Our Mayor’s Messaging Is More About Outrage Than Leadership
More and more, our mayor’s statements seem designed to provoke anger instead of address real issues. This is a classic “rage baiting” tactic: use charged language, trigger outrage, and ride the engagement spike.They are crafted to provoke anger and stir people up. This is intentional.
Research backs this up. A 2024 study from Tulane University and its partners found that people often engage more with content that challenges or offends them, even when they disagree with it, simply because it triggers outrage. Posts that attack an “out group” are shared or retweeted at nearly double the rate of posts aimed at supporters.
Another study from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research showed that repeated exposure to hostile political messaging increases public cynicism and general political anger.
In simple terms: outrage grabs attention, attention boosts engagement, and engagement spreads division. Politicians who rely on this cycle benefit from the noise it creates, even when it comes at the cost of trust, nuance, and real problem solving.
Once we recognize that our mayor relies on anger rather than leadership, his messaging becomes easier to understand for what it really is: a feedback loop designed for reaction, not a plan for our community.
Here are some of the most recent examples. More will follow.
01
Mayor Franklin Posting Conspiracy Claims During a Critical Council Meeting
John Franklin made the following post on Nextdoor.com during the council meeting on November 18th, 2025.
During one of the most important city council meetings in recent memory, the mayor chose to post on a neighborhood social platform instead of focusing on running the meeting. That alone is unacceptable. The mayor’s job in moments like this is to lead the room, keep order, and ensure a fair, transparent process.
Instead, he pushed an evidence-free claim that outside groups “hijacked” the meeting with “paid protestors.” There is no proof of that, and making accusations like this in the middle of a live public hearing is reckless. It undermines trust in the process, inflames tensions, and distracts from the actual business of the city.
A mayor should not be rage-posting while the community is counting on steady leadership. Moments like this show a pattern: when pressure rises, he turns to outrage and conspiracy rather than staying focused on his responsibilities.
02
Mayor Franklin Misrepresenting Law Enforcement to Push a Narrative
Here is a clip from the November 18th, 2025 city council meeting where fellow council member clarifies the issue.
Throughout the debate on this policy, the mayor repeatedly claimed that the sheriff had warned other council members not to support it. That turned out to be false. Council member O’Donnell confronted him directly during the meeting and stated he had personally spoken with Sheriff Martinez, who told him “I do not have a problem with this resolution”.
Prior to that, O’Donnell questioned a sheriff’s deputy in the room, asking whether the policy would create problems for the department. The deputy answered every single question with a clear and direct “no.” The mayor’s claims simply did not match reality.
This is not a small misunderstanding. When a mayor misrepresents law enforcement to bolster an argument, it misleads the public and poisons the debate. Vista deserves decisions based on facts, not on invented conflicts or borrowed authority that does not exist. The video makes it clear: the mayor ignored what law enforcement actually said and chose a narrative that suited him instead of the truth.
03
How the Mayor Uses Flawed Online Polls to Shape a False Consensus
Why Nextdoor Polls Are a Poor Stand-In for Vista’s Public Opinion
- According to recent data, only about 55% of housing units in Vista are owner-occupied.
- Meanwhile, Nextdoor advertises that roughly 70–75% of its users are homeowners. Using those polls as “proof” of widespread homeowner support ignores the fact that nearly half of Vista households rent, and many Nextdoor homeowners may not even live in Vista.
- On top of that, Nextdoor polls aren’t geofenced: participants can come from across San Diego County or elsewhere. Comments and votes often come from people with no actual stake in Vista’s issues.
- Sample sizes are tiny compared to the city as a whole. A poll showing ~1,200 responses may seem like a lot, but it represents only a small fraction of a city of ~100,000 residents and over 50,000 registered voters. That is far from a representative sample.
Using Nextdoor polls to claim broad community support in Vista is misleading. They reflect a narrow, self-selected subset, not a cross-section of the city’s population.