Major Issue

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I wrote about a document read by a wide majority of voters in Encinitas. It contained statements that seemed indefensible. It was signed by each member of the city council. They make the decision to sign the statement individually. 

Many of the statements were questionable or indicated ambiguity that was facilitated by the city. On several counts they could have worked to reduce confusion over the ambiguity. They instead let it roll.

On the other side, the door for this was left open by the drafters of Prop A.

I’ve worked on several ballot statements. The people I’ve worked with have expressed extreme concern for one thing above all. It was not winning. Accuracy was their primary concern.

The scariest thing about Prop A was that it demonstrated that we do not have a council that will actively avoid group think, the quest for accuracy is not supreme, and as a group they will plant their flag on top of superficial fixes.  

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It was reported to me that on Wednesday, Andrew Audet asked the city council how they could state that 5 stories would NEVER be built in Encinitas. They put their signature on that and it got sent to every voter in Encinitas. That, along with a lot of other statements, were of questionable veracity or completeness.

Apparently the Mayor  did not want to explain the factual basis for that statement to Mr. Audet at the council meeting. Statements of fact in response to oral communications to council have occurred many times over the last few years. I don’t recall hearing the Mayor opposing that activity. It is not against the law. I emailed the Mayor on Friday asking her when would be a good time for Mr. Audet’s question to be answered. No response.

Looks like she is willing to win by foul play, instead of fixing her statements.

It is scary that the new council majority went along for this ride. Tony did not address the question about 5 stories either, other than stating:

“We wrote our arguments as a group, in open council sessions, doing our best to honestly describe what we thought were important points to make”

Each council member individually signed off. One single council member could have likely shot down the inaccuracies or seen that they never developed by simply asking that they have an approach that ensured that they didn't include inaccurate statements being sent to the voters. One council member has a huge influence. One single hold out makes it so that the rest can’t claim that she was just going along with the group. 

On the statement that made a lot of people think the 4/5th exemption had not been used, Tony pulls out a quote from one of the options from a STAFF report to explain away the circular reasoning. I’ve not looked at the staff report. I don’t see how it can be relevant.

Tony writes, “if you couldn't get 4 out of 5 votes from the city council, it was major.” The law doesn’t say that. The law talks about significant public benefit.

Here is the exception. I think this is what the council actually approved (this is from my records, and I'll double check a little later when I have more time... the city website is a major deterrent when you have a life):

It does not say anything about "major". Tony doesn’t explain where in the law “major” matters. Can anyone explain that to me?

Instead, what it says is that the council gets to decide what is a significant public benefit. THEY GET TO DECIDE.  It is plain; there is no reason to try to figure out what that means, its obvious.

If the council had adopted the option that Tony described, it would still be circular. No upzoning, even 2,000 additional units (maybe with a big city park as a public benefit) would not be “major” according to Tony’s explanation. This defies common sense and is thus misleading (if it were true).

The council also told the voters they supported Prop A and implied they would give the voters the right to vote on upzoning.  Tony wrote, “the current council unanimously voted to remove, making direct democracy the final step in ALL future major land-use decisions.”

As I warned multiple council members before they did it, what the council did might be only temporary EVEN if ratified by the voters. I pressed them to add a statement stating that no new exceptions could be added or simply affirming the right to vote. What they did is a phony version of Prop A, because it only takes a 3/5^th majority to add a new exception allowing the voters to by bypassed. The Mayor is refusing to state that she subscribes to the CENTRAL and KEY feature of Prop A where a future council can not a new exception back in. Why did they leave that out? Why won't the Mayor say if she would support that addition?

Along with allowing the city to use the PWY as collateral  for the park bonds, failing to follow through with  getting a minimally adequate pension analysis,  and the council’s approach to the "Spirit of Prop A", I’m scared that we aren’t going to see much substance out of this council. That’s what scares me.