The council said last month that it wanted to change the code to eliminate a controversial exemption used by developers on big projects that can allow the projects to move forward without a public vote.The new policy, however, is entirely symbolic. It can be overturned by a 3/5 majority of any future council until it is protected by the passage of either Proposition A or the council's vaporware alternative ballot initiative.
However, in a recent staff report, the city’s new planning director downplayed that request and instead recommended the city keep the exemption and even make it easier for developers to qualify for it.
[...]
“This is, in my mind, a very unfortunate situation because it puts us all in a bad place,” Mayor Teresa Barth told new Planning Director Jeff Murphy during the meeting.
[...]
Council members unanimously voted to go with their original proposal to eliminate the exemption, and said they found it hard to argue against the initiative proponents’ statements that the situation makes them look bad.
“I have to say I agree with much of what the speakers have said,” Councilwoman Lisa Shaffer said.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Council members drop-kick Murphy
The knives were out for new Planning Director Jeff Murphy, who drafted the attempt to change the 4/5 loophole to a 3/5 loophole. Union-Trib:
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Mayor Barth was wagging her finger at the wrong guy. Planning director Jeff Murphy has been on the job a month. No way did he do this on his own. It was city manager Gus Vina pulling the strings. Both men had red faces during the scolding, but it was Vina with the redder face.
ReplyDeleteNot a good moment for either staff or council. Neither has much credibility left. I'm voting YES on Prop. A.
Gus does what the council tells him to do....Dump Barth, she's the ring leader.
DeleteWhatever you say, Gus.
DeleteGus Vina is a leader who works in the shadows and directs others to do his dirty work for him as he observes from what he believes is a shielded hiding place. Osama Bin Laden used rhetoric, politics, and religion to get people to carry out acts against others. Gus is simply using our own tax funds to hire more and more people to do his bidding against Encinitas citizens to assure that his quarter million dollar pay check and lifetime pension are safe.
ReplyDeleteHe directs staff to work hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder with development interests. He uses OUR money to hire consultants to cherry pick information and to perform jobs that his own staff are unable to do. Why can’t they do the job? Because they are hired BECAUSE they lack the degrees that would require that they have taken graduate-level methods, statistics and ethics courses in their fields.
For example, Jeff Murphy has a graduate degree in Public Administration—not Urban Planning, which is the preferred background for his job description. Mr. Murphy seems to be the only person in the department with an undergraduate degree in Urban Planning, yet there are hundreds of people with Master’s in Planning who have worked hard and invested their own time and money to graduate from universities in this country. These qualified planners would a job in the planning department, where they could perform the tasks that our own planners outsource to others. San Diego State has a local program that produces graduates with this degree, yet they hire someone to lead Planning who doesn’t even have the credentials that ALL of our planners should have for the amount that they are paid. Is it realistic that people with undergraduate degrees not in their discipline should be making 6 figures as city planners? That is what is happening in the Planning Department. Giving a person a title and a big paycheck does NOT mean that they are qualified or competent to do their jobs.
YES ON A!
Passage of A wont change the stink from the planning dept.
DeleteNo on A.
I respectfully disagree that when Prop A passes that it won't change the stink of the Planning Department.
DeleteThis proposition happened largely as a response to their years of poor work, and at least 1 council member said that she originally signed the initiative on account of what a disaster the General Plan Update process was under Patrick Murphy (who we will be stuck paying about $120,000 annually for the rest of his life).
If nothing else, it will send a strong message from the citizens when Prop A passes. The more that the Council and Gus push back, the more that Encinitas citizens see them and their policies for what they really are. Why not represent Encinitas citizens instead of special interests?
It is to a point now where jobs are in peril.
What you really want is a change in the council and to be rid of GUS, Prop A does none of those things. You are whistling past the graveyard.
DeleteSome people who support A would be in favor of both!
DeleteGood post, Anon 8:07 a.m.
DeleteI am definitely in favor of Prop A, AND getting rid of Gus Vina and his cabinet of sycophants.
Council-
ReplyDeleteYour highest priority is to fire Sacramento Gus and hire someone to clean the deadwood and bring in competent department leaders and mid-management. Our City has had 15 years of bad management. Its time for good management.
