WaveBlog

By Dick Daniels
Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The man’s tired and in a hurry. Pushing one or two grocery carts, laden with food and other stuff out of the local Vons, his singular task is to get to the car, load up and leave. Nothing’s going to get in the way; he’ll be homeward bound in a couple of minutes.

That’s what he thinks. Instead, he’s going to unwittingly help frame a future election issue by coming face-to-face with somebody he’s never seen before who will ask him to “sign here” to put something on the ballot. If past issues are an indicator, the topic possibilities are endless: Should medical marijuana dispensaries be allowed — or not allowed — in our city? How much space should egg-laying hens have in commercial chicken coops? Should hormones be banned in food? Should important land use decisions be made by voters at the ballot box rather than by the local office holders they elect to hold accountable for such decisions?

My ice cream’s melting; I gotta get going. What’s this all about?

“You don’t have to be for or against it,” replies the pitchman who’s paid for every valid signature he collects. “Just sign this petition and allow voters to decide the issue.”

Gee, I think that makes sense. What’s the harm in … whatever this is? No way does the hurried shopper have the time or inclination to read the text of the initiative.

He signs the clipboard document, not knowing much, if anything, about the proposal details – or, every bit as important – who is backing the measure.

California’s initiative and referendum process was designed to empower voters to sidestep the legislature and enact laws when lawmakers either disregard or ignore the public will.

On the surface, it’s a proper and constructive alternative, provided the process has safeguards in place to be sure the proposal being brought forward accomplishes what its supporters want it to do – and is legal.

In reality, though, the process is all too often abused. Many ballot propositions, especially those initiatives conceived in proponents’ living rooms and then hatched on petition clipboards in front of supermarkets, either bring about unintended consequences or ignore more practical remedies to whatever the problem is.

Fourteen years ago, Escondido voters passed Proposition S, a slow-growth initiative that requires voter approval of any changes in an individual property’s zoning from residential to commercial or industrial and/or any increase in allowable densities for a residential property.

Proposals for zoning or density changes for a single property must be accompanied by multiple pages of detailed documentation, plans and other land use minutia, more appropriate for city planners and elected representatives who are in place and equipped to deal with such issues.

A decade later, the Prop S cabal carried their ballot box zoning scheme to neighboring San Marcos, only to suffer a massive trouncing by a two-to-one margin of that city’s voters.

That wasn’t the end, though. The growth control-by-ballot idea has now crept into Encinitas as the so-called “Right to Vote” initiative. Last week, the city council agreed to study what some critics are referring to it as a “chaotic building moratorium.” Like Escondido’s Prop S, this measure requires a public vote to change a property’s zoning or increase its allowable residential density. But this one also would set a citywide building height of 30 feet – roughly that of a three-story structure – and place stricter public notification requirements for development proposals.

Seems somewhat ironic, though, that the council’s two new members, Tony Kranz and Lisa Shaffer, signed the petition when it was circulated before they were elected last November but reportedly now have serious concerns about it.

If that’s the case, could it be they’ve come to realize land use policies are better fashioned by those who are willing and able to take into account the needs of all who live in the community – not just a few?

What petition signers and even some proponents don’t take into account are the several unintended consequences such growth-control measures create.

In Escondido, it isn’t that hard to imagine the number of worthwhile development projects – including major employment centers — that never brought jobs and other commercial amenities to the city over the past 14 years because employers were unwilling to submit the fate of their project to a vote of people unfamiliar with land use matters.

The city’s saving grace, however, is that voters approved a General Plan update last November that encompasses many of the zoning and density changes needed by job creators. For the most part, the new plan will preclude the threat of Prop S elections for some time.

Meanwhile, voters in Escondido and other cities already have ample power to control land use in their communities through electing representatives who share their views and “un-electing” them when they don’t.

For the most part, supermarkets and other commercial outlets are venues for shopping, not making land use policy.

Daniels, principal consultant of Dick Daniels Public Relations, has been a public relations practitioner for 35 years and was an Escondido city councilman from 2006 to 2010.

This ‘post’ is a partial response to a recent opinion piece by Logan Jenkin’s in the UT/NCT concerning the recent Judicial rejection of SanDag’s 2050 Transportation Investment Plan.

Mr. Jenkin’s posits on the reasons the Judge who agreed with those suing to stop the 2050 Plan, that the plan did more for investment in highways/freeways and not enough in helping create more bicycle and pedestrian travel. Aside from differing with the mechanics of the 2050 Plan, the Judge didn’t take the time, nor use the energy to read and respond to those promoting the virtues of the 2050 Plan; he just quick-kicked the 2050 Plan up to Sacramento, much, in part because the of the State of California’s economic crisis, implying that due to the continual rise of health-care costs, the local, County and State Judicial structure has been severely decimated and rather than hear important arguments, arguments hampered by severe budget cuts made by the legislature: he was ‘punting’ the ‘hot potato’ northward

The Judge’s action is much like not bothering to take your ‘lemon’ of a car to the local dealership, but heading directly to the Detroit manufacturer. The Judge implies that nothing was going to be gained by wasting time and money at the local level: the fate, future and success of AB32 and SB375 that mandate most future growth be zoned, designed and developed on the perimeter of major transportation links; and that these ‘homes’ be built at R-30, meaning 30 apartments per acre. This also would require most cities to change their policies to allowed increased density.

While ‘climate-change’ may be arguably recognized a ‘signal’ cause,  remember, well-meaning legislators rolled out a spectacular unfunded mandate; AB32, but now, 7 years later, the operational ability to evaluate the 2050 SanDag Plan (created to fulfill the criteria of AB32) in the wake of the subsequent free-fall of the California economy the lower court can no longer  adequately evaluate the results of the AB32 mandates. The California judiciary, a vast entity shrunken in ineffective ways; whose shrinkage is directly caused by the staggering costs of medical insurance: the combined and growing debt of underwriting pensions and medical care for California State workers, public employees etc… our multi-level court system has been crippled: so the Judge and community may be well served by the Judge’s refusing to read, analyze and comment on a vast variety of opinions/friendly briefs that wished to differ with those suing the 2050 SanDag Plan. Hot Potato!

LEGISLATIVE ARBITRAGE
Its a kind of legislative arbitrage and while we who agree on the existing fact of ‘climate change’, many of us do not necessarily agree on the ‘approach’ to addressing/effecting the continuing ‘carbon footprint that is at the ‘heart’ of AB32 and SB375.

If the patient (the State of California) is presenting the environmental ‘illness’ of continually increasing carbon footprints, caused by auto travel, having the Emergency Room evaluator, the Judge, make his call to ship the patient into the Operating Room while management decides just ‘who’ is going to operate on the State and what instruments and palliatives/cures are to be used.

So, rather than personally addressing the myriad of differing suggestions/organizations that are in agreement with the SanDag 2050 Plan: (funding more freeways than side-streets is the basic argument against at this juncture) the Judge can be said to ‘buying time’ for the 2050 Plan, for both sides, while also saving lower-court time and freeing the lower court to do more for its citizens.

Better Approaches Since 2006 Was Created in 2006
The final analysis for kicking it up a level for appeal seems sound: as it moves everyone closer to compromise, where the State legislature can then reevaluate (for the first time in 7 years, since ‘before’ the 2007 ‘recession’). After all their own AB32 and SB375 that was created by the state house and senate under the design of the ICLEI that was finished and hailed by the legislature ‘before’ the State’s fall off the fiscal cliff. When AB 32 was created the State of California, in 2006, was ‘still’ enjoying the robust annual increase of real estate values that had begun for 35 straight years.

One-Size-Fits-All, Dooms All
Plus, because of AB32′s  ‘cookie-cutter pattern, one-size-fits-all’ approach, at its essence it declared war on the ‘single commuter’, and when you live and do business in a small city where 90% of the City’s annual budget is created through residential property taxes and retail sales tax generated by home-owners ‘commuting’ to work and back, as well as out-of-town commuters who are passing through to and from their own work and home: a plan that asks you to condemn the very economic engine that drives the City is necessarily going to cause trouble. Sacramento doesn’t care.

