Some residents of Encinitas, working with a Carlsbad based activist/NIMBY group, have used the initiative process to force the City of Encinitas to spend at least $350,000 on a special election to be held in June of 2013. Nice.
This ill-conceived measure:
A) Won’t correct or address state mandated forced planning for additional housing units,
B) Will actually replace steep-slope local 12 ft building height limits currently in place with its blanket 30ft limit which would be very destructive to the impacted neighborhoods and their views,
C) Will replace the current accessory unit 12 ft height limit with it’s 30 ft ht limit, so get ready for your neighbor to build a 30 ft tall shed in his set-back right on your property line,
D) Won’t preserve the EUSD Pacific View former School Site as open space,
E) Will cause folks to pass on re-investment of their property leading to the eventual decline and degradation of Encinitas. Just ask Escondido how their similar measure is working out!
F) Will override the various Encinitas “Specific Plan” height limits of 33 or 40 ft rendering many of the projects in those areas (such as Whole Foods and Target) non-conforming and therefore unable to expand or be improved.
And finally:
Can somebody please point to an example of where the Encinitas City Council used it’s 4/5th’s vote authority to “up-zone” property in town? I can’t, but maybe I missed it.
This thing is attempting to fix a problem that doesn’t exist and it is fraught with negative consequences for both the short term and long term best interests of the City of Encinitas and our residents.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/mar/15/right-to-vote-should-go-right-down-to-defeat/
Interestingly, both newly elected City Council Members Tony Kranz and Lisa Shaffer signed the initiative and supported it during their campaign to hold public office, and many of the “volunteers” collecting signatures doubled as campaign workers on their campaigns. Upon being successfully elected they then voted to not adopt it as written, but rather, take a formal position opposing it, and voted to have the City Council write arguments against it.
Those dedicated “agent of change” volunteers must be whipsawing between anger and depression with the recent votes of their newly minted City Council troika.
Ain’t politics grand!!
Comments 7
Democracy is a messy and expensive thing. I realize your disdain for it, especially when Encinitas voters tossed you out with yesterday’s used coffee cups. A large number of volunteers circulated this petition and a large number of Encinitas voters signed the petition to have this election. I wonder if your outrage would be as apparent if the petition had been circulated by signature collectors, paid by the developers, that financed you in your past campaigns.
Part of the reason for this inactive was to trim some of the developer influence and money that kept you in office for so many years!
As far as this coming from a “Carlsbad based activist/NIMBY group”… just more proof of your lack of knowledge! I’ve lived in Encinitas for much longer than you, Jerome, and many of the volunteers I worked with have lived here longer than I! Everyone I worked with lives in Encinitas.
Jerome: “Stay in the car!”
Who cares what Stocks thinks? He sank Encinitas’ future by a 35% increase in pensions in 2005. He’s more like Pelosi then a GOP member. Please remove him from the party, for the good of the party.
Jack, how does anyone go about removing someone from a political party?
“Jack, how does anyone go about removing someone from a political party?”
They ignore them. This has nothing to do with Mayor Stocks nor the special election but rather addresses the question you posed TA.
You ignore someone if you don’t want them to associate with you.
Right, Brian Brady. Agreed here.
When people say things like “please remove him from the party,” or “the Republican party shouldn’t have allowed John McCain to be the nominee,” it makes me laugh. Do the Democrats have the authority to tell someone to change their registration? By force of gun? 😉
GL
People act as if the Party is the will of the people in that Party when it suits their purpose and then they treat the Party as if it is a room full of powerful, cigar-chomping, totalitarians when it suits their purpose.
I see it in many groups. Many NRA members are no different. Tea Party groups too. I laugh when I hear someone say “well, 10% of the organization does all the work…” Man, I WISH we could get 10% working! It’d be about a 1000% improvement!
I think it stems from many people’s desire to have someone else do the work and take the blame and then their desire to take the credit if credit is due.
Jack’s red herring is obvious for all to see.
It’s a diversionary tactic to move the discussion from the flaws inherent in the NIMBY based Pop A to a misrepresentation of a vote I cast along with 4/5th’s of the Encinitas City Council in 2005.
Hey, guess what, the sky isn’t falling. So find another diversion
chicken little!