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.
Items of interest tonight: budget, capital budget, raising fines for code violations, hearing a couple of Leucadia development appeals, closed sessions on city manager and litigation.
Please use the comments to record your observations.
City attorney do you have an answer? Nope. Not my job to be informed.
ReplyDeleteIt's a scam! The guy wanting to build on Orpheus next to the fire station found a loophole in the muni code and is trying to exploit it.
ReplyDeleteThe builder and his engineer are slimeballs. Don't believe a word they're saying.
And that incompetent lackey, Sabine, is complicit.
Given his true colors, incompetent lackey is a huge compliment.
ReplyDeleteSabine should have been $tocked a long time ago. (Canned)
ReplyDeleteClear that Murphy, Sabine, Manjeet, Maseh all had their stories straight and agreed upon in advance.
ReplyDeleteIt is a full-time effort for them to align their lies and misrepresentations before each meeting.
DeleteThat's why they make the big bucks....
DeleteAnd what happened with blakespear? She suddenly think Sabine has something to contribute? The three who voted in favor of the developer must not have believed their eyes and ears.
ReplyDeleteAnd Kranz? Has to make a living somehow.
Tony the traitor, and Blakespear and Gaspar all voted in favor of the developers. This is really a let down after such great speakers for the neighbors.
ReplyDeleteGASpar loves the developers. Now maybe some of you will believe it. She's looking for more client's for her older husband's business. She is a big disappointment. Don't vote for this moron again. I hear she loves to arm wrestle. Watch out guys. She's tough and big. Oh, she runs fast too.
ReplyDeleteShe is dumber than she looks.
DeleteMurphy and Sabine yukking it up about the dumb things the county does...like closing the loophole they help Encinitas keep wide open.
ReplyDeleteCollusion at city hall. Kranz, Blakespear, and Gaspar collusion with Murphy, Sapau, Manjeet, and Sabine to break the law.
ReplyDeleteEvery time Masih shows up, you can bet some property owner is, once again, fighting to save their chosen neighborhoods character. Now it is widen Saxony. Sound familiar?
ReplyDeleteHow many neighborhood streets have had to be defended, time after time, from his wrecking ball approach to sameness? He has been directed, time after time, to not insist on sidewalks, curbs, and all the other sameness he always demands.
Why were those Saxony folks put under the gun? Anyone with a sense of sight can see widening that road is not going to happen. Yet there he was once again, Masih, Just who is he the mouthpiece for? How does he keep his job? This is all too familiar. This seems to be his specialty, ignoring councils directive. Same old, same old story. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Masih "curbs, gutters, sidewalks" Maher.
DeleteThe new City Manager should fire several Department Heads and mid level managers. Masih is clearly one of them. Totally clueless.
ReplyDeleteThe City Manager is unlikely to be independent of the pro-development in-crowd. Remember, he has to be vetted for his co-operative attitude prior top getting the job. The council has their handlers telling them how to vote to align with their status quo power consortium.
DeleteTony has his marching orders, he makes the motion to deny the appeal. Weird that Blakespear made the second when even Gaspar wouldn't.
DeleteAS long as my stupid iphone doesn't allow me to post comments, I can't give my perspective on the city council meetings. Idiots run this city, pure idiots.
ReplyDeleteHere is a good example, Muir says drinking wasn't a problem in city parks while he was the fire chief, yet how many times were the paramedics/fire fighter called to Leucadia Roadside Park to deal with the drunk/stoned homeless?? At least once a month 10 years ago...AND there already was a NO drinking law for the park. Morons, imbeciles.
Muir has short term memory; it says a lot that someone of his apparent minimal capabilities for leadership was chief.
Delete9:21, Oh, I see now. The council members are idiots, morons and imbeciles and your smartphone is stupid. Thanks for clearing that up.
DeletePlease try a different browser like Mercury. It's a free app you can download. So far I think people only have problems with Safari.
