"Narrowly":
When Bruce Ehlers narrowly defeated incumbent Tony Kranz in the Encinitas mayoral race last fall, it was seen as a rejection of how the city was run.
[...]
One of the biggest issues he wants to tackle is infrastructure, especially storm drains to prevent flooding in places like Leucadia. That area is prone to flooding, which has been an issue since before Encinitas was incorporated as a city in 1986.
Ehlers said the previous council has been prioritizing unneeded projects such as streetscaping and buying Surfer’s Point.
“What had happened is we'd spent $100 million over the last 10 years on nonessential vanity beautification projects where we should have been spending it on basic infrastructure, pavement flooding and storm drain refurbishment,” he said.
And more errors from KPBS:
This past November, voters rejected a half-cent sales tax increase that would have paid for road repairs and other infrastructure.
It was a one percent sales tax increase, not a "half-cent".