Tentative settlement in Cardiff Elementary lawsuit

Encinitas Advocate:

On Jan. 21 a tentative settlement was reached in the lawsuit between Save the Park and Build the School and Cardiff School District which halted construction of the new Cardiff School last month. Details of the tentative settlement were not made public but construction may be able to get back once the final details are worked out.

Word from the district is reportedly that the district will pay $500,000, apparently all for plaintiff's legal costs, but not have to modify construction plans.

Did the plaintiffs accomplish any of their objectives?

2/26/20 City Council meeting open thread

Please use the comments to record your observations.

Hershell Price slams Olga Diaz

Encinitas Votes:

Self-proclaimed environmentalist, Olga Diaz, dodged another environmental vote today by not attending the San Dieguito River Valley JPA meeting where she is a voting member. A motion was made to Oppose the Marisol project planned for the Del Mar North Bluff. She missed the meeting. Why would that be? Because Marco Gonzalez has endorsed her and he has been retained to represent Marisol. She seems to always to side with developers while proclaiming her environmental values.

If you appreciate our environment and want to keep some of our open spaces here in North County, vote for anyone other than Olga Diaz. She is definitely not an environmentalist.

If you want to elect a true environmentalist, vote for Terra Lawson Remer for District 3 County Supervisor.

Diaz and Lawson-Remer are in a three-way race for the Supervisor seat held by Kristin Gaspar. Presumably Gaspar will make the top two in the primary and either Diaz or Lawson-Remer will advance to a close election in November.

Turney responds to FPPC issue

Someone's commenting about an FPPC fine against the Prop A folks:

". . .Turney and Canler are required to admit to 13 Political Reform Act violations and agree to pay a $1,000 fine, according to the FPPC announcement."

From Susan Turney:

Because of our support of Prop A, I and others became a target of those opposed to Prop A.

My guilty pleas were over minor clerical errors and the FPPC settled with me for a nominal amount - $38 per infraction. Asking the FPPC to impose minimal fines for minor offenses prevented Ken Moser and Harry Eiler, who made the complaint, from filing a civil lawsuit against me that could have led to huge legal expenses.

Since Ken Moser lives in San Diego, he had to use an Encinitas resident, Harry Eiler, to file against an Encinitas resident. Moser makes a practice of filing these frivolous clerical-error lawsuits against political opponents. He and Eiler have a history of harassment in Encinitas in particular, having filed 96 complaints in one year alone against former Encinitas Mayor Maggie Houlihan - anything to hassle the opposition. Because of Moser’s complaints, the FPPC has remarked that there were odd things going on in Encinitas elections.

Moser himself is now facing a $10M fine from the FCC for repeating a fake assault claim against a candidate: https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/politics/political-smear-case-just-took-another-bizarre-expensive-turn/.

Moser has been doing the same thing in Encinitas for years, apparently always against the slow-growth / community character side of the aisle, and also against Democrats elsewhere in the county.


Here's some background from when Moser sued Jim Kydd, publisher of the Coast News.

And here's some history on his partner Harry Eiler.

Encinitas featured in New York Times

Uh-oh. Here come the New Yorkers.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more quintessential California surf town than Encinitas, a sun-drenched pocket of coastal North County San Diego where wet suits hang like flags from bungalow porches and taco shops promise “No shirt, no shoes, no problem.” But when Morgan and Trevor Gates moved back to the area in 2018 after spending a year in Boulder, Colo., it wasn’t so much Encinitas’s beachy energy that convinced them to buy a home in the neighborhood of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, with its dramatic bluffs and cluster of oceanfront restaurants. It was its elementary schools.

“We liked the vibe, the landscape and the downtown that feels like a small town,” Ms. Gates said of Encinitas, a 20-square-mile city with about 60,000 residents. “But first and foremost, it was the school district.”

Lots of discussion on real estate prices, schools, and development.