That’s right, Encinitas, a ‘classic’ ‘bed-room community’ that, by ‘design’ is being told by the State Housing and Community Development office that it must join the fight against ‘commuting’, when ‘commuting’ is inherently our bread-and-butter, so what to do?

YOU CANNOT FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME

Given the assignment of creating a ‘Plan’ to address the mandate of showing ‘capacity’ somewhere in Encinitas for 1300 low-income housing units; the Planning Department decided that it would be political suicide to try and locate 1300 units along the coast, so they located it on El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard. Precedent would have indicated that this was a wise decision on ‘How’ to proceed; after all, on May 1, 2010 for the ‘Vision’ Fest, between 65 and 70% of those attending were from Leucadia: and who wanted to start a political fire in Leucadia? So, 8 months later, Patrick Murphy and Diane Langager rolled out a ‘Draft’ of a General Plan ‘Update’ that located 96% of of the future growth on El Camino Real and Encinitas Blvd.

HUH?

How does a State Plan to decrease auto travel/commuting with a goal of reducing travel to effect a reduction in carbon emissions, literally ‘Morph’ into a plan to literally create ‘gridlock’ during peak AM and PM hours, in Encinitas? Ask the Encinitas Planning Department? The City hired the consultant MIG out of Berkeley, who followed the wishes of the Encinitas Planning Department Staff. NOT the other way around. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens to the Planning Department with the new Majority on the Encinitas City Council.

Remember Since 9-1-2009, the New Encinitas Network had been attending each and every meeting concerning the General Plan ‘Update’ and many of their members were surprised, annoyed and finally angered, that nearly two years had gone by ‘updating’ the General Plan and not only did the Staff plan put majority of the financial responsibility for the plan on the commercial property-owner’s backs without their knowledge; but the Planners were ALSO secretly going to make it even more difficult for the businesses and service providers who lease properties along El Camino Real and Encinitas Blvd. to be profitable, because they were going to both take driving lanes away from El Camino Real AND consciously create ‘gridlock’ during ‘peak’ AM and PM driving hours. (Note: Watch the Encinitas City Council meeting ‘Council Check-in’ May 11, 2011)

MORE IS MORE, NOT LESS

This traffic ‘Update’ plan in Encinitas left many questioning: just how many ‘emissions’ would be created/increased in Encinitas by ‘gridlocking’ the commuting corridors? When business owners determined that City Staff was literally designing a policy to ‘stop’ traffic to the point to where commuters would just ‘abandon’ their cars, or at a minimum, drive ‘around’ Encinitas: reducing the sales-tax significantly: and as sales-tax is reduced, so goes the overall budget and sooner or later, parks, beaches, public safety and public grants are affected. Surely there was another way? And that was when the ERAC was formed. The Commercial Property Owners would just as soon go back to the way the City operated before August 19, 2009 when the City Planning Staff targeted the commercial corridors for walkable community transformation and as the almost sole destination of 1300 low income units. Only the State is interested in increasing density, period.

That Planning Staff/MIG plan was so unpopular that the city council started a ‘reboot’ to perhaps, locate the future growth mandated fairly along all 5 communities; instead, longtime political operatives, the same ‘community’ characters, (with Staff help) whom had tried to turn Encinitas into a giant HOA in 1999 (Home-Owner’s Association), and whom have, like the City’s own Planning Department, taken the AB32 mandate and in the name of the ‘environment’ have perverted the execution of the mandate to accommodate and codify their own personal ‘environmental’ beliefs.

The Staff tried to force feed 96% of future growth onto El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard; but old ‘no-growth’ proponents, North County Advocates and the Encinitas Project, the ETA armed with an Initiative Document designed for another time and another place; those being, Yorba Linda, which like AB32, was written in 2006, ‘before the fall’ economically for the Nation, State, County etc.. and the adoption or passage of this completely misleading Initiative will make in the long run, Encinitas more like El Cajon than our ‘doppleganger’ up North, Santa Cruz.

Bravo to Logan for taking the time to read, react and respond, in print, to the latest iteration of an important State/County argument that has brought the ‘carbon’ reduction necessity into almost every city; many of them reduced to a new ‘civil war’ within the borders of their municipalities, directly attributable to AB32 and SB375.

Class Warfare Counter-punching
This 2050 Plan is being ‘returned-to-sender’ and not a moment to soon, because this business when addressed by the City of Encinitas Planning Department, coupled with the international NGO, the International Committee for Local Environmental Initiatives, attempted to used the new powers created by AB32/SB375 to be misused to locate all the ‘future growth/Low-income housing units’ along the City’s ‘Golden Corridor’, El Camino Real. And after the New Encinitas business owners, surrounding neighborhoods/residents complained to the City Council which ‘Rebooted’ to a plan that hopefully would recommend dispersal of low-income housing units throughout all five communities in Encinitas, rather than locate 96% of the future growth on the shoulders of the commercial property owners.

Misleading the public to misuse AB32 and SB375, by City Staff and Political Operatives.
But, no good deed goes unpunished and the ‘final straw’ within Encinitas, a direct result of AB32/SB375′s legal pressure to illustrate/prove that the ‘capacity’ for 1300 low income units, the neighbors/residents of New Encinitas are now pushing a misleading campaign in Encinitas falsely claiming that there is a ’5 story building coming to a neighborhood near you’. Fear mongering in the shape of the Encinitas Right To Vote Act that will stop in reinvestment or renovation in the commercial properties along El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard. They are promoting 5 story lie.

DEADLINE FOR THE FUTURE, THIS WEEK AND WE’RE NOT MAYAN
The deadline for this misleading Initiative is a week from Monday/tomorrow, 12-17-12. If enough signatures are gathered, the City Council will spend between $330,000 and $500,000 to hold a Special Election to ask voters if they want nullify 3 out of 4 Specific Plans as well as do damage to current agreements in the local coastal plan and the city’s ‘housing element’. If passed 1300 low income units will have the ‘capacity’ located only along Hwy 101 from Swami’s Point to Ponto Beach’s border.

Change the Approach to the Carbon Footprint Reduction
Would it be that the Judge had sent the 2050 SanDag Plan back to the State legislature years ago, so the friends and neighbors of Encinitas wouldn’t be directing their energy toward intelligent and sensitive approaches to ‘climate-change’ that would allow our city to choose approaches that are in concert with the specifics of our sleepy beach town and not some ‘bicycle’ lobbyist in Sacramento. Note: Bicyclists are not alone in lobbying legislators, there are those who promote only ‘walkable’ cities/states as well as those who literally want all roads to be abandoned, seriously!

Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever: Feed a Fearful Future, Starve an Economy
As it is, an economist from outside the U.S. might realistically conclude that AB32, in actual affect, was designed to lower the size of the ‘carbon-footprint’ by working hand-in-hand with SB375 to force small businesses to stop any increased hiring, both because of the constantly growing/increasing costs of medical insurance, but by forcing the location of low-income housing in areas that are not appropriate for variety of reasons: including and starting with environmentally sensitive locations, consequently causing unneeded neighborhood NIMBY dissent.

Going Forward Without Gridlock
Much of the strategy from many sides and much of the energy might be better utilized in changing the science and abilities to purchase of electric cars etc…

The numbers show; without question; changing a workforce over to electric cars and trucks, etc… would far outstrip AB32 and SB 375 in effectiveness as to reducing the ‘carbon footprint’.

OBAMA CAVEAT: Big Three Bonus For Bailout!

Unknown to most, there was a caveat in President Obama’s ‘bail out’ of the Big Three in Detroit. In less than a decade the law will require cars to get 53 miles per gallon. This should have a direct link to help reduce emissions: and it is something that should be recognized in the reevaluation of the 2050 SabDag Plan and the leaders of the State of California.

That’s the direction ‘leadership’ on all levels should be taking, helping all of us to move toward something less costly and less intrusive as a solution.