Delete1:06: I never said my phone was smart. You'll make a great council member, you have all the qualities of the current council.
DeleteOn Wednesday's Council meeting Councilman Tony Kranz, Councilwoman Catherine Blakespear, and Mayor Kristin Gaspar voted to continue corruption in city departments.
ReplyDeleteBusiness as usual.
DeleteNot business as usual. This is corruption. Kranz, Blakespear, and Mayor Gaspar are furthering the corruption. The city's planning "policy" on a four lot with a remainder parcel allows a developer to avoid paying for improvements, the fees are more on a five lot subdivision, the developer avoids any ceqa review and fees because Manjeet conveniently decides no ceqa review is required. For a developer, a tentative map on the land has more monetary value than just the land.
ReplyDeleteKranz, Blakespear, and Mayor Gaspar probably gave the developer a gift of
a half million dollars or more when they approved the illegal subdivision.
I understand the vote, and don't think it's corruption. Unfortunately, state law allows for "remainder lots" and Encinitas does not have an approved and on the books process for restricting use of remainder lots. Lisa (who voted for the appeal - that is, stopping the developer), noted in her e-mail, "Encinitas has no formal process for determining the developer's intent, compared to some jurisdictions which require a sworn statement by the developer stating that the remainder lot will not be developed." Lisa goes on to say, "I thought there was enough evidence in the record to suggest that this was an intentional strategy to be able to develop all five lots without complying with the subdivision requirements." "Suggestion" is not a legal basis, and opens the city to lawsuit. The city needs to have a clear process on how development on remainder lots should be controlled/restricted/etc. We can not expect council to do the "right thing" if there is no legal basis for it. That leads to losing lawsuits. That the city does not have such a process appears seems to me negligence on the part of staff and past councils.
ReplyDelete1:06 PM
ReplyDeleteIt is corruption. This isn't an "unfortunate" issue. Opens the city up to lawsuit? You must be joking. The developer was increasing pad height to four feet to avoid design review. The city planning director approves of this corruption.
Blakespear is an attorney. She has left herself open to lawsuits for approving an illegal subdivision. Even Sabine told the Council they could say no to the developer's project. Why didn't Blakespear say no?
Donna's appeal does not even mention increasing pad height four feet.
DeletePadding up is legal, which is why it was not part if the appeal. Thinking you can measure your house from the top of the pad without violating Prop A is another story. Staff not telling the developer about Prop A restrictions is negligent on the part if the city, which is what a couple of the other speakers commented on.
Delete"The developer was increasing pad height to four feet to avoid design review."
DeleteSorry, but that wouldn't avoid design review.
The developer is claiming custom homes to avoid house design review - but staff decides whether they pass the custom sniff test. The developer escapes community character reviews by claiming four houses now. And the developer does not have to put the utilities underground with four houses.
Delete12:45 - that enough avoiding for you? Bottom line: the thing stinks to high heaven.
The pad height was mentioned by the developer's engineer. Council ignored that information. Kranz, Blakespear, and Mayor Gaspar voted to continue the corruption.
ReplyDeleteAnd he said an emphatic "yes" to denying the project if the council had evidence now of intent to develop the fifth lot. They did.
ReplyDeleteSo...Kranz and Gaspar are developer-directed, but what was B's problem?
The engineer Doug Logan said on tape that they would be building a 5th house. Sabine indicated that maybe he misspoke. Riiiiiiiight!
DeleteMaking his excuses for him; notice that neither Logan himself nor the applicant said Logan misspoke. The council allowed Sabine to make the argument nevertheless.
DeleteBlakespear did not have her thinking cap on last night. She seemed so perplexed with many issues. Perhaps a little more time is needed for her to find out what the codes and ordinances are. Gaspar and Kranz were just downright stupid. As a matter of fact, all of them should brush up on the city's codes.
