Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Right to Vote seen bringing about the Apocalypse

Just as predicted, the pro-developer attorneys hired by the city to report on the Right to Vote Initiative have produced a fear-mongering report.

The report can be found here. The Executive Summary begins on page 21.

Not explained in the report is how the Apocalyptic visions compare to the experience of Escondido, which successfully implemented a similar initiative (Proposition S) fifteen years ago.

35 comments:

  1. Blah, blah, blah.
    Vote no.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why would I vote no?.... same old blah, blah, blah from out of touch and no good City Manager Gus Vina who made the decision on his own to hire the firm and spend our tax dollars on this one sided report.

    Vote Yes and push your elected officials to fire Gus before he does to Encinitas What he did to Sacramento....... huge DEBT that the Citizens are now having to pay off!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I understand that the entire council voted for the report and that Mayor Barth and the City Manager selected the firm.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You understand wrong. Show me the agenda item. The fact is staff is not competent to understand the benefits or the challenges to the initiative. So what Sacramento Gus did was spent $100k for developer's consultants to prepare a "study" explaining the developers side of story on the initiative's challenges. What the report did not include was that Encinitas would become a much more desirable place to live, work, and play. As a result property values would rise, businesses would do better, more people would want to spend time in this quaint 2 and 3 story beachtown that is so different from the overcrowded Oceanside's and Irvine's of the world.

      The good by far outweighs the bad in this initiative and I encourage you to vote yes when it comes to vote.


      Watch if you see this pass, you will see more developers want to live in Encinitas instead of just over developing our land.

      Delete
    2. What ever you say, Gus (Anon 11:41).

      Delete
  4. We've been played by some on the council - you know who I'm talking about!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Council is letting Gus Vina lead them around.

      Gus is working for Gus, and has helped bankrupt the 2 cities where he has worked in finance through his neglect and ineptitude. Couldn't we have found a city manager that was respected instead of snatching up Gus after he got a vote of no confidence from the Sacramento City Council?

      I have never seen a City Manager in this City who was so completely and quickly reviled by citizens.

      Ciy Council--he works for you, and he is putting your jobs on the line!

      Delete
  5. This line is the kicker from the Agenda Item about the Impact Report:

    "Determine if the Council wishes to take an official position on the initiative and appoint two members to prepare an argument against on behalf of the Council."

    City Manager Gus Vina is putting a nose ring in each of the council members so he can lead them in the direction he wants to go. The question is whether a majority of the council will go along with his desire for unfettered density increases without pesky public involvement. It's an insult to all of us that he's against our participation. Nothing better than letting the voters decide. After all we pay the bills.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Any who pays for the special election because I want to add a granny flat to my property?? Me?? I don't think so, let Sheila pay for these elections, she wants them so badly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Misinformation. Granny flats don't require up zoning or votes.

      Delete
    2. Not yet but some day soon, it's a slippery slope.

      Delete
    3. Your "slippery slope" would require another initiative, which no one would support.

      Nice try.

      Delete
    4. No it would not ,just a different interpretation of existing law should this become law.

      Nice try.

      Delete
    5. The slippery slope is the the arguments against the initiative, to vote NO.

      The slippery slope is people who try to use fallacious logic to win their arguments under false pretenses. People are overwhelmingly in support of slowing unchecked growth. That's why this city was founded.

      The original general plan recognized that. Unfortunately, it's being updated, and we don't want it to change to existing neighborhoods' disadvantage. A public vote is already allowed. The loophole that allows 4 out of 5 Councilmembers to vote if there is "public benefit" is too broad.

      Vote yes if you want to save our community character.

      Delete
  7. Nor do remodels, new home construction, additions or any other construction within existing zone codes. Build within code and don't try and upzone and all is cool. You want to upzone and sell out your neighborhood for your profit, you need to get the vote of the people.

    Its that simple.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Gus has an anterior motive, he needs the City's tax base to keep growing at all cost in order to feed the huge pensions for staff. Why do we have old dinosours on staff that continually make bad decisions and we keep throwing 30% of the salary towards their gigantic pension program. Council needs to grow a pair and cut Gus and cut some serious dead wood at City Hall. Let get this City focused in a positive direction with competent staff.

    Do it soon before Sacramento Gus sinks us in massive DEBT like he did Sacramento and other Cities he's worked.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Gus' point of view, it seems a small price to pay for citizens to sacrifice their property values, their safety, their community character, and their quality of life to ensure that projects "pencil out" for developers, and that City employees get to liquadate our property values and convert them to salaries, consulting fees, and pensions! This is their definiton of "conservative."

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. Only Norm Crosby had an anterior motive.

      Delete
  9. Leucadia blog hit the nail on the head with this one.

    KLF VS KLCC

    KLF: Keep Leucadia Funky = small independent mom & pop shops along the historic coast highway 101. NO corpo chains! Maintaining and refurbishing original buildings & developing new interesting architecture and businesses in the empty lots. Investing in basic downtown infrastructure every 50 years. Safe and healthy environment for the next generation of Leucadians.

    KLCC: Keep Leucadia CrappyClub = a small but vocal group of LA transplants, stoners and alcoholics who moved here 30 years who flip out even if you plant flowers or fix a pothole.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous 5:59 is just name calling, without substantiation. No one has complained about anyone planting flowers, fixing a pothole or having a granny flat.

      This sounds like more of JP's complaining on LB, and here, about the "unintended consequences" of the initiative, a standard business industry line . . . Those kinds of posts are divisive of our city, not inclusive, trying to target a few with anonymous mud slinging.

      Anyone with intelligence can see that these kinds of arguments against the initiative are baseless and actually weaken the case of anyone promoting that kind of division, distraction, and defamation.