I’ve stated this several times and I’ll restate it again for those who didn’t read it the first time.

I do not comment on The Coast News site because I will not spend one red cent on helping JIM KYDD by paying any money to get past his pay wall to be on his website. If someone else is posting there, it isn’t me and it never will be, which I’m sure the Staff at The Coast News already knows.

One of these days when most of this unpleasantness is almost forgotten, many of you will quite possibly read about an FPPC inquiry of The Coast News in the UT/NCT, over Dump Stocks. Likewise our friend on Neptune Avenue.

I am just grateful that a part of the truth about the periodical has finally been aired.

All one needs to do is have a short conversation with the reporter from the North Coast Current to determine the facts. Of course when facts are determined that the Coast News apologists cannot stomach, they always return to the politics of condemnation. They just cannot help themselves.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday; I fully intend to relax knowing what is about to befall us all in January 2013. A return to 1998…and most of you remember what happened then.

Exclusive:
HELPING JIM KYDD SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

1) First off, this ‘public testimony’ from Publisher Jim Kydd, published today, 10-26,12 is anything but ‘straight’. Antonyms for ‘straight’ are:” curved, crooked, corrupt”, according to Mirriam’s Dictionary and Thesaurus on line.

2) Second: In the State of California, employing a name other than your own on political advertising is illegal, period. After 25 years of selling political advertising, Mr. Kydd knows this.

3) Third; the Only reason that Jim Kydd is setting any record ‘straight’ is because he got caught. When he registered his ‘secret identity’ possibly to mislead the public from determining WHO is truly paying for the very rude Dump Stocks campaign. Kydd neglects to mention someone recognized the error and four days later, someone paid the privacy premium and the domain name was masked to the public.

My comments below are in italics.

Jim Kydd’s front page testimony is not.

According to JIM KYDD, Publisher of The Coast News, Front Page/Coast News, 10-26-12
“My recent actions have been called “illegal,” “immoral,” “covert” and many other things I cannot print. So I am writing this to dispel any myths.”
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Actually, the only myths are the ones being spelled out by Jim Kydd himself.
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All of this is a matter of record. You can confirm it for yourself if you care to.
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No, now it is a matter of record, now that Kydd was found out. A year’s worth of Dump Stocks action is heretofore unaccounted for. By the way, Jim: how’s this ‘Ethics’ Candidate endorsement thing working out for you? Just askin’?
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The web site called encinitaselection.com was set up by me at the request of some other citizens.
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Yes, other citizens, who like Jim Kydd, apparently wanted the City to Dump Stocks, but didn’t have the courage of their convictions; meaning, they wanted to hide their identities and the amount of money they donated to Dump Stocks.
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Prior to launching the site I registered the name with the County Recorder as a business owned by me.
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Political Action Committees are not required to pay for DBA’s, nor fictitious business statements and this sentence may be included here to mislead or confuse readers unfamiliar with FPPC law, or not.
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The business was entirely funded by my private funds.
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That’s not what Jim Kydd told Ernesto Lopez of the North Coast Current. Kydd reportedly stated in the article that while he purchased the domain name, it was ‘others’ who were actually paying for the Dump Stocks campaign.
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The intention from the beginning was to keep The Coast News separate from the new web site.
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I think we can safely say that this intention resulted in complete and abject failure.
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The Coast News is held to much higher standards than the average web site.
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By who? You? Certainly not someone who appears to be attempting to hide the truth from the public.
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I made no attempt to hide my identity as the owner.
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That’s appears to be true, after you were revealed as the mastermind of the Dump Stocks campaign, that is.
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In fact, as reported in the U-T, the owner of the site (me) was easily identified by an online search of fictitious business filings.
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Again, after you had been unmasked and suddenly become newsworthy.
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All of the necessary political disclosure documents are current and have been filed with the City and the State.
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Absolutely false. Mr. Kydd, aside from being weeks late in registering as a ‘recipient committee’ has filled out the incorrect paperwork and until he fills out the right form complete with the financial disclosures of those who have contributed to Dump Stocks he will continue to be in violation. (The correct information Mr. Kydd should be filing is below)
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As time went by and I got deeper into the information on the site, I decided to get more actively involved.
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Mr. Kydd personally directed the Silent Protest last December, 2011, in the City Council Chambers and not only edited his own image out of the front page photo documenting his direction of the protest, but ran the story again in a January 2012 issue also. So, exactly when was it Jim Kydd decided to get involved more deeply? Nearly an entire year before the encinitaselection.com web site went up? Whoops, Jim.
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I bought ads in my own newspaper.
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Again, he may have purchased them, which brings laughter to many who have been in the newspaper business; but he is still missing the point. Kydd is in violation and will continue to be until he discloses the people who donated political money for political advertising, to Dump Stocks, period.
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I am an ad man and communicate better in that format. I chose The Coast News because it is read by more people in Encinitas than any other paper.
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Yes, well, it is the ONLY paper and is really only profitable because of the roughly $100,000 the City of Encinitas is forced by law to pay Kydd for running the legals.
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Since encinitaselection.com was already a registered political entity and was easily attributed to me, I signed the ads with that name.
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Okay, full on belly laugh! Kydd truly seems to believe he can fool all the people all the time. Kydd might understand his own logic, but his explanation again is documents his continued violation of campaign laws not to mention dumping thousands of bumper stickers on private property. Don’t see any mention of that, Jim?
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I claim the same right as any individual to express my political views as long as the laws are followed.
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Except any individual didn’t own his own newspaper and run a year long campaign to Dump Stocks and then change their story several times and still haven’t come into compliance with the Fair Political Practices Commission Laws. Oh, and you haven’t once yet followed the law.
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We look forward to next week’s issue of The Coast News and Jim Kydd’s next attempt at setting the record straight.
BONUS POINTS. If one looks at the Front Page Photo from last December’s Coast News, the photo that Jim Kydd cut himself out of even though you can watch him direct the others on the City’s video of the Public Meeting, you can make out all of the letter writers on the Coast News comment section, Laurie Michaels, Candace and Cyrus Kamada, and Junior Ringleader himself, Bernard Minster.

Check the names in the Coast News comment section praising Jim Kydd after his failed attempt at setting the record straight. I wonder how many of these names: Michaels, Minster, Kamada and Marr will be found amongst the financial disclosures that Jim Kydd will have to give up to the FPPC to live up to the letter of the law?

Also, Councilwoman Teresa Barth has a commentary in today’s issue of the Coast News warning readers against ’fake’ groups like EncinitasElection.co. Ironic?
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The Law
Jim Kydd continues to violate the law by not using his name, Jim Kydd in the ‘Paid For line’ of the ads and on the website.

Also on his disclosure forms. What he is doing continues to violate campaign laws.

Here are the regulations Mr. Kydd seems to be ignoring:

Part 1 – Filer Information
Enter the legal name of the individual or entity filing the statement. If the filer is commonly known to the public by another
name, that name may be used. When a person directs and controls the making of contributions and independent expenditures by a related entity (e.g., a subsidiary or a majority shareholder of a corporation) that must be aggregated and reported on Form 461,list as the “Name of Filer” the name of
the individual or entity that directs and controls the making of the contributions. (FPPC Major Donor Manual p. 4-4)

The same guidance is repeated in the Manual for Independent Expenditure Committees on page 3-4.

—————————————–

Finally, as the North Coast Current publisher Roman Koenig asked, ”Who is watching the watchers?
This is violation of the public trust plain and simple; and to add proof to the political ‘jihad’ that the followers of the late councilwoman left behind to run Jerome Stocks out of office, five of the top fifteen ‘jihadists’ immediately jumped on the comment section to testify to Jim Kydd’s heroic battle for truth, justice and the American way.

Ask them why they are doing it; I’ve always been taught you steer clear of a drowning man, but again check out the photo and match it to the names on the comment section in today’s Coast News on line under Jim Kydd’s ‘Setting the Record Straight’.