I agree- Staff's incompetence is making Council look terrible. Sacramento Gus is all about delaying things by talking forever about elusive "strategic" Planning. That means endless discussions about vision statements with no work towards real projects we need done.
Fire Gus Vina at the next meeting.
Gus talks about strategic planning, yet what he means is how information, data and planning for a city of 60,0000 can be applied to benefit him personally. When he retires, we will be paying him almost as much as he makes now in his quarter-million dollar annual salary. This is for the rest of his life!
DeleteIf any of us had the ability to get a Publisher's Clearinghouse lifetime payout, we might also do everything possible to make that happen--Encinitas taxpayers be damned!
Jeff Murphy is in his probationary period. They could just get rid of him for this if they were really as angry as they claim. If they were paying him with their money instead of ours, that is what would happen.
ReplyDeleteYES on A
El presedente of the banana republic of Encinitas will give Murphy a presidential pardon. And we should see him praising Murphy and pinning decorations on his chest at future meetings while patriotic music plays in the background!
DeleteMurphy does what the council tells him to do.
DeleteDump Barth, she's the ringleader.
I agree Firing Gus Vina should be Council's highest priority.
ReplyDeleteTrying to work with Gus is like putting lipstick on a pig. At the end of the makeup session, you still have a pig.
Lets see, Vina's past accomplishments include finance for State of CA, Stockton, and Sacramento- All near bankrupt with huge debts and higher tax levels.
What's the first think he does in Encinitas? Borrow more money to construct a sports Complex that will cost millions of dollars per year to maintain.
Sacramento Gus is a financial nightmare for a City.
Don't forget, Encinitas is in EXCELLENT financial shape. It is so EXCELLENT that they had a huge sign soliciting people to purchase $100 pavers for the park hanging on the back wall of Council chambers! That means that they have to sell 4,000 pavers to pay for the special election on Prop A, when the Council could have simply adopted it for free. To pay for a year of Gus Vina's time, they have to sell at least 2,500 pavers. As they often tell us, they are fiscally responsible--hence the paver ad prominently visible in the meeting video!
DeleteOur City is in such great financial shape and the City is so ‘financially conservative’ that the Finance Director leaves out millions of dollars of liabilities in his reports to Council, and instead recommends raising all fees on citizens! Isn't that great?
Can I buy a "Fire Sacramento Gus" paver?
DeleteGus has his "cabinet" team and Parks and Rec now has its concierge for city activities. The city is in EXCELLENT financial shape. Why do we even need a council?
DeleteMy paver says, Keep Leucadia Ugly. Paid for by KLCC
DeleteMayor Barth knew what Jeff Murphy was going to do the whole time. She was just playing to the peaNUT gallery!
ReplyDeleteCity website is selling the pavers at $200.
ReplyDeleteSee! They are raising fees already!
DeleteDump Vina bumperstickers?
ReplyDeleteYou bloggers are the same 8 complainers that come to city hall and complain about staff. Give them a break, we try the best they can to provide council with good research, reports and presentations to make good decisions for the other 59,992 citizens. I understand that Mr. Murphy is well liked and has good credentials.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to take any of you serious. The 8 of you that complain about the same stuff - no matter who's in power (Stocks or Barth).
Have you ever thought that maybe it's YOU! Get a life!
You are the one blogger defending the city. You made a slip in the second line. "...WE try the best they can..." You mixed your pronouns up and gave yourself away. I guess you work for the city.
DeleteDon't forget that over 8000 people signed the petition for the initiative. That's a thousand times the number you are claiming.
Thats the same thing, Gus said in Sacramento and Stockon, just before the City Council let him go.
DeleteSame old MO from Sacramento Gus. Its all he knows.
Yes on Prop. A and Fire Sacramento Gus.
At the budget meeting residents learned the city has more debt service of 700K, the sherrifs making 8% more, fireman 3% more, . Years residents will have to pay 2 million more in person, 44 fireman make over 100K...........the city's answer? Raise fees and hire a PR person. This council is the same as the previous council. Bart has been a failure, Shaffer has lost credibility, Kranz is angry, only Gaspar questions the finances. SSacrament no vote of confidence Gus Via is running the city with Sabine.
DeleteSo now you are saying that Gus wants to hire a $130,000 PR person to spin his image on account of 8 people?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's what I'm saying.
DeleteDump Barth.
