 'broken & needed to be fixed,' a bizarre statement considering they broke it. They have plans, I’m not included and neither is the public.”
Again, Narcissism and self entitlement in full bloom. The action the City Council took without Ms. Barth’s support actually says the VOTERS shall choose the Mayor based on vote count. The public shall now be completely in charge. This is not about Ms. Barth, regardless of her inability to accept that fact.
Ms. Barth, an incumbent, failed to garner the most votes against an unknown challenger in 2010 and is now having a very public pity part. And that’s a shame. But this policy change is a good one for our city, and is a logical step to take Encinitas forward as a maturing municipality to provide predictable rational Mayoral leadership, and eventually have a directly elected Mayor as we should.
On a further note, Our City has important business to attend to such as some very tough labor negotiations, decisions about budgeting, and decisions about capital projects to be made. Having Council Member Barth write and publish a poison-pen editorial about not getting her way is an annoying distraction and further evidence of her being ill-suited for a leadership role and confirming past City Council Mayoral appointment decisions.
Jerome Stocks, Mayor, City of Encinitas.
If you have a Letter to the Editor that you would like to submit, please email it to Marlena.Medford@Patch.com