P.S.

For Bernard: Don’t look at the man behind the curtain! Yes, how courageous of Jim Kydd to get caught two weeks before the election and jeopardize 56 weeks of hard work by his fellow travelers. Excellent work, Jim Kydd.

Breaking News: On Sunday, October 21-12, the local North Coast Current, a decade old newspaper published an interview with the Coast News Publisher JIM KYDD.

The startling insights the interview/article revealed about how the shadowy-Kydd operates; conducting a year-long ‘Dump Stocks’ political ‘jihad’ against Encinitas Mayor Jerome Stocks while keeping his actions secret, directing a ragged and rude ‘guerilla theater, with weekly letters, articles and photographs promoting the two chosen Ethics candidates, Lisa Shaffer and her temper-challenged running mate Tony Kranz; all the while rather than eschewing the pretended role of recording and reporting, but in reality manufacturing the news for good money.

And hiding behind a ‘secret identity.

The revelations this past week that Jim Kydd was the secret mastermind behind the rudely hurtful and subversive ‘Dump Stocks’ campaign, Jim Kydd’s answers in the interview by the Currents Lopez indicate that Jim Kydd either doesn’t understand the political laws and landscape, or he just doesn’t care because he never believed he’d be caught.

At the same time comes the confirmation of the year-long ‘Dump Stocks’ campaign having been derived reportedly from a personal promise Kydd and other supporters of the late Encinitas Councilwoman Maggie Houlihan made to the Councilwoman just before she died; (Note: inexplicably, Houlihan’s portrait was removed from The Coast News website last week) that the ‘survivors’ would stay together and not rest until Encinitas Mayor Jerome Stocks is “driven from office.” And Jim Kydd is part of that leadership?

The public reaction to Jim Kydd’s secret identity and hidden agenda, added to the rude illegal ‘Dump Stocks’ front page ads co-habitating on Page 1 of the October 12th, 2011 issues of The Coast News with Lisa Shaffer, plus the estimated 5000 bumper stickers stating ‘Dump Stocks’ that were disseminated throughout the City through the goodwill of private property owners; Jim Kydd may have finally gone too far.

His Coast News product being ordered off of private property until he makes available the identities of those who helped fund the ‘Dump Stocks’ cabal, and then there is the pending investigations of the political advertising being legally disclosed to the City of Encinitas City Clerk, City Manager and City Attorney.

Added to that the call for The Coast News to be held responsible for the clean-up of the ‘pasting’ of the bumper stickers throughout Encinitas.

Irony abounds as it was revealed about the Kidd created ‘fake’ group, because Teresa Barth herself had warned in the Patch to watch for such shenanigans; Jim Kydd was finally unmasked as the ‘mastermind’ of what is being described as a length ‘plot to run Jerome Stocks out of town, whatever it takes.

The ‘Kydd-Gate as it is being referred to also includes the ‘takeover’ of the Encinitas Taxpayer’s Association by Bob Bonde and a dozen and a half supporters of Tony Kranz and Lisa Shaffer supporters, described by the co-publisher of the Leucadia Blog Spot in ‘Retrofit’, an imaginary crime with an imaginary burglar told to the NCT reporter by temper-challenged Tony Kranz: and his running mate, Ethics professor, Lisa Shaffer, the subject of a controversial ‘death bed campaign endorsement bequest by a failing Councilwoman Houlihan; all tied up neatly each week in The Coast News by Andrew Audet, who we will describe as a passionate neophyte and every week with her letter get published, Cheerleader Lynn Marr who every week addresses the Encinitas City Council in every public hearing:

This disharmonic convergence of the support universe for the Ethic candidates generated these 7 questions:

1) Q: Mr. Kydd, in the story about you hiding your identity and those of your co-financiers of the 55 week ‘Dump Stocks’ campaign, the editor at the Current quotes you as saying,”

“This is a ‘You help me, I help you’ situation,”

Are you openly referring to yourself supplying a ‘blind’ screen to keep the financiers of ‘Dump Stocks’ identities hidden, as well as your own participation, for a lot of money?”

2) Q: In Lopez’ story in the Current, Jim Kydd said he doesn’t “feel the need to disclose that information on the site or on any advertising.”

Does Mr. Kydd often follow his feelings, especially when they lead him to significantly violate the law of the Fair Political Practices Committee or is it just when he ‘feels’ like it?

3) In the Current story reporter Lopez says, ”Although he confirmed he is the registered owner of encinitaselection.com, Kydd said the “Dump Stocks, Fire Muir” ads in the newspaper and bumper stickers are paid advertising. The ads and bumper stickers state “Paid for by EncinitasElection.com” in small print.”

So, seeing that you are breaking the law if you do not tell, WHO if you are not EncinitasElections.com, Mr. Kydd, then WHO is and why haven’t you gone down to the City to open a ‘General Purpose’ Committee, as you know you have to? And, if not, why not: and have you sought legal advice about the domain’s legal standing?

4) Q: Mr. Kydd, when you are quoted in the article as saying about the front-page Dump Stocks ads, “Those are political ads put in by other people, not The Coast News,” Kydd said.”

WHOM is ‘putting’ the ads in if not you?

5) Mr. Kydd, as you have been selling very expensive political advertising for over 24 years, surely you don’t expect one to believe that you are unaware that political action committees or general purpose receiving committee MUST register with the State of California and report their expenditures once a month: is the reason you registered the domain name EncinitasElection.com so you wouldn’t be identified as the mastermind of the ‘Dump Stocks’ campaign?

Or, was it to hide the identities of the fellow plotters who were committed to ‘driving’ Mayor Jerome Stocks out of office: and how much money you charged them?

6) Q: Mr. Kydd, the bumper stickers? As exciting as the idea of disseminating a reportedly 5000 ‘Dump Stocks’ bumper stickers throughout Encinitas proper can be by inserting them in your paper. A) Did you really believe that people would put them on their cars harming their paint and wax?

Or, B) Regardless of the unusual verbiage printed on the stickers, didn’t you really envision exactly what you got: a low grade campaign of vandalism of public and private property that your group believes would serve as a catalyst or call-to-action for the voters: or, is the truth, you wanted the money, you didn’t pay for it and frankly, you really don’t care? And if not, why not?

7) Q: In a letter to you from Councilman Mark Muir, who is rightfully concerned about ‘where’ his expensive campaign ad will be seen in your paper (See, I’m not biased, I’ll take money from anywhere I can) Mr. Muir asked you, ”Mr. Kydd, how is it that we have never spoken, yet you have gone out of your way to do great political harm to me: can you express to me exactly why that is?”

Yes, Mr. Kydd, why is that exactly and while we are at it: isn’t sneaking and hiding your actions as a responsible publisher and citizen, not to mention your status as a ‘journalist’, abusing the good will of the private property owners that entrusted their property for you to ‘place’ your news boxes: isn’t the big lie and hoax you have perpetrated on Mayor Stocks for a year, isn’t that the ‘true’ meaning of the word’ despicable’?

Most interesting is that the unsatisfied 2% who are hopefully likewise going to be ‘unmasked’ as the political cabal who’ve financially underwritten this very ugly campaign and as the editor of the Current said,

“When news media start to operate needlessly in the shadows like the very issues they seek to uncover, our collective credibility really is at stake,” wasn’t he politely observing that you do have something to hide? Roman Koenig

The fact may be and there is plenty of evidence of it over 25 years, Jim Kydd is confused by the meaning of the word ‘integrity’ and has never really understood the social responsibility of a publisher.

We perhaps have only ‘projected’ that code of ethics on him and maybe he has never accepted it?

Finally, what else is JIM KYDD hiding?

Competing Narratives

Baby, the rain must fall.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Even in the face of three years of documented actions in print and on video, the coastal activists are trying to paint the commercial property owners that were innocent targets of the Encinitas Barth/MIG/Planning Staff ‘Draft’ as perpetrators rather than organized respondents.

