Deputy Mayor Lisa Shaffer: “Two years ago, before the council approved a $3 million bond issue to construct a replacement for the Moonlight Beach lifeguard tower, I said that $3 million sounded like an awful lot and asked if maybe we could try to build it for $2 million, and if that proved impossible, to grow the amount little by little from there. Nevertheless, the council approved the $3 million bond issue.Click on over and read the whole thing.
“Now, Mr. Deane, you say the total cost for what we have taken to calling the Moonlight Beach Marine Safety Center will be $3.73 million. A short time ago, a city engineer — I assume that city engineer was you, Mr. Deane — estimated the construction cost would be $2.2 million. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I’ll conclude that your $2.2 million figure was strictly the construction cost, that is, it didn’t include the add-ons that I always find baffling when I look over contracts the city lets. With the 10 percent contingency, the lowest strictly construction cost bid was $3.2 million, which makes it $1 million more than your estimate.
“I know it’s the city’s habit to pay far more that anybody in the private sector would pay for a construction project but even given that fact, a $1 million discrepancy seems quite large. Please explain if you would, Mr. Deane.”
Deputy Director Ed Deane: “Humma, humma, flub, flub.”
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Encinitas Guerrilla on the $3.73 million lifeguard tower and how business is done at City Hall
Encinitas Guerrilla:
Cost overruns are a form of kick-back.
ReplyDeletePrediction: watch for Shaffer to whine "Can't we move on?" in her next "newsletter?"
ReplyDeleteShaffer is such an idiot. $3 million was approved in the budget for the park and to redo moonlight beach including the lifeguard tower. A total of $13M. They simply skipped the lifeguard tower because they knew they could .. Capt Larry should have been bitching for his tower but didn't. Now we throw more monies we don't have at a problem that doesn't exist. We had ZERO drowned at Encinitas beaches. How will a new tower improve on that?? It doesn't.
ReplyDeleteSoooo Lisa, we are really spending $6+M on the lifeguard tower. All so Capt Larry can feel good about himself much like the boys in SB and DM.
You nailed it. Fire princessrs got there $6 million for it .
ReplyDeleteCaptain Larry felt slighted and needed his own big for it in The surf zone.
Larry is a total kook and the councilmembers are bigger kooks !!! Shame on them all for a Euge waste of money and a piece of shit on our nice beach
Next on the agenda is a NEW CITY HALL building.... gee you know Del Mar is getting a new city hall and our staff is just as important and special as the staff at DelMar. and after all our citizens deserve a new city hall building......The citizens want us the feeeeellll goooood while sitting at our desks doing nothing.
ReplyDeleteThis lifeguard tower is pacific view north. Spending like drunken sailors on unnecessary pet projects! They have everything they need to safeguard this tiny stretch of beach in the summer. Use the showers and bathrooms that's good enough for everyone else. Two people did die two summers ago on this beach staffed by the second highest paid "lifeguard" in California. If you want a new tower make the lot pay like the state lots and carry your own dead weight city of Encinitas.
ReplyDeleteFreaking stupid ass city council members !!
ReplyDeleteDamn trophy builders !!
Stupid coastal commission doesn't know it's on mission !!??
�� Now we have to live with this ugly piece of shit on our prime beach for the next 50 years .
Where was Surfrider ? This tower does zero to make our beaches safer!!
The only thing it does is put a piece of shit on our beach and make a nice little fort for the lifeguards and cops with a great Oceanview in the surf zone!
What a Huge waste of money total pollution and terrible impact to our beach .
Don't vote for any incumbents !!
Surfrider just whines about bluff barriers ruining the sets. They all need geology primers.
DeleteA bunch of neo-conservationist phoneys.
Two more months and Shaffer leaves the city council. It can't come soon enough. She goes to the top of the list of free-spending council members with zero knowledge on how to control costs in a construction project. Everything she has touched has gone sour.
ReplyDeleteHer knee jerk support of Measure T is the best reason of all to vote No on Measure T. If it passes, it was be her biggest monument of failure.
