Here in Encinitas we are confronted with a growing traffic nightmare that is threatening to engulf us all. Native plants and animals have been under constant siege by a pro-development majority on the city council, and our beaches are disappearing from neglect. Leucadia floods on a regular basis, wetlands are constantly encroached upon, and private interests control city hall. Now, adding insult to injury, two incumbents are asking to be re-elected.

Holding up Home Depot and Ecke Ranch up as testament to their effectiveness, they can't seem to grasp that we are not better off than we were four years ago. No library, a glaring lack of park space, and a thriving downtown that is being robbed of it's Post Office are nothing to be proud of.

Where is the leadership that will bring us into the next millennium with our environment intact? I don't know about you, but I think elected officials should be held accountable for thrashing our future in the name of short sighted profit. Quality of life is not a special interest.

The incumbents, having failed to prove that they are anything but puppets of the development interests, have stopped slinging mud in favor of rocks. Political operatives are being used to discredit one challenger with insinuations of past wrong doings, as a way of diffusing public dissatisfactions with a city council that is out of touch with the majority of Encinitas residents.

What is before us in this election is choice between an agenda that ignores environmental responsibility when it's convenient to do so, or a new paradigm that moves beyond the current ideology of consumption at all costs, towards a more balanced relationship with the natural world.

Science and reason dictate that we elect Dennis Holz to the Encinitas City Council. The record of the incumbents suggest we elect Christy Guerin. Anything less would be collective masochism.