Why are the Cardiff. Leucadia and Olivenhain 2 Percenters trying to foist a false-story on the electorate about the General Plan Update after three years?

NOTE: 2 Percenters: the mélange of activists from Olivenhain, Cardiff and Leucadia who have hijacked every Encinitas City Council meeting since September 14th, 2011 in an effort to make the Encinitas City Council look bad and somehow convince the 98% of residents who love their ‘Quality of Life’ that the City Council that has delivered all the great beaches, library, services, parks etc…are bad people.

The recent Citizen Satisfaction Survey honestly reported 98% of the electorate satisfied; much to the chagrin to the 30 antagonists who have performed political theater almost every Wednesday for a year at public hearings by the Encinitas City Council trying to ‘reveal’ their vision of a much reduced Encinitas.

Q: How do you unseat an incumbent from a beach town when 98% of the residents are very satisfied with the beauty of our local paradise?

A: Simple; you make up a big story, a whopper. “The Sky is Falling!”

So, the fact that the members of the New Encinitas Network took the lead in decrying the ‘Draft’ General Plan Update for two years before even one of the coastal activists and town councilors raised their hand and declared,” Me too!” is not only revealed to be hypocrisy when the record shows all of the town council representatives signed off on flooding El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard with capacity; now, the Big Fib is that the City Council and commercial property owners are planning to build a 5 story Atlantic City series of developments down the middle of New Encinitas.

Ironically, the coastal activists that signed the Initiative and those supporting it, including a local publisher who is financially underwriting the measure; are pursuing a path that if passed or even better, adopted by the incumbent opposition candidates will force all affordable housing units (at least 1300) to be located ONLY along Hwy 101 where density bonus will allow infill made easy, rather than forcing property owners to expend up to $500,000 on Special Elections to ask permission to upgrade their commercial centers.

If it happens, and the coastline is condemned with ALL the affordable housing capacity because of the Initiative, you watch, these activists will STILL blame the council, because they cannot somehow recognize their part in this ongoing drama.

So, why pretend that those who live in gated communities along the I-5 were the Paul Revere’s of Leucadia? Members of the New Encinitas Network invested over 1000 hours on the first two years updating the General Plan; the unsatisfied 2%, not so much. The latest revisionist story out of the Leucadia Town Council is that it was THEY who warned the residents of New Encinitas. One fellow sounds like Rip Van Winkle in the amount of revision he is trying to sell the public before the election. They are denying that Councilwoman Teresa Barth headed up the Search Committee that chose Berkeley-based MIG that took a million dollars plus for trying to locate almost ALL of the future low income growth in New Encinitas. Its on video. They are denying that the Planning Staff chose New Encinitas to place almost ALL of the future growth and that Councilwoman Barth made the motion to pay MIG the million plus. Its on video. They are trying to say the Planning Staff didn’t arbitrarily remove public hearings on the General Plan ‘draft’ before city council. Its on video. They are trying to say that Barth didn’t attempt to sabotage with Planning Staff’s help, the creation of the ERAC. Once again. Its on video.

Why deny all of these FACTS? Because the facts don’t match up with the ‘Whopper’ story the usual suspects are trying to peddle to the voting residents that are working two jobs to make their mortgages every month.

Is it just me, or is it hard for everyone to accept these Chicken Little advocates that live in gated communities or three blocks from the Pacific Ocean as real working class heroes? One hero prompts his wife to play telephone interruptus every day in an effort to ‘inform’ the electorate while they are trying to make a living. And these folks breaking the law by telephone terror believe that they are supposedly the ‘good’ guys?

Make no mistake, the Initiative is wrong-headed and will make Encinitas’ financial identity plummet to the level of Escondido, which according to their website, is what the proponents of the Initiative desire. There is absolutely NO PLAN FOR 5 STORIES anywhere before the City Council or in the pipe line headed toward the council. The only location of 5 story buildings is in the misleading materials being spread throughout the city prior to the election. Period.

So, if someone asks you to sign a petition to stop 5 story buildings; please ask them to produce proof that what they claim is true. They cannot, because it doesn’t exist.

For some insight to the organized jihad against the city council incumbents; try this link: http://www.theleucadiablog.com/2012/08/encinitas-taxpayers-retrofit.html

Encinitas Citizen’s Satisfaction Survey Results!
City of Encinitas
Citizen Satisfaction Survey Results
from July 2012

The New Encinitas Network wants to share the brand new results of a
Citizen Satisfaction Survey. The City of Encinitas has just asked 400 of our residents a series of questions by telephone.

The Results? 98% of residents surveyed love Encinitas.

The full-report is 49 pages but here are some of the highlights.

1) The Survey asked “How Would You Rate ‘The Quality of Life’ in Encinitas?”

NOTE: When those who answered the Survey question ‘Good’ were added
to the folks who answered ‘Excellent’, the combined total was 98%;
that’s correct, ninety-eight percent.

“Excellent” was answered by 70% of those surveyed by random. “Good” by 28%.

That is true satisfaction!

2) When queried about their ‘satisfaction’ with City-provided services:
those surveyed answered ‘satisfied’ and when added to those who
answered ‘very satisfied’ the aggregate total percentages are:
1) Library 98%
2) Fire Services 97%
3) Trash and Recycling. 98%
4) Lifeguards 98%
5) Emergency Medical Response 97%
6) Parks 97%
7) Water 98%
Recreation 96%
9) Beaches 95%

The residents of Encinitas surveyed obviously love their City Services.
98% of those surveyed answered that they felt safe
walking in their neighborhood at night.

THAT is safe!

When asked what Information sources do residents use to

get information about the City of Encinitas the Top 5 were:

1) Encinitas Now, the City’s online newsletter.

2) The City’s overall updated Website.
3) The North County Times.
Note: The Union Tribune has purchased the NCT.
4) City flyers, post cards etc…
5) Other sites on the Internet.

The entire Survey and Results can be found on the City’s website;
there was a margin for error of 4.88%.

You can see for yourself here:

http://ci.encinitas.ca.us/index.aspx?page=30&recordid=281&returnURL=%2findex.aspx

The City of Encinitas is divided. Half its residents tilt left, half tilt right, but all love the beach.

Background. In 2006, the California State government was persuaded by an NGO called the ICLEI to create a cookie-cutter ‘one-size-fits-all’ series of environmentally sensitive mandates that at their essence force cities to plan for future low-income growth and this mandated growth needs to be adjacent to transportation hubs.

The Idea. The idea behind AB32 and SB375 is that when low-income housing is very near mass transit, fewer personal automobiles will be driven and the carbon footprint of California will be reduced.

While Sacramento’s heart might be in the right place, this one-size-fits-all approach has proven a disastrous approach for Encinitas; which is literally a bedroom community where 90% of adults that work 40 hours a week or more work outside of Encinitas, meaning they commute.

So, what happens when the Planning Staff and Councilperson appointed with bringing the City of Encinitas into compliance with AB32 and SB375 take advantage of their assignment by the City Council and spend over a million dollars to create a completely ‘new’ or ‘updated’ General Plan that not only does not reflect the culture or wishes of contemporary Encinitas, but slowly buy surely phases the personal automobile out of usage in Encinitas and purposefully uses the creation of ‘gridlock’ on El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard in a conscious
Program designed to exasperate commuters into either driving ‘around’ Encinitas or abandoning their cars altogether to and this is a quote “transform” El Camino Real into a walk-able’ community.”

Who asked the Planning Staff to do this? Not the Council. No, they are answering to the international funding and planning group ICLEI.

What follows is the three-year history of a minority Councilperson and radicalized Planning Staff that has spent a tremendous amount of taxpayer’s money to try to create according to Executive Planner, Patrick Murphy, “A Plan for moving Encinitas beyond the automobile.”

