Expanded Priorities

By James "Jimmy" Knott, III

More insight into my priorities

The voters can reinforce that power by Electing someone who has proven his mettle and accepted responsibility by voting and supporting Jimmy Knott III.for Oceanside City Council.

Jimmy Knott III A Candidate Not bought for, paid for or sold to any person or group, public or private.

Priorities (expanded):

Number 1) For far too long Oceanside City Councils have had opposing Teams bickering, arguing, fighting each other trying to get the direction of the city to go their way, their way or the highway and most any opposition from the other side is readily negatively labeled and the opposing Council members and their supporters are dehumanized. From election cycle to election cycle the voters have tried to solve this by switching the balance. But what occurs when this happens is liken to a ship when you steer one direction then another you really never move as far ahead as you truly are capable of doing, but you start stagnating or going in circles while others excel and pass you by. I will by my centrist position bring a desire to Institute-Develop Consensus building, Compromise Seeking, and structure Amicable Agreements because I will not be part of either team. If all the other Council members want to do is cause a noisy disruptive cacophony I will propose new ideas to benefit everyone in Oceanside, not just a few select folks on "my side" I'd also in conjunction with the above I propose every Council Member, Elected or candidate, commit to this City Council Civility Pledge:

Pledge of Civility Template

The Pledge of Civility We/I believe that democracy is the best social and political system for humanity. We/I believe that every human being is due a certain amount of respect even if we do not agree. We/I believe that the survival of the whole creates a common interest shared by everyone within that whole. We/I believe that the failure of the whole due to social breakdown or stalemate in fact harms everyone within that whole. We/I believe that the public evaluation of ideas, information, policies, practices, and platforms is a necessary. component of democracy. We/I believe that civility, meaning a respectful, courteous discourse against the backdrop of our common interests, is a necessary part of a successful democracy. We/I believe a democratic society cannot survive in the absence of basic civilized discourse. Therefore in order to do my part to ensure a more civil America. I pledge to: Challenge myself to put into words my specific disagreements about a policy, issue, or candidate before making my decision. Challenge myself to actually listen to the other person's position and take time to reflect before answering. Whenever possible, reveal the source of background information used to support my argument so that third parties can independently review and consider my perspective. Refuse to engage in name calling, insults, or unsubstantiated/inflammatory statements that are not directly relevant to the subject of the debate. Conduct myself with tact and decorum during public discussions, and commit myself to demonstrating respect for other people. Defend the art of compromise when, by design, no one group has absolute power to act without regard to the interests of other groups. Newspapers Recommit to telling all sides of the story as impartial as possible, with the understanding that impartial credibility is the main distinction of "legitimate" media .Effectively monitor any message boards or public feedback mechanisms to prevent and eliminate hate speech or other inflammatory comments that do not contribute to civil discourse. Faith-based Organizations Respect the beliefs of other faiths and not publicly speak against them. Cooperate with organizations of other faiths on matters of common interests. Politicians / Elected Officials Never prioritize the election of members of my party over the well-being of the entire state/country. Avoid criticizing a policy or plan from an opponent without an alternative policy or plan. Lead to effort to reinvigorate the art of balancing the need for compromise with strong conviction in principles. http://pledgeofcivility.tumblr.com/

Number 2) Have you ever traced where the City spends it funds? If you do you'd find it will be centered in a few select choice areas and the closer you are to downtown or the Council Members homes the more funding tends to be spent in these areas, this action is dividing our citizens with folks in different communities thinking they will get that amount of funding forever at the expense of others. And what happens in this distribution of the cities tax wealth many communities have become literally orphans. I propose we Decentralize city government, provide equitable funding and empower to all our local townships so decisions can be made nearer the local level. Oceanside is a City of towns and we need to recognize this because centralized power has caused centralized bias in provision of services and funding of projects. I will be a pain in the you know what with presenting facts about this disparity until this equitable treatment is done.