So, Sacramento Gus is a scaredy pants of 8 people? The council approved the spin doctor. Scaredy pants council?
DeleteBarth and the city council read all the reports before they are presented at council meetings. It was a show to try and protect their council positions. Vote YES on A and then dump Barth. I suggest a recall.
ReplyDeleteRecall all of the council.
ReplyDeleteIs the new PR person the shield man to handle all activists in the city because Gus Vina does not have the time to answer their questions? Are we to expect more glossy brochures about how great we are doing, survey to tell us "We Love Encinitas" and shallow budget presentation that paint a rosy picture of the financial well being of the city? Stop the spins and the sugar coating, and give us the facts.
ReplyDeleteThe point that Gus Vina doesn't seem to grasp is that communication is a 2-way process. Normal communication is an interaction and a balanced, give and take process. Normal communication at the City of Encinitas is a top down, 1-way process of a scripted party line—“fiscal responsibility, wonderful staff, cost savings, bifurcate…”
DeleteThey invite us in for a workshop and have a consultant yak at us for hours. When we fill in surveys, they don't process them or they change our results, so in the end, it becomes obvious that there never was a desire to get our feedback--only to do one of their endless push polls. A ‘push poll’ is otherwise known as a fake survey that is actually a propaganda event to bring people in under the guise that they actually want us there to find out what we think.
No other department has done so many of these as the Planning Department, so this is one reason why our planning staff and the consultants that they hire are so resented. The other is that they are so unqualified for the jobs they hold that they seem unaware that they are ethically and professionally compromised.
A person with actual planning credentials of the type that we have NEVER had in this department would be much less willing to go against the ethics and professional standards of the field. Since our planners lack these skills and credentials—they don’t mind. They are just happy to do as they are told and get paid a lot. They cheerfully hide and destroy documents, lie, and misquote laws and codes. I have heard the same complaints from both members of the building industry and those who want to keep Encinitas a nice little beach community. Save what they say about themselves and what other staff and Council members say about them, I have yet to hear anyone say a single positive thing about our Planning Department.
If I were the new planning director, I would probably resign. These guys are trained for growth and this is why they are hired. They have been drinking the SANDAG and ICLEI Kool-Aids for years. They went to countless seminars about the virtues of Smart Growth. I don't think they can see any other way. They have been brain washed. Activist residents stand on their way. Can you imagine putting on your resume it took you 10 years to go through a General Plan because all tree huggers (Amen to them) keep derailing your vision?
ReplyDeleteSmart Growth is what they breath, dream of, and eat. This crap rolls downhill from Sacramento to all municipalities in California. This is the growth machine at work. We might be able to slow it down through initiatives and active participation but in the end the bulldozers will crush us. Too much money to fight against.
Believing that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There have been and are successful grassroots efforts and we should take our cues from those, not kool-aid drinking bureaucrats.
DeleteBasically it comes down to this, pass prop A and the anarchist win. Any crazy I divi dual or group that can string together a petition will be able to willy nilly change the city. Or we can allow those elected to do as they have been elected to do, that that is in the best interest of the city.
ReplyDeleteYes on A= anarchy
No on A = rule of law.
Yes on A: Active citizen participation.
DeleteNo on A: Bend over and take the rule of HCD law.
You don't understand the rule of law. That is exactly why we are having an election to CHANGE the law. So how exactly is that anarchy.
DeleteRule of law = out of town developer interests running this council and town. THAT is anarchy!
ReplyDeleteVote YES to KEEP the city!!!
ReplyDeleteYes on A and Dump Sacramento Gus.
ReplyDeleteDumping Gus is more important to the City's future than A.
But A is good none the less.
Voting YES on A is only anarchy to those who think the public, we the people, can't be trusted to make intelligent decisions on intensifying zoning or raising height limits in a manner that we know will affect our community character and quality of life.
ReplyDeleteVoting YES on A is only anarchy to those who believe democracy is a form of anarchy!
A lawyer, specializing in zoning, land-use and initiatives, and environmental law wrote the five page initiative. It's simple, and clean. By Voting Yes on Prop A, our right to vote on upzoning and raising height limits WILL BE the rule of law.
It is oh-so-obvious that Jeff Murphy was hired by Gus Vina to promote his development interests. Vina wants more high density mixed use development to add to city coffers through development fees, property taxes, and sales taxes. Operating, maintenance and Capital Improvement Costs are expanding at a much greater rate than inflation.