The problem of course, is that if you design a general Plan that is hostile to commuters and the use of a personal automobile, you severely curtail or retard the commuter’s ability to drive to work and bring back his/her paycheck to Encinitas, while at the same time severely limiting the sales tax generated by the two commercial corridors. The ‘Draft’ created by Councilwoman Teresa Barth, her choice for a consultant, MIG and the Planning Staff never changed from the day it was approved ‘in concept’, the million dollars plus that the was expended on ‘updating’ the General Plan was used in a Delphi Method manner that spent the money trying to convince the electorate that the ‘Draft’ posted on 9-1-2011 was culled from ideas generated by the public; and today, the Council, the City Manager, the town councils, members of the GPAC, ERAC and a growing number of citizens acknowledge that nothing could be further than the truth.

Barth/MIG/Planning Staff created a plan that can not financially support the growing needs of Encinitas and the startling part for the Network, was the realization that A) They understood what they were doing and B) They are still trying to find a way, any way, to retain the ‘Land-Use’ and ‘Housing’ Element that place 95% of future low-income growth be located in New Encinitas.

Much has happened in now almost the fourth year of ‘updating’ the General Plan: and it’s only since July 16, 2012 that the City Council has finally forced the Planning Staff to comply with its direction to return to using the 1989 approved General Plan and to begin truly ‘updating’ it: nearly three years later.

Year One, New Encinitas is Targeted
Acting at the direction of the State of California; decisions are made in Sacramento to force most cities
To ‘Update’ their ‘Housing Element’; this means that the City must develop a ‘Map of Opportunity’ that would demonstrate ‘where’ future ‘low-income’ growth (to the tune of 1300 multi-family units plus more at higher income levels) be located. This plan was hatched in Sacramento in 2006; before the recession.

After receiving a RHNA number (Regional Housing Needs Association), 1300, from the regional group, SanDag (San Diego Association of Governments). While the “Housing Element’ was mandated to be ‘updated’, the 1989 General Plan was not scheduled to be ‘updated’ until 2014.

In 2009 the Planning Staff suggested to the Council that the ‘Housing Element’ and the General Plan could be ‘updated’ at the same time as the ‘Housing Element’ following the appointment of a ‘Climate Action Plan’ that was determined without citizen participation and which followed was a blue-print for reducing the City’s overall carbon footprint.

The City Council appointed a subcommittee to ‘head-hunt’ for a consultant to help update the ‘General Plan’ who would be required to hire the already chosen ‘Housing’ Specialist, Veronica Tam.

Chaired by Councilwoman Teresa Barth, the ‘Search’ Committee found its consultant, a Professor from the University of California at Berkeley; a Specialist’ in ‘Sustainability’ and ‘New Urbanism’. Councilwoman made the motion to pay Daniel Iacofano over a million dollars to ‘Update’ the General Plan and ‘Housing Element’. NOTE: Only the ‘Housing Element’ was required to be ‘updated’, not the General Plan.

On August 18, 2009, the Planning Staff brought a plan before the City Council that targeted the commercial corridors and shopping centers for ‘renovation’, the focus being that a ‘mixed-use’ overlay (map) would be lain over the to commercial corridors and any future low-income housing would be shoe-horned into or onto commercial properties along El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard.

On the same evening of 8-19-09, the City Council also approved a $110,000 allocation to a ‘traffic’ consultant, whom would ‘update’ the ‘traffic’ modeling for the City. There were 7 speakers against this allocation, because it put out for bid with a statewide RFP (Request for Proposal). When questioned by the public, then Mayor Houlihan explained to the speakers that she had spoken at length with the ‘traffic’ consultant and they had discussed ‘How’ to undue the damage to the City’s traffic of having made Encinitas too ‘comfortable’ and  ‘convenient’ for commuters. The gist of her explanation called for allowing intersections to ‘fail’ as a way to ‘train’ commuters to drive around Encinitas rather than through Encinitas. NOTE: The Planning Department was so confident that they would prevail with their preferred plan of consciously created gridlock and a reduced LOS (traffic level of Service) that after the Council approved the allocation to the traffic consultant; the $110,000 ‘update’ traffic modeling based on ‘gridlock’ was, in fact, executed by the Consultant; which now doesn’t match up with the council Land-Use element ‘rejected’ by the City Council on 3-7-12. Planning Staff states that the ‘modeling’ isn’t ‘”complete” yet.

Finally, also on 8-19-09, the City Council approved $12,000 in allocated funds to ‘join’ the ICLEI; the International Commission for Local Environmental Initiatives; an NGO, or a non-government organization that ‘shares’ data with members with cities that that wish to address climate-change. Who funds this group and pays the many climate engineers and planners? In reality, nobody knows; yet, our city, like hundreds of others in California have chosen to accept their data as a ‘fact’. Why? Because it was cheaper.

Planning Staff told Council that MIG, Daniel Iacofano was chosen because he had the most experience in ‘sustainability’; which sounded great, but when it was detailed in the first update ‘Draft’, the Barth/MIG/Planning Staff ‘Draft’ was neither a plan to sustain our local culture nor anything the General Plan Advisory Committee had actually approved. NOTE: Planning Staff had used the ‘DELPHI” Method during the three citywide workshops which gives participants the illusion of participation, but in reality, the Planning Staff’s predetermined destination of targeting the commercial property owners in New Encinitas as the unknowing recipients of unwanted low income growth.

Patrick Murphy, Department Head for Planning Staff decides the ‘map of opportunity’ will show almost all future growth will be located along El Camino real and Encinitas Boulevard; this focus, from Day One of this long process. This is documented in the Staff recommendations from 8-19-12.

By the 10th of January 2010, when the General Plan advisory committee was chosen and only 1 out of 23 committee members was representing New Encinitas.

A year later, in January of 2011 the Barth/MIG/Planning Staff updated ‘Draft’ is posted online; 95% of future low-income growth detailed in the ‘map of opportunity’ is located along El Camino real and Encinitas Boulevard. Not one owner of any of the commercial properties targeted by Murphy and Project Manager Diane Langager have been apprised that the million dollar plan is predicated upon their reinvesting in their own properties, which are also ground zero for Staff-created gridlock, “during peak AM and PM’ hours.

On May 11, 2011, the Planning Staff and MIG continue to ‘update’ the City Council by quoting GPAC members when, in fact, not only had their never been consensus on the GPAC, any true and in depth evaluation had never been allowed.

Network Informs New Encinitas Private Property Owners
18 months into the process, February, 2011, the New Encinitas network began contacting the commercial property owners to inform them that their properties had been targeted for the mixed-use overlay and the planned gridlock to help turn El Camino Real into a ‘walk-able’ community. When confronted with the fact that they had been carefully excluded from the 18 month process, Planning Staff answered by claiming they sent a post card to everyone in the City. Not only did not one property owner recall receiving the notice, a careful reading of the postcard distributed citywide said absolutely nothing about 1300 low-income units, mixed-use or the conscious degradation of traffic level of service along El Camino real and Encinitas Boulevard.

YEAR 2, the ‘Update’ Is Revealed, Public Responds
In March of 2011, the New Encinitas Business Network hosted a meeting for the commercial property owners with Patrick Murphy, Update Leader Diane Langager and Associate Planner, Mike Strong.

The video of the meeting at The Grauer School records Mr. Murphy stating that the Comprehensive General Plan Update was “A plan for Encinitas to move beyond cars…” When a property owner stated that this was the first she had heard of this and asked where they could object to this ‘Update’ that focuses on her property, Mr. Murphy answered, “Unfortunately Phase One and Phase Two of the ‘Update’ are closed to any further input.” Meaning, that while the property owners have been carefully excluded from this process while targeted, now that the owners were aware, it was too late for them to participate.

‘New Urbanism’ Planned For Beachtown Suburb
In June of 2011, the property owners met with Mr. Murphy, Ms. Langager and Mr. Strong to discuss the State mandates AB32 and SB375 that again are at the root of the ‘map of opportunity’ mandate by HCD, the State’s Housing and Community Development.