Number 3) Your City Council has spent literally millions of dollars to do corridor plans, area plans and studies to redevelop or revitalize these places in Oceanside. The Council goes through months and sometimes years of planning, many times arguing over composition of the appointed adhoc committees, hiring expensive consultants and taking regular staff away from important duties then the holding of many hearings and production of draft plans that the council reviews, and finally approves and these plans proudly sit upon shelves where they are right now... gathering dust seemingly ignored completely by both the right team council and left team council, finally both sides of the City Council agree here ....TRUST NO CITIZEN WHO CAN REPLACE ME!!!. Even when citizens volunteer to help implement the plans the City Council doesn't let them do it because they are afraid someone might get good press and might replace them. It's time to stop this insanity, it's time to stop all these insanities. In Other Cities when plans like these are done they Set up Special Authorities to implement them, they trust their Citizens to implement the corridor plans, empower their Citizens and Remove their City Councils busy-body hands and let local citizens take the power in completing the plans normally those City Councils give one direction: "GET IT DONE" and you know it does get done. It's times for Oceanside to get it done! Get them all done!!! A danger of not getting it done can be like the El Corazon project where a major Campaign Donor is given rights of development and the development goes against the publicly approved plan, this is called piecemeal and there is talk about "Privatizing the Park" that could limit the Public access or even force a fee to use the park.

Number 4) we need to Develop Oceanside as a Self-Sustainable City of Communities with all the Multifaceted components thereof

Number 5) There is a monster on the horizon that no other candidate is talking about and that is the need to Improve Oceanside's infrastructure (that's hampering Oceanside's next wave of Economic Growth) via multiple avenues of Resources-revenues. Like we have a capacity issue with the amount of ammonia we can handle in our plants now with the demands that are on the book currently, if growth occurs in our business or commercial sector as we need, there is a better than average change of a compromise of the current system, this will cost tens of millions to upgrade the current system to handle this. We have one wastewater plant needing replacement (La Salina) and if we are to have a stable, safe, guaranteed water supply and delivery system to build a brackish water processing plant, We also have other land improvements and recycled water delivery systems to recycle our water in our parks and certain public right of ways. This will take between an estimated $500 million and a Billion dollars. I will push for a reasonable bond measure to pay for this while seeking grants and other supplemental assistance from local, regional, state or federal authorities.

Number 6) I will cease this incessant drive for Oceanside to be something it isn't. There is only a limited number of upper class individuals (who normally are frugal + that's how come they're wealthy in the first place) in America and realize they aren't all going to come and live or vacation here, statistically this is a reality. However the number of upper lower class and lower middle class individuals, whose combined spending wealth outstrips the upper desired ones and they're most like to come here. We need to redirect our attention to these folks and market to them. This traditionally has been Oceanside's niche historically and will be. Once we do this change and also change our policies and ordinances to reflect such, there will be positive economic impacts.

Number 7) Outsourcing has been a hot topic. I would only do this in case of a catastrophic situation. But we already outsource a number of duties in the city: trash collection, green waste and recyclable collection, many departments retain consultants or professionals who specialize in areas we have no staff in these areas so we outsourced these jobs, some janitorial and landscaping jobs, arboristic related jobs, etc. And I'd have to retain these current status positions under contract. But if that catastrophic situation came along like the state taking multiple millions again fr4om the city, a major disaster, etc. I'd seriously consider bifurcating duties like our ambulance services to Critical care, which our OFD would still handle and non-critical care which out-sourced services would handle, things like this and mandate furloughs for everyone. I've already proposed administrative pay reductions, but the current council is to close to them to even consider doing this. But speaking of Ambulance service, right now if a family just needs a loved one transported from a home to a medical facility, you just can't call an ordinary Ambulance service that might be or have a reasonable cost, you are forced by the city to use it's expensive paramedic service (it would be cheaper to take a limousine). Also there are new emergency medical transport options that are occurring elsewhere like Registered Nurse Ambulance Services, who are in direct contact with emergency room doctors who can do even more than a paramedic in the field, even do minor assessments for care levels. I'd also not hire anymore Police Officers when they retire, I'd replace them with world wide successfully used Public safety technology: cameras, specific audio triangulation equipment, and thermal imaging cameras. I'd also start now by examining two things: a) seeing what position groups can be made into Enterprise operations like our Water/wastewater dept. that are self supporting. B) I'd have any council assigned duties to staff have a line item cost figure publicly given before voting and directing to approve their work.

