City meeting on El Portal underpass tonight

6PM at City Hall tonight.

Stop sign to break up Vulcan Speedway

Vulcan Avenue east of the railroad tracks has long been a preferred route for locals to get north and south between Encinitas Boulevard and Leucadia Boulevard while avoiding the Coast Highway traffic and stop signs. That's about to change.

Coast News:

The Paul Ecke Central Elementary School community will get the four-way stop sign on Vulcan Avenue they have coveted for years, but the council’s decision on the issue was not unanimous. The City Council voted 3-2 in favor of the all-way stop at Vulcan and Union Street. Deputy Mayor Tony Kranz and council members Tasha Boerner Horvath and Joe Mosca voted for the stop sign, which they said was long overdue and would keep kids safe.

This is kind of weird though:

Mayor Catherine Blakespear and Councilman Mark Muir voted against it after suggesting the item be returned to the Traffic Commission to consider alternatives short of an all-way stop sign, which they said would create unnecessary vehicle stops that would create added pollution next to the elementary school.

Has there ever been a study that shows that a stop sign in front of an elementary school creates a measurable increase in air pollution in classrooms or on the playground? Where are Blakespear and Muir getting their information?

Pyrrhic victory for patio service at Union?

Union-Trib: Encinitas gives win to downtown patio for Union Kitchen + Tap:

Patrons of the lively downtown Union Kitchen + Tap will finally be allowed to eat and drink in the patio area, but its owners will need to provide the city with yearly documentation that alcohol isn't their primary source of income.

Is it possible that Union actually sells more food than alcohol?

If not, will the city actually hold Union accountable?

6/14/17 City Council meeting open thread

Please use the comments to record your observations.

R.I.P. Doug Harwood

Local realtor and anti-Prop A campaigner Doug Harwood has passed away.

Math is hard

Encinitas Advocate:

Proceeds from the event benefit the McAlister Institute, one of San Diego’s leading resources to help people and families affected by addition.

I fought the law and I won

We've covered before Encinitas' red-light camera contract with the corrupt Australian company Redflex. The program takes millions of dollars out of the local economy and provides no net benefit to the city budget and highly dubious public safety benefit. Despite dozens of cities dumping Redflex, Encinitas continues the contract.

Now a reader writes of a personal victory over the Redflex cameras.  From the Inbox:

An uncommon story these days: a regular citizen leery of the creepy creeping surveillance state surrounding us/good guy fighting big government story…. with a happy ending.

My red light “infraction” was surveilled and recorded at the Minority Report-looking set of cameras at the intersection of El Camino Real and Encinitas Blvd. To my chagrin, after adding up the cost of the ticket and the multitude of taxes, court fees and Orwellian-termed charges slapped on by greedy, fat-fingered bureaucrats on top of it -- plus 2 points on my driving record that would have driven up my car insurance cost for 2 years -- the red light camera ticket delivered me a potential net cost of….

Over one thousand dollars. Luckily, I contacted a small law firm in San Diego -- “Mr Ticket” -- and for a very reasonable sum the attorney took my case (along with many others I suppose), argued on my behalf, and won.

Due to complaints and a dubious Constitutional status, red light cameras have been removed in many areas across San Diego.

Not Encinitas.

Although there may be a window - the city’s contract with Redflex Inc., the intermediary camera experts that control the red light cameras in the city, expires in 2018.

What’s that, you say? A company has access to the camera data (as in your personal information, likeness, additional people in your car, their likeness, etc) is handed off to a third party who then processes the info, pictures, etc.? Yes, that’s right.

Question: How many hands does it change in the meantime? Who has access to your likeness, driver’s license number, vehicle, name, address? Who, with criminal or malicious intent, could get their hands on your private information or use that as blackmail?

The safeguard to those kinds of questions is exactly why we have a Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

But sadly, many of our fellow citizens believe, “if I’m not doing anything wrong, what’s the problem?”

On a related note, In case you’ve wondered why there are so many cameras at other intersections in Encinitas today, it’s per the city’s recent policy of installing cameras at intersections to “alleviate congestion” (wink, wink). These numerous cameras aren’t for public safety revenue generators like the one I encountered at El Camino Real/Encinitas Blvd; they are purely surveillance.

That makes me feel great.