MIG Reports GPAC  “Excited” About Gridlock
May 11, 2011 when MIG/Daniel Iacofano told the City Council that the GPAC members were “excited” about the possibilities in creating gridlock during “peak AM and PM hours” for the express purpose exasperating commuters to the point to which they give up driving their cars; just as Patrick Murphy described at the The Grauer School public meeting, the ‘Draft’ is a plan to abandon automobiles.

Planning Staff Continues Obfuscation
When asked to explain WHY the foundation of the ‘Updated’ General Plan was ‘New Urbanism, Complete Streets and Place-based Zoning’, Mr. Murphy claimed he didn’t know much about it and referred to Mr. Strong who also claimed little knowledge of the terms, though he did state that he had read “an article in a magazine” but didn’t remember much about it. The date was June 23, 2011.

The Truth Is Out
On Thursday, September 1, 2011, the Planning Staff posted over a thousand pages of the completed
Barth/MIG/Planning Staff ‘Draft; which was completely based on the principles of ‘New Urbanism’, Complete Streets and Place-based Zoning; 68 days after claiming little to no knowledge of the terms/concepts.

On September 13th, 2011, the Network contacted the New Encinitas Town Council to inform them about the Barth/MIG/Planning Department ‘Draft’. The next evening, 16 speakers, alarmed by an e-mail/alarm from the Network to 1800 Encinitas recipients addressed the City Council. Not one member of the GPAC, not one member of a town council, not one home-owner from New Encinitas addressed the Council.

90% of the speakers before the Council were members of the Network.

Planning Makes Public ‘Update’ Hearings Disappear
A month prior to the September 14th, 2011 City Council meeting, the Planning Staff, without the new City Manager’s or City Council’s knowledge, arbitrarily cancelled public hearings about the GP ‘Update’,  that Diane Langager had described to the City Council on May 11, 2011.

Year Three, Council Struggles To Control Planning Staff
On September 14th, 2011, the Encinitas City Council attempted to take back control of the ‘process’ for updating the ‘Housing Element’ and “General Plan’.

The City Council voted unanimously to ‘Reboot’ the update process. A Subcommittee to suggest ‘How’ to form another Ad Hoc Committee is approved, only this time, the committee would have representation of and by the New Encinitas private property and business owners that had been selectively excluded in the GPAC process.

Barth, Murphy and Langager Attempt a Coup
Before the Subcommittee could return its recommendations to the full Council, Patrick Murphy, Diane Langager led by Councilwoman Teresa Barth, held private meetings and attempted to usurp the process and kill the ‘Reboot’. When Councilwoman Gaspar reported out to the full Council about the coup attempt, Barth contacted the press and tried to foist a phony Brown Act violation on Gaspar. Despite the attempt by the authors of the Barth/MIG/Planning Staff’s attempt to retain the Barth/MIG/Planning Staff ‘Draft’, the Council voted to create the Element Review Advisory Committee.

Planning Staff Mutinies in March
In March of 2012, the Planning Staff advised the City Council that regardless of the merits of any ideas created by the ERAC, there was no time left to evaluate their ‘Draft’ and that if the City Council did not heed their warning, the Council would be guilty of ‘defiance’ of the State of California.

Staff’s ‘Draft’ Land-Use’ Element Rejected
In response to the hubris of the City Staff, the City Council voted to reject and repudiate the ‘Land-Use’ Element created by Barth, the Planning Staff and MIG. In fact, the Council gave direction that there would be no further work for MIG with the City of Encinitas.

Instead of the process continuing under Murphy, Langager and Strong, an Independent Facilitator, Mr. Peder Norby was directed to lead the ‘Reboot’.

The ERAC began to meet and prepare recommendations on ‘How’ to fulfill the mandated ‘map of opportunity’ for HCD.

Planning Staff Brings Discredited GPAC Back To Life
Distraught at the lack of control Staff now had over the ‘Update’, without City Council permission they reconstituted the GPAC, even though over half the original members either refused to return or refused to fill out the newly required #700 Statement of Income’ forms and were replaced with new members who were without two years of experience.

Barth Endorsee Forwards Video Clips of ERAC To Anonymous Blogs
Meanwhile, Barth endorsed a ‘Sustainability’ candidate for one of the three city council seats ‘up’ in the Fall of 2012. This candidate, Lisa Shaffer, who came to possess a ‘death-bed’ video endorsement from the late Councilwoman Houlihan, began to attend ERAC meetings and video tape members and attendees of the ERAC meetings and then forward them to two anonymous websites that would post the videos and disparage those video recorded by Ms. Shaffer and thereby interrupt the successful operation of the ERAC.

Barth’s Actions Are Louder Than Words
As summer 2012 began, Barth political allies: Shaffer, Audet, Lindeman and the Turneys declare Jihad on the ERAC and all other endeavors that would fairly disperse any future growth elsewhere throughout the City, rather than just New Encinitas. GPAC member, Rachelle Collier, also prominent in the Leucadia Town Council, publishes a letter in the North County Times decrying the fact that the private property owners in New Encinitas have been able to achieve the ‘Reboot’. Collier opines that there could have been a ‘compromise’; but other GPAC members acknowledge that when New Encinitas was excluded from the GPAC meetings, the property owners weren’t there to compromise. Collier recently had an active city council election campaign committee, though the proponent of needle exchanges in Leucadia hasn’t pulled papers for the 2012 race to this point. While mildly confusing, Colliers point appears that the future growth should main in New Encinitas and not be shared by Leucadia.

Coast News Opinion Writer and Turneys Declare War on Peder Norby, Facilitator of ERAC.
A Bonde-like coordinated attack on the credibility of Peder Norby begins mid-May of 2012. Several letters of inquiry from Barth endorsee Lisa Shaffer to the City Manager appeared, questioning the appointment of Norby to assistance on the ‘Reboot’; followed swiftly behind her inquiry in June of 2012, was an attack on Norby’s reputation by a member of the ‘Encinitas Project’, Jim Kydd’s lead opinion writer for the local weekly periodical, The Coast News, Andrew Audet. Audet was assisted by Leucadia Camellia-growers and Shaffer supporters, Susan and Dean Turney; who donated six minutes to Audet to allow him to present a videotape in attempt to besmirch the reputation of Peder Norby, in another attempt to remove Norby from the ‘Reboot’ equation. This Audet/Turney video purported to ‘show’ that Norby had misrepresented the results of the Cardiff Specific Plan. The video was so informationally incoherent that it did not successfully convince the Council not to renew Norby’s contract. Though it did bring to light a serious Fair Political Practices Commission violation finding questioning Andrew Audet, Herb Patterson and Gerald Sadomka about Bob Bonde’s private post office box? A violation that at the time of the public hearing had never been answered by the Coast News’ Audet.

Leucadia Activists, ‘Encinitas Project’ Attack New Encinitas Network
As soon as members of the ‘Encinitas Project’ failed to destroy the ERAC progress by removing the Facilitator, one member of the agitators, spurred on by the anonymously authored ‘Encinitas Underground’ blog which copies and pasted the list of members belonging to the new Encinitas Network and intimated that maybe someone should contact (interrupt) the businesses listed on the Network website. One example of ‘harassment’ by the ‘Encinitas Project’ members, Leucadian Kathleen Lindeman, involves Lindeman repeatedly calling one of the Network Member/business owners at their business; but not succeeding; Chagrinned perhaps Lindeman began calling the Network member at home to complain about the Network/Andreen and the ERAC. When asked ‘How’ Lindeman had been able to contact her at home, Lindeman explained to the Network member that they both worked for the same school district and that she had used the personnel telephone directory. Lindemann is retired from teaching.

Unable to remove Norby or ruin Andreen, frustrated that for over a decade they have not been able to get a ‘Majority’ of extremists on the City Council, the members of the ‘Encinitas Prohect’ have taken action to take any and almost all decision-making responsibilities from the Encinitas City Council. The ‘Encinitas Project’ has registered with the City a notice to circulation a petition that will require roughly 6000 signatures of registered Encinitas voters, that if passed, the Initiative would require any commercial property owner that would seek to reinvest and renovate their commercial property, that they would have to expend between $350,000 to $500,000 the cost of a special election: to ask  permission of the electorate every time a new business moving to Encinitas, the Special Election costs, at times, a half million dollars would have to be expended by the property owner, the request to renovate put on a ballot and left to the judgment of the voters; requiring 50% of the voters plus 1.

