Wednesday, April 15, 2015

4/15/15 City Council meeting open thread

The current city council has continued prior councils' practice of not providing written summary minutes of council discussion, but only "action minutes" which state the outcomes. Encinitas Undercover will provide a forum for observers to record what occurs at each council meeting.

Please use the comments to record your observations.

34 comments:

  1. Instead of hiking Parks and Rec Fees, I wish they would have built a concession for a full-service, sit down restaurant in the new park.

    Think of The Prado in Balboa Park. In New York, two restaurants in Bryant Park fund security and maintenance. Ditto for Tavern on the Green and Loeb Boathouse in Cental Park. Vondelpark in Amsterdam has several cafes and restaurants among the trees, and there are many other examples around the world.

    It creates a place to have a meal away from the hassle and bustle, while funding city functions.

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  2. Stupid idea. The last thing we need are more City Services. Cut the fluff and cut the out of touch and unneeded staff. Vina is gone, why is the communications position still funded?

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    1. Because you don't get to yank a person's position just because the city manager is leaving. This is a person's job, their life. I was not a supporter of adding this position, and a review of the necessity of all positions should be conducted separately. And, duh, we need lifeguards, they save lives. Maybe we can cut ambulance service to your house....

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    2. 9:19 AM
      More about this person, this; this person that. It is a position that should have never been created. It is an unneeded position.
      Was this communications position created specifically for that person? That would bring up questions of favoritism. Eliminate the position.

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    3. 9:19 That's why it was so stupid for these three to create the position at Vina's request in the first place. It's a lot harder to cut staff than expand.

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    4. Our ratio of FTEs per citizen has been declining slowly since incorporation, but I suspect our costs (payroll, facilities, benefits, pension obligations) per citizen have increased. It's not really a headcount issue, IMO. The real problem is the rising component costs of that headcount. The problem is, politicians are much more willing to compromise on items that won't affect budgets until after they are gone. The union doesn't get a lot of concessions on current salaries, but they can negotiate retirement packages that kick in too early, allow the retiree to be rehired as a contractor to double-dip, adjust the retirement benes based on overtime juicing in the final year or two. By the time these stupid things snowball into big problems, the pols who approved them are long gone.

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    5. 12:33 PM
      Provide actual numbers.

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    6. They are in the CAFR. I did the homework about 6 months ago. I remember the conclusions, but not the detailed numbers. Sorry, I just don't have time to redo it.

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  3. Cut 1/2 the parks and rec. Cut the lifeguards 100%. Carlsbad doesn't have them and Carlsbads beaches are just as safe. lifeguards provide little to nill service to the public.

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  4. Lisa Rudloff has to go if any of the things are about to happen. She is Vina's friend and confidant.

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  5. I agree Rudoff should be canned immediately .

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  6. Rudloff wants to get rid of the senior center designation and market the three small rooms to make bucks. Currently, one small room is a computer room, the second room has three pool tables that could be fitted with quarter pay slots, and a small combo reading/TV room that could be marketed for a bed and breakfast for TOT (let your marketing imagination run wild).
    It will take the PRD (shhh, Rudloff changed the Parks and Rec name to PRD)
    another year to decide on the increase in fees. Another year to design the marketing plan. The PRD could have sleepovers in the community center.
    Advertise the dining area as a hostel. Use the smaller rooms for visitors that will pay top dollar for the community center experience. Perhaps something like the Madonna Inn. The city has the fish tank for that ocean theme. The city could unbundle the parking spaces and charge $3 an hour or $24 per day. And there is that ocean view which could add another 25% to the visitor's bill.

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    1. Good. Bring it up to cash neutral or provide a cheap lease to YMCA or Boys and Girls club that could provide better service at a much better cost. Cut City staff and save funds for much needed projects.

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  7. Administrative fines are currently $100 for the first citation, $200 for the second, and $500 for the third. Did councilwoman Shaffer suggest that the third fine be increased to $1000? What is the council planning? Who is on the council's $%#^ list?

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    1. Citation for what? If she's talking about our good, upstanding (yeah, right) bar owners, I say go for it and double it if they can't figure out how to play by the rules.

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  8. It's about time the council is getting hard nosed about the bar owner's not following the rules. Hit them where it hurts --- in the pocket book.

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  9. The citation fines are for anything code violation - not just the bar owners.
    Homeowners too.

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    1. As they give big developers a pass on just about anything they want. Typical to shake down the little guy while pretending not to see the big violations.

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    2. they need specific higher fines for the BAR violations.

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    3. It was my understanding from the meeting that they were specifically referring to the bar establishments.

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    4. Well, your "understanding" is wrong. The fines are for violations of the municipal code. Before posting your speculations, why not find the facts? It's not really all that hard.

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    5. Then sock it to the homeowners who think they are above the law, or in this case municipal code.

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  10. Other uses for the community center to increase revenue -
    Lingerie Football League games in the gym could bring in money. The downtown bars could have the alcohol concession business. But how could the Council tie in the community center revenue with the downtown bars? Tony Kranz could get the NCTD to run whoopee buses from the community center to downtown Encinitas to keep the fun, alcohol, and money flowing. Lisa Shaffer could rent bikes for a $100 an hour for those customers already green from the alcohol. Mark Muir and Kristin Gaspar could hand out coupons from the bars. Catherine Blakespear could just observe until she finally understands.

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    1. Blakespear coukd go on a "listening tour" like she did during her Council campaign...kept her from actually stating an opinion.

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  11. GreenPlay is good at recovery for themselves it seems!

    So far we have paid them $74,000 for them to come up with a list of blunt instruments to torture Encinitas citizens. What really wants parking meters, increased recreation fees, and turning our Parks and Recreations facilities into rentals?

    Our city leeches bring in other leeches to suck us dry when they can only go so far. This council is disgraceful! Bravo to Bonde, Audet, Graves and Dardarian for taking them on. Too bad council didn't listen!

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    1. The problem is they never listen. People can stand up and state their opinions and facts, and yet things will go exactly as the Council wants it. Don't know why, but as a former activist, I have given up. Something about being on the Council seems to turn people into something we didn't vote for.

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    2. Too bad you gave up. That's exactly what they want you to do.

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    3. I gave up for many reasons. Too much negativity on this blog was another.

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    4. 11:17 You sound like the shrink. Poor thing.

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    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    6. 12:04 I though that was you. Thanks for confirming.

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    7. 12:04- Happy I could oblige.

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  12. Check the video of the meeting.
    You will see a Council was confused and easily diverted to another topic by the skilled presenter from GreenPlay.

    Did you know our City is spending $75,00 of your tax dollars for this consulting company. Parks and Rec has spent 2 years of staff time on this project. How much did that cost taxpayers in salary and benefits!

    City leadership is out of control in its spending, It continues to spend by the millions on pet projects such as Pacific View (13 million and climbing) and the Encinitas Community Park (upwards of 80 Million and climbing) then whines to the taxpayers that there is no money to take care of city needs.

    Simple solution-
    STOP SPENDING ON WHAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD
    STOP RAIDING RESERVES
    STOP CREATIVE FINANCING
    STOP CREATIVE BOOKKEEPING STRATEGIES

    .

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    1. I attended the Green Play workshop. It was a farce. They told us we couldn't discuss fees, even though the workshop notice I received said the discussion was about raising fees. One of the consultants overheard me use the word fee and chastised me. As soon as he walked away I told the others that was exactly what our opinions were going to be used for -- to RAISE FEES.

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