Lisa Shaffer nails it in Patch.
The City of Encinitas is preparing an “update” of its General Plan to bring it into conformity with regional and state mandates. Concerns about both substance and process abound from the community. Disarray within the City Council and between the Council and City Manager and planning staff are wasting time and money and further frustrating the alleged objective of meaningful public engagement in the process.Shaffer is exactly right. The GP Update meetings were a farce and a scam where residents' input was ignored and perverted to support the development plans of the staff and the million-dollar outside consultants. Just Say No.
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Even with the recommendation for more public meetings, there is a lack of clarity and a waste of time and money. Staff prepared an informative brochure to send out city-wide notifying people of the meetings. However, both Council and the public were unhappy with the draft and sent the staff back for a substantial revision, incurring more staff time and expense and delaying the planned meetings.
Who is calling the shots here? I have serious concerns about a process that seems out of control. With agenda items appearing and then being withdrawn, staff reports that don’t reflect reality, a clear lack of clarity between the Council and the planning staff, it seems that time and money are being wasted, and interested citizens are increasingly frustrated because they have ideas and preferences but no consistent and meaningful way to be heard. The people need a transparent process for engagement, and a vote of all the people before a final plan is adopted.
Just say nooo???
ReplyDeleteDamn right say nooo!!!
NOOO to more spending.
NOOO to incumbents.
NOOO to over paid staff.
NOOO to giant pensions.
NOOO to consultants.
NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
The law of averages never applies in the City of Encinitas. Why is it that every time the lose a file, make a mistake, or misread a map that it always favors the City?
ReplyDeleteThe Planning Department was prepared to send out a flier to encourage community outreach, that contained no identification of what the meetings were about or why people should be motived to attend--and it had the wrong year written on it about 5 times. In the staff report, it showed that they had gotten a bid of over $10,000 and were asking Council to approve the expense of sending it out in its flawed form until community members spoke up.