Example: if the ‘Encinitas Right To Vote’ were currently the law and the owners of the McDonalds that burned down in the Sprout’s Center wanted to rebuild it exactly as it was in the 70’s, they would have to underwrite a Special Election of the half million dollars before they have spent one nickel on plans, materials labor etc…

Two other cities have passed a financial ’death sentence’ Initiative such as the ‘Encinitas Project’ is asking folks to sign on to this summer, Escondido and Yorba Linda. (The Initiative is based on Yorba Linda’s 2006 Special Election) Investment capital for renovation of their commercial real estate is non-existent and consequently their city’s finances are in freefall. Oh, one other quick note; if this Initiative does make it to 6000 signatures, that half million dollars for a Special Election comes out of your pocket book. That’s right, the homeowners and taxpayers of Encinitas get to underwrite a plan to condemn the City to financial suicide. If the Initiative passes or is adopted, Encinitas will become a ‘second class’ citizen/city; just like Escondido and Yorba Linda. No businessperson or group will invest a half million dollars into a Special Election to ask “permission” to renovate a property; therefore, this is a completely ‘no growth’ Initiative; period.

As Ms. Collier would say, be aware!

Latest Hubris and ‘Sleight of Hand’ by Staff
Also in June 2012, at the end of an ERAC meeting that was putting the finishing touches on a three month ‘Housing Exercise’, the ‘Update’ Planning Associate in charge of the ‘Update’, Diane Langager stated that not all of the ‘Draft’ Land Use Element rejected and repudiated publicly by the entire City Council on March 7th, 2012 had been thrown out.

Members of the ERAC that had attended the 3-7-12 City Council meeting were not surprised to hear this from a member of the Planning Staff, as they had seen the Staff in action for several years now.

GENERAL PLAN UNCHAINED
At the formal request of the New Encinitas Business Network, the City Council clarified for the Network that Ms. Lanager and the Planning Staff were mistaken; in fact, the City Council again repudiated the ‘Land-Use’ Element created by Ms. Langager and agreed with the Network’s formal request to direct the ERAC to return to the 1989 current General Plan and unanimously directed Staff to create a strike-though/redlined version of the ‘Draft’ so citizens could read and recognize what the Planning Staff intended.

Now, 35 months plus, since the Planning Staff knowingly targeted both El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard for low-income housing and reduced levels of traffic service, a ‘real’ updating of the General Plan can begin.

Pasted below is a letter from Ms. Langager informing the ERAC members of a pause in the process caused by the new requirement of a strike-through/redlined version of the 1989 or current General Plan.

From: Diane Langager [mailto:DLangag@encinitasca.gov]
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 1:40 PM
To: Diane Langager
Cc: Peder Norby; Laurie Winter; Michael Strong; Patrick Murphy; Gus Vina
Subject: July 26, 2012 ERAC meeting is Cancelled
To ERAC committee members,
Based on Council direction given to staff at the July 18, 2012 Council meeting, additional time is needed to fully prepare for the next ERAC meeting; therefore, we are canceling the upcoming ERAC meeting scheduled for Thursday, July 26, 2012.
Council directed staff to have the ERAC further address housing methodologies before presenting the final report to the city council.  Council also directed that, as part of the Element review, ERAC is to use the existing Encinitas General Plan as the base document for editing, and use the draft General Plan as a resource document with the understanding that zoning/land use changes in the draft is off the table.
As part of the new direction, we will provide you with a hard copy of the existing General Plan; if you prefer to work electronically and do not want a hard copy please let us know.
Additionally, given the new direction, you do not need to complete the homework assignment given at the last meeting related to review of the draft General Plan.
Again, the ERAC meeting scheduled for July 26, 2012 is cancelled.  As we further prepare we will inform you when we will reconvene.
Diane Langager
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CODA: Make no mistake, those who are bound and determined to locate most of the State mandated future growth solely in New Encinitas will not be deterred, whether they are part of the Barth/MIG/Planning Department group who formed and misled the GPAC, or whom write supposedly fact-based opinion pieces for the local weekly, will stop trying to return the ‘map of opportunity/capacity’ focus to New Encinitas.

Neither will the Network fail to continue to defend private property rights, residential and commercial, throughout the City.

Now that the current 1989 General Plan is finally going to be in a strike-out/redline version by the ERAC, perhaps the entire public will now be able to recognize just how far afield the Barth/MIG/Planning Staff went in creating their preferred future without personal automobiles; because, in fact, the Planning Staff took advantage of the City Council, instead of updating the General Plan, they attempted to reinvent Encinitas according to their own and ICLEI’s environmental agenda.

Barth Calls for Transparency While Secretly Endorsing Just The Opposite
Finally, its puzzling and amusing that the very people who purport to cherish ‘transparency’ and flood the media, support and endorse individuals who attempted to deceive the City Council with not so cleverly edited videos, support the interrupting of hard working business owners attempting to quash first amendment rights and endorse candidates that surreptitiously videotape volunteers and forward them to anonymously hosted blogs that belittle their work and efforts at her behest, or candidates who attempt to impugn the actions and honesty of council members/political opponents with the help of Watch Dog reporters and when proven wrong, attempt to stop the reporter from reporting the truth of their participation in impugning an opponent’s actions or motives.

July 13, 2012

Dear Friends,

It has come to my attention that the supporters of the new General Plan Update ‘DRAFT’ created by Councilwoman Teresa Barth, the Berkeley Consultant, the City’s Planning Staff and various members of the three Town Councils, have been calling many of the business owners and service providers listed on the New Encinitas Network website and interrupting their business operations, insisting that the Network has done something wrong.

Obviously, this is the last thing I, or my family, would ever want to occur and we are sorry this has happened.

WHY ARE THEY CALLING?

As way of explanation, let me just say that we, as a group, were successful in lobbying the Encinitas City Council to restart the General Plan Update process so instead of 96% of the State of California mandated future growth being located solely in New Encinitas along El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard, the new process will disperse it throughout the entire City in a fair and equitable manner.

Our group successfully convinced the Encinitas City Council to restart or ‘reboot’ the process so all five communities (Downtown Encinitas, Cardiff, Olivenhain, Leucadia and New Encinitas) share in the potential distribution of this future growth (1300 lower-income housing units); and that my intent has been and always will be helping the New Encinitas business districts to increased profitability so we can underwrite the best public safety, beaches, parks and lifestyle that we all enjoy.

THEY ARE INSISTENT ALL GROWTH BE LOCATED IN NEW ENCINITAS!

Unfortunately, these folks do not seem to understand municipal or regional finance, and while seemingly well-meaning they are only interested in their own interests and their own communities interests and they seem unreasonably adamant that the future growth (1300 low-income housing units) go ONLY into New Encinitas alone with none going to the other four communities, and they will do anything, including interrupting your business, maligning the Council people who voted to fairly ‘reboot’ the process; to currently pursuing an initiative for the Fall ballot to keep the future growth ONLY in New Encinitas and to further hamstring business by passing a new law to make it happen that way.

If this new law would pass, for example, it would require the folks rebuilding the McDonald’s that burned down to spend from $300,000 to a half million dollars for a Special Election to get permission to rebuild it.

Again, I am very sorry if you or your customers have been bothered by these misguided souls; but the alternative is to let them win and place ALL of the future growth at 30 units per acre along both our commercial corridors, creating more traffic in New Encinitas rather than being fair and generous to their neighbors.

HELP

There is something you can do to stop this behavior, if you’d take down the name of the person and their contact information of those who are interrupting your business and forward it to me: we can have our representative contact them and determine that you won’t be bothered by them again.

Always my best wishes,

Mike Andreen

760 683-4290