Number 8) I support a ½ cent sales tax that Mayor Wood proposed of which ¼ cent would go to refill our reserves and the other ¼ cent would pay for all the future and current pension unfunded portions. All our surrounding Cities have it and you don't see them crying and screaming like Oceanside Councilors, could this sales tax be the reason, they got it covered and we don't?

Some Candidates have alluded this to be unconstitutional: This action is very constitutional: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America....." "Article I, Section 8, reads, "The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States" Notice it says "to Pay the debts". We borrowed from the reserve in these economic troubled times and that needs to be refilled in case of a catastrophe and we have an unfunded pension liability. This dedicated ½ sales tax would cover both. End of subject, move on no more issue. Unless you like to worry, argue and bicker about these things and have plans to destroy the current functioning of local government..

Number 9) the Transportation General Plan is a mess without a matching Land use plan. It's like taking a forearm away and saying it's OK we got a hand and bicep. It doesn't work, all of it works together, especially Land Use and Transportation, both are codependent.

Number 10) I believe that way too much is being spent on these elections. Anyone who thinks money is given just because a person talks nice and doesn't expect something in return, has some serious misunderstanding of how the system works. Both team sides take money for promoting certain platforms and they owe loyalties too the same donors after the election. Just think how much more could be done for Oceanside if that money went to say equip the vacant kitchen room at El Corazon, or open a closed community center, or, or, or....I'm sick and tired of all this money being spent on people promoting themselves instead of helping their fellow citizens. What if there was a challenge to see who could raise the most money for say equipping that kitchen? And whichever candidate and their supporters got the most funds raised, let them be allowed to put their names in a predominate place and the other campaigns to a single lesser place. This could help the entire city more than flyers that end up in the trash or signs that clutter our streets. Therefore I join my fellow Candidate for Council Donald Snyder and ask that all funds be donated to charities or causes in Oceanside to benefit all of Oceanside. And I will not actively seek donations for this election.

Number 11) To make Oceanside Business capable in our highly economically impacted townships I'd work to develop Enterprise Zones following the state law to provide some tax benefits for hiring our long term unemployed and relocating to Oceanside and To resurrect the Bishop/Knott/Felien proposal of investing our City's emergency reserve funds in such a way in local lending institutions with guaranteed federally back assurance to only use the funds too invest in local job development loans.

Number 12) Mobile Homes and Affordable Housing: the City had this right for decades to use it's affordable housing funds to establish Mobile Home Parks, obtain mobile home parks, help mobile homeowners obtain their parks they live in with the proper deeded restrictions on the sales of their mobile homes to make sure they complied with the affordable housing standards, but for decades the City has chosen not to do this, thus contributing to the dearth of mobile home park development it was not the fault of rent control. The only park the city has helped is Laguna Vista and that was for a lease hold to help control rents not for affordable housing due to the deed requirements. Mobile Home park development or singular stationary Mobile homes are way cheaper, simpler, easiest, and fastest to construct on vacant land that regularly constructed homes. And to Obtain existing parks is even better because there are a number of parks where the homeowners would love and welcome this if the assistance was offered, in fact there would be a benefit to the city in that in many of these parks the Mobile homeowners are willing to reimburse the city the funds used and make these funds available for other affordable housing projects. Other Cities/Communities have done this and it's time for Oceanside to do the same and include this into the formula. I would support these efforts of including these elements in our Affordable housing options.

Personally as I said in the Ballot Guide: I regret to inform you but I'm not Perfect, far from it, I'm human & occasionally make mistakes like any person, I'll fess-up to them, apologize, correct & move on. I don't know everything; I know quite a bit & research many issues I comment upon. But there are so many people who are smarter than me & have Knowledge/abilities I can only stand in awe of; many are reading this right now. I have a reputation of trying to work with all sides of an issue, to promote compromise & search for amicable solutions. I try not to hold a grudge & shove it into someone's face. That gets us no where fast. I do have a few biases's I am partial to the special needs of: Senior Citizens, Disabled, Lower Income, Homeless, Disenfranchised & Mobile Homeowners. I believe we should: Empower our communities via decentralizing City Governmental Power, Establish corridor planning authorities to complete expensive shelved plans, Establish formal Police Precincts with community policing,

Reduce costs via regional cooperation on Utilities,
Continue to work on business district enhancements,
Reform Campaign financing, and more