Shaffer enters the world of Stocks. One of the most devisive and nasty council members the city has had in a long time. And, she was supposed to be Maggies choice. I wonder if Maggie is rolling in her grave right about now.
ReplyDeleteThat dust cloud on the horizon is from her quantum rolling!
Delete9:32am. Ian felt the same way and it only took a few weeks for him to see what a mistake they had made by putting their trust in Lisa.. Maggie was gone by then and Lisa did her thing without hesitation.
ReplyDeleteThank you Lisa for leaving. It was one of the best decisions you made while in office.
Now you can join Barth and her Enrage Encinitas group. You will fit right in.
Neighbors,
ReplyDeleteOn the Nov 8 election there are 2 seats opening on the Encinitas Union School District board. EUSD runs 9 elementary schools with about 5,000 children. This is important even if you do not have children in the district. The current board and superintendent have spent millions on non-academic and extra-curricular projects while ignoring the core curriculum and parents’ objections.
Current Board member Patricia Sinay says she is running for re-election and that is false. She was never elected and was appointed by the current failed board to finish a term of a vacated seat. She votes yes 100% of the time as instructed.
Rimga Viskanta is also running and she is currently Vice Chair of the Citizen Oversight Committee for Proposition P Bond fund. She was appointed to that post by this same Board to oversee the Board regarding spending of Prop P funds. When she actually attends a meeting which isn’t very often, she rubber stamps any spending proposed with no oversight whatsoever. We can assume she will continue that trend on the school board.
Leslie Schneider and Ann Katherine Pingaree are both running for EUSD board seats and they are two well qualified and involved parents of students in the district who are committed to making sure your tax dollars are not wasted. They stand for fiscal responsibility and transparency. They will listen to us and put these children’s needs first for a change. Please Vote.
Do Schneider and Pingaree believe that yoga is a religion that runs counter to christian beliefs, or do they believe that yoga, while helpful, was a colossus distraction and waste of $$ at this particular time. The answer to this question will decide my vote.
Delete- The Sculpin
Schneider and Pingree have no philosophical/moral objection to yoga - the objection is to spending money on a non-academic activity while core academics goes unfunded or has to be funded by parent donations. For example, if a school wants a dedicated science teacher, that teacher has to be funded 100% by parent donations. However, the yoga teachers are funded mostly by district general funds. I, like a lot of other parents, would prefer to flip this - have yoga and other non-academic programs funded by donations (or run by volunteers - it would be very easy to staff a great yoga program in Encinitas with parent volunteers) and use district funds to pay for academics.
DeleteThe question of who will get Catherine's seat when she wins will be decided by the the next candidate with the highest number of votes, unless I am mistaken.
ReplyDeleteI welcome the correction, if it is warranted.
If there is one issue that makes the most out of the power of each of our votes, it is No on Measure T. Save our city and deny the urbanization scam that we being being lied to from staff and every council member candidate, save Tony B.
No on Measure T, now and forever. Don't give the city the power to approve developers every dream without public vetting.
Our precious community deserves nothing less.
The question of how Blakespear's seat will be filled if she becomes mayor was asked here a short time back. The unchallenged answer given was that the newly elected or reelected council members would select a person, or decide to run a special election.
ReplyDeleteFor the three council seats now up for grabs, the third place candidate will serve a two-year term so three council seats won't be open in 2020 or thereafter.
The mayoral term is two years. In 2018, the mayor's seat and one council seat will be open for election.
Council should commit to appointing the "fourth runner up" in the election results as temporary (two year term) Council Member, to be voted upon again, at the next General Election, as we did for Mark Muir, before.
ReplyDeleteThat way, the people's will could be done. However, if that had happened before, after Maggie's passing, Kranz would have been appointed, not MM. At this point many feel Muir is doing a better job. Yes, he does get a big pension, but now seems open to cutting future and current unfunded pension liabilities. He seems open to communication with activists, too.
Muir touting pension reform?? Not likely. Open to activists? He's asleep at meetings! Better job?? If doing nothing is better, then he's got it!
Deletedoes this lifeguard tower fly? you can buy a coast guard ship for less money.
ReplyDelete