Vian's solution? Increase fees, through the Water District, and Citywide. This couldn't happen if the City didn't have the wallets of fee payers, ratepayers and tax payers to tap. Instead of considering pay cuts, as private industry would, revenue is just "beefed up" by raising fees drastically, including in 2009, near the height of the ongoing recession, which many people are still mired within.
I support the 'antarchy' of Encinitas citizens over the 'antarchy' of developers, the Planning Department, Gus Vina and the Council that he leads around by their nose rings.
ReplyDeleteYes on A!!
Put the public trust back in the hands of the people. Vote YES on Prop A; we are!
ReplyDeleteIf there are only 28 people who care or are involved, as suggested by our City Manager, who aren't apathetic, not wanting to talk about politics, or vote, why did over 8,500 people sign the petition to qualify the initiative for a Special Election? Mayor Barth now says that the people who signed "may or may not have read the initiative." But how is that relevant to her voting NO? People who vote on or before June 18, also, may or may not have read the initiative!
Council could have adopted it outright, as Kranz originally suggested. He was promised by the City Attorney that his option would be studied. Tony said he wanted to adopt outright and put the measure on the ballot in Nov. of 2014, saving the City, us taxpayers, at least $400,000, and a lot of ill will, polarization between the expansionist gang (aka "economic developers) and the guy/gal on the streets, who loves our small beach town feel, with limits of two stories, which other cities have, as well. With that option, the citizens would still have been allowed to vote, yes or no, on Prop A, but saving a ton of money on a Special Election, which also repudiates another of Mayor Barth's excuses.
Certain people want high rises. When the city runs out of space, and all that's left is infill, then the expansion must go up for certain parties to keep reaping their short-term profits. Development is fueled by cheap credit. Developers have a history of going bankrupt, as what happened with Moonlight Lofts, and, off La Costa, Barratt American. But if community members truly want some high rises, we could so vote!
Would-be developers could stagger their upzoning measures to be on the ballot on even number years, during General Elections, so each ballot measure would then be about $30,000, and if there were several "questions" or different developments, as low as $17,000 per additional question . . .
ReplyDeleteThe City (citizens) wouldn't pay for these upzoning ballot measures, if/when Prop A passes, and Encinitas didn't HAVE to pay for a Special Election. Council members have brought up Pleasanton, where there was a lawsuit for over $100,000, by affordable housing advocates, when the City is willing to spend up to $500K on an unneeded Special Election, when the initiative could have been adopted outright AND THEN PUT ON THE GENERAL ELECTION BALLOT FOR A PUBLIC VOTE!
The City could also create more opportunities for affordable housing here, including not getting rid of pre-existing affordable housing for short- term profitable, boom/bust new build. But, again, the City is willing to spend up to $500,000 on a Special Election, that it could easily have avoided!
The "Powers that be," haven't yet been willing to look into another amnesty, to bring all the pre-existing "accessory dwelling untis" onto the state's rolls, for mandated affordable housing. They aren't thinking outside the box of expansion, expansion, expansion, to keep up with the machine's insatiable appetite for more and more money in the General Fund.
Pleasanton, a city of 70,285, had to pay $3.9 Million over the course of litigation. As quoted in the Pleasanton Weekly article:
Delete'"The total payment for all litigation and legal fees was $3.9 million," Fialho [City Manager] said, adding that the fees do not include staff or in-house times spent by the city attorneys involved in the seven year legal efforts.'
See the whole article here:
www.pleasantonweekly.com/news/show_story.php?id=10251
Pleasanton had a total ban on new housing beyond a fixed number. That's hardly the same thing as restricting upzoning and height.
DeleteThanks for clarifying that, WC!
DeleteThat's correct. However, the point is if the city doesn't meet it's housing requirements, it's general plan is invalid which means it can be sued and a judge can order it corrected, even suspending all land use decisions until then. Prop A isn't about past decisions, it's about future ones, primarily the city trying to meet it's housing element requirements. So if the housing element update were to be defeated by a popular vote, whatever the reason, a judge can nullify the vote. Local initiative can't overrule state law. Recent updates to state law also allows practically anyone to sue no longer requiring litigants to show that they have been directly affected.