Delete4:35 PM
ReplyDeleteForget the excuses for Blakespear. She knew what she was doing. Remember she is an attorney. She, Kranz, and Gaspar had the proof the developer was evading the map act (read fraud) with the help of the planning department. Their votes approved of the corruption.
Nice article in today's UT on page A2 about how the state, county and local govts are ignoring the pension problems and how the politicians broke the law and colluded with the unions to pass pension increases without public input. I can't wait for them all to go broke and watch them stand on street corners asking for handouts. Muir will ask the public to "fill the boot" to keep firefighting services alive in Enc.....
ReplyDeleteMuir could fill a few boots with his bloated pension. He needs to get the boot - off the council.
DeleteHe did see through both the developer's and staff's BS last night - props where they're due.
DeleteHelp! We just bought in Olivenhain, neighbor just tells us there is a "no porch light rule," and for me not to turn it on at night. I want to be respectful but I also love my security and my porch light! Thanks for any insight
ReplyDeleteSounds bogus....
DeleteWe in leucadia can only use black lights.
DeleteIs there moonlight reflection off the bong smoke?
Delete8:38,
DeleteO-hain neighbors are famous for telling each other what to do, making up property rights, and escalating disputes that end in gun fights. Good luck. Welcome.
Ordinance 89-37 from October 1989 establishing Olivenhain as a "Dark Sky" area - in order to preserve the night sky.
Deletehttp://archive.ci.encinitas.ca.us/weblink8/DocView.aspx?id=689222
6:21 - exactly what kind of property rights do we make up? But you are right about one thing - we're all fairly well armed.....
- The Sculpin
I don't think 6:38 PM was planning on playing tennis on their porch. Besides, Ordinance 89-37 was only interim and expired at the end of the year. I don't have time to find where (or if) dark nights is codified for Olivenhain or anywhere else in the city but I'm pretty sure it's considered a policy goal citywide.
DeleteI'd say the biggest persuasion is if your neighbors are "packing".
Sculp,
DeleteHow about the right to trim or prohibit the trimming of brush on easements?
Manjeet stated that there was no evidence to support cumulative impact under CEQA. This is exactly what they said about Desert Rose, and a judge decided that this was not correct.
ReplyDeleteEVERYTHING has a cumulative impact! The city staff is more aware of this than anyone. When they do something that fails (which is most of the time) they decide to bifurcate it and bring it back in pieces and they hire consultants (using our money) to push their position forward. Each time staff lies, hides records, hires consultants and has closed meetings with council, it has a cumulative impact--against citizens and our rights.
I hope that the Orpheus neighbors find funds to hire an attorney and sue the city.
Manjeet and Jeff Murphy are not to be trusted. They were directed to do the Housing Element in-house and have hired out hundreds of thousands of $$ for consultants to do it instead.
DeleteWhy do we need them sucking at the tit if they can't do the job they were hired for?
They should take this to court. The city made a huge mistake, they need to rectify this.
DeleteStaff said over twenty properties have had these remainder lots with more than half developing that remainder parcel later. It's fine, it's how we've always done things."
DeleteThe city will rectify nothing, they never do. Instead they reward developers instead of watching out for residents, they reward developers instead of following the rules, and they count on wearing people down to the point of giving up.
Oh, and while praising staff to the skies...that's the best part.
DeleteAnother favorite ploy of city staff is to claim that they "made a mistake." If they actually DID make a mistake instead of saying that their actions were intentional to further their own positions, these "mistakes" would favor citizens 50% of the time. Who has ever seen a staff "mistake" favor citizens?
ReplyDeleteI just watched the meeting and I wanted to thank Lisa Shaffer and Mark Muir for voting against the Orpheus project. The neighbors were one vote short of having it go their way.
ReplyDeleteI hope that Muir and Shaffer continue to vote in support of Encinitas citizens over special interests. They all should.
Complain to Calbar for Blakespear's approval's of the Orpheus development.
ReplyDelete