Home invasion robbery in Encinitas

Encinitas Advocate:

[...] an Encinitas resident called 911 [Monday night, February 10] to report that a man had forced his way into her home as she slept, threatened her, stole money from her wallet and demanded the keys to her vehicle before driving off.

Deputies and CHP officers chased the van more than 30 miles, from south I-5 to south I-805. CHP officers deployed a spike strip at I-805 at El Cajon Boulevard but the van kept going, the CHP said.

The minivan next headed north on I-15, where the driver “abruptly stopped” in lanes near the El Cajon Boulevard exit and refused to get out, sheriff’s Sgt. Daniel Wilson said. Deputies shot out the driver’s side windows, then sent a sheriff’s dog to help take the driver into custody.

Leichtag Foundation executive Charlene Seidle still pushing “anti-Semitism in Encinitas” trope

Nextdoor.com and Facebook:

The article she's complaining about is here:

https://beachgrit.com/2020/02/surf-towns-benevolent-jews-offer-shelter-to-homeless-gentiles/

It doesn't seem to be either anti-Semitic or written by anyone in Encinitas, and Seidle has blocked comments on the Nextdoor post.

Coast News on Julie Thunder’s mayoral announcement

Coast News:

Longtime Cardiff resident Julie Thunder said she is running for mayor of Encinitas because she’s fed up with the direction she sees the city going in.

She announced her bid during a contentious marathon City Council meeting last month where she was one of more than 100 people who addressed the council regarding the overnight homeless parking lot they were set to approve.

“To everyone here tonight please join me right here and right now in keeping Encinitas a beach town as I hereby announce my candidacy for mayor,” she said at the end of a three-minute impassioned speech at the meeting on Jan. 22, as the crowd erupted in applause.

During that speech Thunder said she sees the city moving away from its small beach-town feel due to a long list of projects the council has approved, including chopping down hundreds of old trees in Leucadia to make way for road diets, parking lots and roundabouts; bringing high-rise apartments to “our peaceful, backcountry jewel” in Olivenhain; building a concrete rail-trail in Cardiff “that becomes a beach boardwalk in the summertime” and approving a regional homeless parking lot and slapping it “right in the middle of one of our cherished agricultural properties.”

2/12/20 City Council meeting open thread

On the agenda: Bonita development appeal and breakup with Surfing Madonna group.

Please use the comments to record your observations.

City manager tries to cut Surfing Madonna organization out of charity runs

Union-Trib:

Encinitas residents and tourists may cherish the Surfing Madonna mosaic that mysteriously appeared in public nearly a decade ago, but city employees do not feel the same way about the chairman of the nonprofit that owns the noted artwork.

A host of senior managers at Encinitas City Hall want the City Council to stop conducting any new business with the Surfing Madonna Oceans Project or, more specifically, its chairman, Robert Nichols.

In a stunning report to elected officials released late Thursday, the city manager and other department heads describe Nichols as abusive and uncooperative. They want the council to return to hosting the popular beach runs as city-sponsored events as soon as the Encinitas Half Marathon & 5K ends March 29.

The Surfing Madonna organization says the problems started when city staff were caught overcharging the group for past events, and believes city staff was behind a hit piece on the charity in the Union-Tribune in January.

Olivenhain Towers are back!

Only a month ago the developer of the huge proposed project at Encinitas Boulevard and Rancho Santa Fe Road withdrew the proposal.

It's back --  and bigger!

Encinitas Votes:

The developer has RESUBMITTED a larger project for 283 units to the City of Encinitas for Olivenhain (near the intersection of Rancho Santa Fe Road and Encinitas Blvd).

The project will not only destroy the environment and rural Olivenhain. It also exposes the hypocrisy of the speculator-driven agenda of the City Council:

This 283-unit project with seven residential floors including a luxury roof top and pool, and 483-car garage contributes to the gentrification of Encinitas by providing an upscale hotel-like property, turning the city into a paradise for out-of-town investors.