Kudos to City of Del Mar’s Finance Committee Pension Sub-Committee

Hats off to the members of the City of Del Mar’s Finance Committee Pension Sub-Committee for the 18-plus months they spent learning the ins and outs of the City’s $23,000,000-plus pension obligation. They really have a well-researched understanding of the issues and the politics and the challenges of the City’s pension liability, and as we approach the next round of budget discussions we need to lean on them and their knowledge to help guide the decisions we make as a City.

Time to forget or time to remember?

Jordan Rosenfeld, in his letter of May 9, said it’s time to stop the comparisons with Hitler and Nazi Germany, such as made by Jim Donovan (me) and Tom Pickwell in making their (separately submitted) cases against Big Brother in America and his ever bigger and bolder encroachments upon the liberty fought for by our inspired founders and guaranteed by the Constitution they created.

One Paseo – I really don’t care

I really don’t care if Kilroy builds the One Paseo mixed use project.

I am retired. I can wander over to Carmel Valley after the noon time rush and before the Torrey Pines High school gets out around 2:45 p.m.

‘Twerking’ incident a wake-up call

The recent scandal over the “twerking” video provides an opportunity to reflect on our changing culture and values. Administrators from the school where the video was produced were understandably upset and chose to prohibit the participants from going to the prom and walking at graduation. The school was concerned about the message these students appeared to be sending to their peers and the online community.

Number of annual gunshot deaths unacceptable

Americans have been outraged and saddened by the devastation caused by the bombs that disrupted the Boston Marathon. Three people died, many lost limbs or suffered other severe injury. It’s an unacceptable situation, and Congress is now investigating what went wrong. Homeland Security, federal data bases, and the FBI somehow missed the alert. Someone should have known that Tamarlan Tsarnaev and his brother were dangerous. Congress will continue to debate and review the facts and try to find out what went wrong, all with the intent of making us feel safer.

We need to do all we can to ensure safety of cyclists

I came across this scene while on a bike ride along the CA State Route 56 freeway during the evening rush hour commute on Friday. The car in the picture went off the road, through a fence and came to rest on the bike path that parallels the freeway. The accident happened about 5 minutes before I arrived on scene. The scary part is that my bike ride was delayed by about 5 minutes when I returned home to retrieve my cycling gloves. If we had met, I would have been hit head on (I took the picture after passing the car).

Caring Transitions helps clients through difficult times in a variety of ways

A line of about 80 people gathered on the steps of a Point Loma classic 1920s Spanish Colonial-style home recently. The occasion was an estate sale and the treasure seekers had stood in line well before the opening time of 9 a.m.

Del Mar Pines’ Spring Sing

Del Mar Pines School recently highlighted students’ musical talents with its annual Spring Sing performance. This year’s theme, “Two for Tunes,” explored a wide array of music written through collaboration or sung as duets.

Bad refereeing and indifferent coaching endanger future of youth soccer

With the continuing popularity and success of youth soccer, there is a constant increase of the number of teens playing soccer. Unfortunately, with the increasing number of players comes an increasing number of serious injuries that can effectively end a soccer career. Most disturbing is how a huge number of these injuries are intentional, demonstrating complete disregard for the well-being and future of the players on the opposing side. In fact, in the first round of the National Cup, the Under 17 boys received 22 red cards, almost half for violent conduct. And people argue that there should have been at least twice as much.

Children need more play, not more school

The Solana Beach School Board’s recent decision to extend the school day in the Global Education kindergarten class without the input of those in the program came as a bit of a shock to me.