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