      I'm voting YES, and urging all our friends and neighbors to do so; they gladly signed the petition which qualified the initiative for a special election with an over-abundance of signatures!

      Delete
  10. Last week Gus had a meeting with the city staff telling them it's business as usual at city hall. No lay offs, no budget reductions, no salary nor pension reform.
    (Gus is just whistling past the graveyard.)

    So much for the new council bringing new ideas and changes. Same tiger different stripes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have all heard him praise his staff and talk about how proud he is of them. Why????

      Delete
  11. Who run Barder Town? Developers run Barder Town!
    So much for the new city council reforms....

    ReplyDelete
  12. Gus is a nightmare for Encinitas.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I so Mike Andreen is against the initiative. Which is weird because he has sided with KLCC in the past. This might strain the relationship with KLCC Cameron.

    Whelp one thing for certain, if Andreen is against the initiative, you know it must be good for Encinitas.

    Council- Vote yes on the Initiative and don't further waste our money.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I wasn't at City Hall that night recently, but heard Mike donated time to the lady who speaks against the Leucadia Streetscape nearly every time at the microphone. I have to wonder what their motivation is. I know Mike's always been in the pro-development crowd and Lynn is not, and if an expensive project can be killed in one part of town it can free up money for what's shakin' in another part of town - like taking 2 million ear marked for Beacon's improvments last year and giving it to Moonlight Beach for their current face lift. Maybe that's Mike's strategy. Or maybe his buddies want to super build Leucadia along with the rest of Encinitas. But when I read Mike's debunking of the RTV, he bullet points this as a good reason to kill the initiative:

    "DEVASTATION FOR HWY 101 PROPERTIES
    If adopted, the measure takes away the private property right to build up to 33 feet and 3 stories along the 2 coastal Specific Plans: both in Downtown Encinitas and along Hwy 101 in the North Coast 101 Corridor the Initiative “supercedes” the Specific Plans’ for Downtown and Leucadia."

    I disagree, but this statement seems to reveal the true colors of voting NO. The "devastation" will not be for 101, but more often than not for the out of town developers who want to increase density as much as possible on 101 to get the biggest bang for their buck (so they can work and live somewhere else), at the expense of robbing our small town atmosphere. I mean, name one business here that would be devastated by a 3 story building NOT going next to them and robbing all their parking? The paragraph above would better read:

    DEVESTATION FOR DEVELOPERS WANTING TO PUT 3 STORY BUILDINGS ON EVERY 101 LOT.

    Besides that, how many multi-million dollar losses and bankruptcies do these "work/live lofts" have to incurr before builders realize 101 is not the area for them?

    This alone makes me want to promote the RTV. And with all respect to Mike and Co., promote large buildings in some coastal town that welcomes them. There's gotta be millions of miles of coastline on this planet eager to become the next Honolulu, but not our skinny slice of 101.

    ReplyDelete
  15. If Andreem wants it, I don't.
    He is consistent in his deceit.

    ReplyDelete

  16. If Shelia wants is, I'm, agin it.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Is the property at 970 North Coast Highway 101 on the city's list to be upzoned?

    ReplyDelete
  18. No. The 101 corridor is currently zoned for up to 33' / 3 story buildings if a developer desires. (Add to that the additional 3' pad required for "proper drainage" in the lower parts of 101 and you'll be looking up 36 feet. There's a lot of noise about allowing 5 stories here. Don't know where that's coming from wouldn't doubt some developers wouldn be tickled to do that.

    ReplyDelete
  19. No. The 101 corridor is currently zoned for up to 33' / 3 story buildings if a developer desires. (Add to that the additional 3' pad required for "proper drainage" in the lower parts of 101 and you'll be looking up 36 feet. There's a lot of noise about allowing 5 stories here. Don't know where that's coming from wouldn't doubt some developers wouldn be tickled to do that.

    ReplyDelete
  20. The upzoning list on the city website does have 970 North Coast Highway 101 property proposed for upzoning.

    Residential uses shall be located above and/or behind the primary commercial use. When residential uses are located behind the commercial use, the residential uses can be 3 stories at 35’ maximum height and the commercial uses shall be limited to 2 stories at 30’ maximum height. When residential uses are located above commercial uses, the residential component shall be limited to 2 stories above one story of
    commercial uses with a maximum height of 40’.

    Which doesn't include the additional DUs from density bonus development.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or 3 more feet for the pad. Getting closer to 50 feet there.

      Delete
  21. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Developers are Liars and don't really care about the community- they only care about making profit?"

    Whelp, we've heard the lies, are hearing the lies, and will continue to hear the lies from the Lying developers.

    Developers will do ANyTHING for more profit. Including 4 or 5 stories, or pay off future council members, or lie to the neighborhood or at public meetings.

    As long as the profits are to be had, Developers can not be trusted.

    Vote yes on the initiative. Council's change. We will not always have the existing Council. The BIA will buy more councilmembers like Gaspar and when they have a majority again, they will slam in more upzoning like they always do.

    Look what happened to Redondo Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach- The same will happen here, unless the initiative is passed. The good of the initiative far out weighs the bad.

    Vote YES on the initiative and encourage your council members to speak on behalf of the initiative. All ears are listening to Council's positions on the subject- I can't wait to hear them. We already know, that the paid for (in oh so many ways) barbie is going to side with her support group, the developers. Now what about the others?

    Don't let Gus Bankrupt our town like all the others. We are already close with the Pension issue and the ongoing costs of the Regional Sports Complex.

    Vote YES and keep on Voting Encinitas!

    ReplyDelete