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Recently, at least two council members have separately used the word "conspiracy" in response to questions from the public about the process that led to the council's questionable (at best) ballot statements against Proposition A. Crying "conspiracy" is a common rhetorical technique to belittle and discredit an opposing point of view.
What is the "conspiracy?"
Here are the facts:
1. City Manager Gus Vina selected the notorious pro-development law firm Rutan & Tucker to write an "independent analysis" of Proposition A. Vina signed the contract on February 4, more than a week before the February 13 council meeting at which the council ordered the report. At the February 13 meeting, Vina and the Council avoided letting the public know that the firm had already been chosen and the contract signed. Council members have not criticized either the selection of Rutan & Tucker or the timing of the contract before the Council decision, and the Council has since unanimously reviewed Vina's overall performance as "excellent."
2. The Rutan & Tucker report was predictably biased against Proposition A and raised numerous "what-if" fears, the most significant of which have already been debunked by the Coastal Commission on bifurcation and the city's own Planning Department on residential height limits.
3. The Council wrote ballot arguments against Proposition A that included both outright falsehoods and further stretching of Rutan & Tucker's already tenuous speculative hypotheticals.
a) "THERE NEVER WERE, AND WILL NOT BE, APPROVED PLANS FOR 5-STORY BUILDINGS IN ENCINITAS..." In fact, nothing in the General Plan or any other governing document would have prevented future councils from approving 5-story buildings without a public vote. Prop A prevents that. And this is not just a hypothetical. Peder Norby proposed allowing 5-story buildings at the May 24, 2012 ERAC meeting, and got a positive reaction from the committee.4. After Proposition A passed, the Planning Department quickly resolved the residential height question exactly in accordance with the way the Prop A people said it was intended and should be read.
b) "Major land use changes HAVE ALWAYS happened with a vote of the people and the Council is committed to codifying this practice." In fact, both the Leucadia and Downtown Specific Plans increased building heights from two stories to three stories, and both were approved by the City Council without a public vote.
c) "Prop A [...] allows taller structures in existing developments. Imagine a 30-foot structure five feet from your property line." Here the council stretched Rutan & Tucker's speculative "could be interpreted," which was not adequately supported by any real argument or explanation, into an absolute certainty (which has since been falsified by the city's own Planning Department).
5. Council members now want to "move forward" from discussion of Proposition A without addressing the serious breakdown in trust that has occurred. In stark contrast to their campaign themes of open government, fair play, and transparency and trust, Mayor Barth and Council Member Shaffer are refusing to answer questions about the process that led to the Prop A debacle.
Questions and observations:
1. How did Vina know long before the vote that the Council would want to order an analysis rather than saving the taxpayers $300,000 and just adopting the initiative outright? It sure looks like everybody in City Hall was on the same page to kill Proposition A long before the discussion was held in an open, public Council meeting. Is that a "conspiracy?" If so, it's certainly not a very far-fetched one.
2. Why was no one on Council concerned that Vina had selected a law firm that was immediately recognized by the public as a notorious pro-developer firm? It looks like Council was happy to get a report that supported their position, regardless of its fairness or credibility.
3. Why couldn't the Planning Department have announced the same simple, clear interpretation of residential heights before the election that they did shortly after the election? That would have gutted one of the Council's primary fear-based arguments against Prop A.
4. Why did the Council resort to ballot arguments that seem pretty clearly dishonest by any objective reading? It looks like they were more concerned with winning than with providing voters with an honest discussion of the pros and cons. If there are true problems with Prop A, we never got to have an honest discussion about them.
5. Why did the Council fail to give us an alternative to Prop A that locked in the right to vote but removed whatever supposed flaws Prop A had? If there are flaws in Prop A, an alternative honestly discussed with the public likely would have won. It seems that Council never had any Plan B other than hoping the initiative wouldn't qualify and then hoping it wouldn't pass.
6. Who is in charge here, Vina or the Council? It certainly looks like Vina took the lead with the Rutan & Tucker contract, and then steered the Council right into a political box canyon, pitting the new majority directly against their own political base. Or did the Council really want it to play out just like this?
7. If council members are unwilling to discuss and learn from their mistakes on Proposition A, how can we be assured that the next controversial issue will be handled honestly and fairly?
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Stockton's leaders, like Encinitas', dismiss criticism from citizens, prompting this quote from the president of the local taxpayers' group that may feel very familiar to Encinitans:
"If only Stockton's leaders would listen and consider that someone else might have something worth saying."