DeleteThe city hasn't had an approved housing element in over 20 years. It has also passed the deadline of April 30 for this cycle although there is a 120 day extension period which expires at the end of August. It looks pretty slim that the city can meet that date. If the city misses that window it will have to update its housing element every 4 years instead of 8.
Encinitas is the last city in San Diego County to have an approved housing element although Oceanside still needs to make some changes to accommodate emergency shelters and Carlsbad is lagging a cycle.
WC is right. There's a big difference between the mandatory moratorium Pleasanton had and required public approval of zoning changes we will have with the passage of Prop A. You don't see housing authorities donating money to the No on A "phone polls". Instead a generous out of state realtor's association donation of $8250.to help them with their push to build 5 story buildings here. Why else would they bother? To help with our low cost housing quota? Yeah right.
DeleteAs a kid in on Belmont St. in Glendale, there were 10 beautiful houses on each side of our street with front and backyards with occasional bungalows. One by one down they all came with a 20 unit apartment taking their place. All 20 homes are gone now and the complection of the neighborhood (and it's safety) will never be the same. A lot of good happened - for the wallets of developers, realtors, architects, etc. And why? Because the the zoning gave them the red carpet treatment. The quality of life for the neighborhood wasn't included on their blueprints. The most money they could make was - and always so they could live somewhere with a nicer ambiance than the neighborhood they created.
I agree. Unfunded pension liabilities, bond debt, ever skyrocketing operation and maintenance costs, salaries advertised at the top tier, including the planned new Full Time Employee "Communication Specialist," at Gus Vina's insistence, and against the public speakers' expressed concerns . . . . all these mount up to a need for more and higher taxes and fees, all passed down to the "little guy."
ReplyDeleteO & M (operation & maintenance costs) are increasing at a much faster rate than inflation. All the while, we keep adding to Capital Improvement Project (CIP) expenditures, as well. This bubble, as all bubbles, has to pop.
We incorporated to slow growth, take back local control, from the County. Prop A can also help us make decisions, as neighbors, within our diverse communities.
We're also voting YES. If people are fooled by the deceptive campaign flyers, I will be surprised. They didn't work with respect to the HIT PIECES against Tony Kranz.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad Pam Slater-Price, as well as ex mayors Dennis Holz and Sheila Cameron, see the light, and have wisely endorsed voting YES on A.
Yes on A = Blight.
ReplyDeleteNot today, not tomorrow but 30, 40,50 years from now... O hell yes.
You support A, you support blight.
If Encinitas as it is right now is what you call blight, give me blight! I like having a laid-back beach town with older houses with nice yards.
DeleteThe 'blight' in my mind are all of these multi-story new projects like Pacific Station. People from out of town often comment on how horrible it is, yet the older buildings are often spoken of as 'charming.'
Yes on A
Which blighted older building is " charming"??
DeleteWhich building are you labeling blighted? My nomination for blighted would be Pacific Stations.
Delete10:34 said many people refer to the older buildings as charming, I'm asking which. Certainly not the LOG cabins, old yes, possibly historic, charming NO!! How about the junkyard south of LaEspecial Norte?? Charming?? Hardly. Ugly,unkept,dangerous-(what toxic chemicals are leaking into the ground from that property?) The black Sheep building?? Please lets not insult the word "charming".
DeleteAnswers please??
Take a look at the small cottages on the west side of 101 across from the Lumberyard. Even the new Christian Science Reading Room is in scale with these. Visitors think Pacific Station could be anywhere USA.
DeleteAre you looking forward to new copycat architecture that seems to be going in now? Nothing charming about that.
I like the Log Cabins. It's not perfect but has a lot of potential. The Longboard Grotto was originally charming and the most Art Deco example from the 20's still here on the hwy. It fell into disrepair as did the Leucadia Beach Inn, but their owners saw a diamond in the rough and restored beyond their original beauty. Likewise the 1880's home that was moved from Del Mar to N. Vulcan and restored (instead of building 5 apartments) is amazing. I like Pacific Station too, and the Whole Foods below it is a needed element to downtown that's been missing for too long. But I don't think more is better when it comes to more 3 (and up to 5 story buildings) being built on 101 in Encinitas. We'll see how the rest of the town feels about their new neigbors, huh? Vote yes on A folks!
ReplyDelete