Friday, February 28, 2014
Leucadia flooding
How's it looking?
E-mail your pics & we'll post. Other cool storm pics welcome as well.
"another poisoned oleander falls prey to the elements"
E-mail your pics & we'll post. Other cool storm pics welcome as well.
"another poisoned oleander falls prey to the elements"
Thursday, February 27, 2014
EUSD says Naylor Act doesn't apply to Pacific View; attorney who saved Del Mar Shores disagrees
North Coast Current:
A document released by the school district that was penned by law firm Best Best & Krieger suggests that because the school facility and its playground have been unavailable to the public for a period of more than eight years, they are no longer protected by the act, and this is the legal opinion that the school district will consult moving forward.The Naylor Act would require the district to offer 30% of the property to the city at 25% of market value.
“Here, the Pacific View property has not been used for playground, playfield or any other recreational activity for the last eight years,” the legal opinion states. “Accordingly, by the plain language of the Naylor Act, it is inapplicable to the Pacific View property.”
Other observers such as Carl Hilliard aren’t so sure that the legal opinion gives the best view of the law and how it works. Hilliard served as one of two lawyers who worked to keep the Del Mar Shores school property in Del Mar from residential and commercial development in the mid 2000s.
“We invoked the Naylor Act and the school in Del Mar had been closed for more than that period of time,” Hilliard said. “And the Naylor Act applies to playgrounds and allows the city to purchase (a school property) at 25 percent of per market value, but it must contain a playground and if it’s not used as a playground then there’s a right for the school district to repurchase it.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Feb 26 Economic Development Council Meeting Open Thread
... because tonight's meeting seems to be generating a lot of discussion.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Nice work if you can get it
Carlsbad:
The city also has a short list of six applicants for city manager after a national search by a consultant. Hall said local government officials and Carlsbad council members will conduct interviews, and the goal was to hire a new top administrator by March 1. The city received 50 applications for the position. Coates, the last city manager, earned $220,500 plus benefits for overseeing a staff of 650 with an annual budget of about $120 million.Encinitas pays Gus Vina, a man whose experience consists of finance and management in failed cities Stockton and Sacramento, about the same as the Carlsbad city manager gets for running a city with staff and budget more than twice the size of Encinitas (and Vina gets a much better pension at 55). And the Carlsbad gig is so juicy that they got 50 applicants.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Party on!
> Taken just now outside D St bar & grill. Didn't get the shot of the guys peeing against the La Paloma (for obvious reasons), sorry.
>
> The party bus is huge and periodically honks it's horn LOUDLY. Cooler out on the sidewalk, open, with ? on ice, didn't see what.
>
Taxpayer-funded "Encinitas 101" still pushing to gut Prop A, impose 3 stories
This Wednesday's council meeting will feature a presentation on economic development by a group including the city, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Cardiff, Encinitas, and Leucadia 101 merchant associations.
In an unorthodox arrangement in Encinitas, the merchant associations receive direct taxpayer funds from the city. The arrangement raised eyebrows recently when, during a discussion of the funding, Deputy Mayor Mark Muir asked about the merchant associations' plans for advocacy on Proposition A, creating the appearance that the taxpayer handouts were connected to providing political support for the council.
This week's presentation makes clear that despite Mayor Barth having acknowledged "Prop A passed and the city is implementing it citywide," Encinitas 101 just won't let it go. On a list of "if resources were not a barrier" goals, the group lists "Overturn Prop A at least for specific plans." The reference to specific plans means the areas covered by the downtown Encinitas and Leucadia 101 specific plans, and the practical effect of such repeal would be a mass upzoning of the entire area to three stories. Why is Encinitas 101 so obsessed with imposing three stories all along the coast? Does Encinitas 101 really represent main street merchants, or just land speculators?
The Chamber of Commerce (not funded by the city to our knowledge) also listed Prop A as a "problem that hinder[s] economic development," and the city's own dot-mapping game found three votes for Prop A "uniformity" as a "weakness." Cardiff 101 and Leucadia 101 seem to have been more successful at moving on from Prop A.
The economic development group selected a group of cities with comparable features and issues to Encinitas. Most of the cities on the list have downtowns similar to ours: open, friendly, one or two stories, lots of restaurants, cafes, and small businesses: Laguna Beach, San Luis Obispo, San Clemente, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Ventura, Redwood City, Dana Point. Some have a few three-story buildings just as we have Pacific Station and the Moonlight Lofts, but tall buildings are not a dominant or defining feature of any of the downtowns.
The only major exception on the list is Vancouver, Washington, a much larger city and a major suburb of Portland, whose downtown has a much more major commercial, less retail and restaurant focus.
So what do you want to be, Encinitas? A charming beach town or a big city? Solana Beach or Vancouver? Encinitas 101 is using your tax dollars to advocate for the latter.
In an unorthodox arrangement in Encinitas, the merchant associations receive direct taxpayer funds from the city. The arrangement raised eyebrows recently when, during a discussion of the funding, Deputy Mayor Mark Muir asked about the merchant associations' plans for advocacy on Proposition A, creating the appearance that the taxpayer handouts were connected to providing political support for the council.
This week's presentation makes clear that despite Mayor Barth having acknowledged "Prop A passed and the city is implementing it citywide," Encinitas 101 just won't let it go. On a list of "if resources were not a barrier" goals, the group lists "Overturn Prop A at least for specific plans." The reference to specific plans means the areas covered by the downtown Encinitas and Leucadia 101 specific plans, and the practical effect of such repeal would be a mass upzoning of the entire area to three stories. Why is Encinitas 101 so obsessed with imposing three stories all along the coast? Does Encinitas 101 really represent main street merchants, or just land speculators?
The Chamber of Commerce (not funded by the city to our knowledge) also listed Prop A as a "problem that hinder[s] economic development," and the city's own dot-mapping game found three votes for Prop A "uniformity" as a "weakness." Cardiff 101 and Leucadia 101 seem to have been more successful at moving on from Prop A.
The economic development group selected a group of cities with comparable features and issues to Encinitas. Most of the cities on the list have downtowns similar to ours: open, friendly, one or two stories, lots of restaurants, cafes, and small businesses: Laguna Beach, San Luis Obispo, San Clemente, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Ventura, Redwood City, Dana Point. Some have a few three-story buildings just as we have Pacific Station and the Moonlight Lofts, but tall buildings are not a dominant or defining feature of any of the downtowns.
The only major exception on the list is Vancouver, Washington, a much larger city and a major suburb of Portland, whose downtown has a much more major commercial, less retail and restaurant focus.
So what do you want to be, Encinitas? A charming beach town or a big city? Solana Beach or Vancouver? Encinitas 101 is using your tax dollars to advocate for the latter.
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