Did Gus Vina deliberately deceive Council and public about cost of sales tax advocacy campaign?

We've pointed out in the past the dishonesty of Council Members' attempt to paint tax increase propagandist Catherine Lew as a neutral opinion-gatherer. Now it appears that City Manager Gus Vina attempted to deceive the public and at least some of the Council Members about the cost of hiring Ms. Lew.

Andrew Audet writing at Encinitas Beacon:

At the [March 12 City Council] meeting Mr. Vina invited the tax-raising specialist Lew Edwards to address the council on her process and services. During council discussion Ms. Edwards said most cities spend $100,000 dollars. When the council asked for a more detailed estimate of costs and scope of service, neither she nor Vina provided one.

A Freedom of Information request revealed that just that morning Mr. Vina had received from Ms. Edwards a detailed email with the heading "Cost Estimates" that defined two proposals and had an estimate of $168,000 dollars, 68% more than the figure shared with the public. So why did Mr. Vina withhold the information?

Did Mr. Vina conspire with the contractor to mislead the council? In the email defining the cost estimate of $168,000 Ms. Lew recommended to Mr. Vina that they tell the council most cities spend up to $100,000. Why not just tell the council the proposed estimate?

That Ms. Lew was directing the city manager what to say is troubling. The city manager should represent taxpayers not contractors. One day after the emails were released Mr. Vina sent an email to all council members directing them to no longer discuss the tax hike by email. It seems there are things Mr. Vina would prefer the public not know.

On March 25 residents made a presentation to the council showing the emails that the city manager withheld financial information. The council took no action. In July the council gave Mr. Vina a job review in a closed session out of the view of the public. Before the meeting resident after resident asked the council to hold Mr. Vina accountable for his secrecy. The council took no action.

Excellent!

UPDATE: e-mails between Vina and Lew below the jump. I think we can safely assume the $77,500 option was never going to happen, because it ends at the time of ballot placement in July, and without Ms. Lew's services in persuading the public to vote yes, the whole effort would be worthless.  And Ms. Lew was clear in the e-mail that $100,000 was the minimum that other cities spent, not that $100,000 was a valid estimate as the council and the public were led to believe.

UPDATE 2: The Internet never forgets!  Thanks Anon 1:29!  Here's what Barth wrote the weekend after the meeting (emphasis added, but red in original):

Fact Check: What we discussed was NOT to place a tax on the ballot but rather to understand the process and possible cost. The $100,000 was the estimated cost for research, polling, public outreach and the ballot measure.

The purpose of the polling would be to get the public's input: Do they support a tax and if so for what purpose. It would cost far less than $100,000 and more likely around $20,000. Unlike the previous 'feel good' surveys the questions would be much more specific.

If polling showed there was strong support for the idea the city council would then have to vote to place a measure on the ballot. It would require a super majority of at least 4 votes. If the council agreed, then the public would vote on the measure. However, I doubt that would happen since Council members Gaspar & Muir have already said they would vote NO regardless of the public's opinion.

While you may not support the idea, a number of people I have spoken to say they would if it was for specific projects such as street improvements, more pedestrian RR crossing & quiet zones, open space and especially to purchase Pacific View. Others also told me they see it as a way to move these projects forward at a faster pace with everyone, residents and visitors who shop in Encinitas, paying for the improvements and it does NOT create any long term debt.

It is a topic worth discussing not just saying NO.

But who will Fact Check the Fact Checkers?  I don't see anything on Lew's menu that would cost only $20,000.  It's $25,000 just to sign her before she does any work!  Who gave Barth that idea?

Alex goes local

One of the criticism's of political newcomer Alex Fidel's mayoral campaign is that he focuses too much on national issues like the Federal Reserve and not enough on local issues.

Fidel has gotten the message. In the recent candidate forum, Fidel brought his left-libertarian principles to local issues.

Seaside Courier:

Fidel said if elected he would get to the bottom of why the city is “$50 million behind on road repairs.”

“Silence is compliance...I will not be silenced by any injustices,” Fidel said.

[...]

To the question about what plans they had to keep Encinitas from "becoming another Pacific Beach," [...] Fidel said the city’s code enforcement should be directed more toward the downtown area instead of being “bogged down” by other minor residential matters.

[...]

As to what should become of the Pacific View Elementary site—purchased by the city for $10 million from the Encinitas Union School District—Fidel, the youngest of the candidates, said since his “generation is picking up the tab for it” he would like to see it used as a place to grow food locally.

[...]

Asked whether they would support an amnesty program for noncompliant housing units as part of updating the city’s housing element in time for the public to vote on it in 2016, all candidates said yes.

[...]

Fidel said: “We need to stop building houses, that is the reasons the banks crashed. How many more houses do we need?”

Please consider this an open thread to discuss any other goings on at the candidate forum or elsewhere around town.

San Diego neighborhoods rally to defend against "Smart Growth" imposition

Raise the Balloon!

Those neighborhoods are in an even more precarious position than Encinitas, as they don't have a Prop A-style right to vote, and must rely on the kindness of politicians.

9/24/14 City Council meeting open thread

The current city council has continued prior councils' practice of not providing written summary minutes of council discussion, but only "action minutes" which state the outcomes. Encinitas Undercover will provide a forum for observers to record what occurs at each council meeting.

Please use the comments to record your observations.

Backroom deal upzoning for fun and profit!

Well, lookie here. After all that open government and transparency we were promised last election, it looks like we're exactly back to backroom business as usual.

While the city is pretending to just now begin the Housing Element Update (selecting sites for high-density development to meet dubious SANDAG mandates), and will go to great lengths pretending to incorporate public input, it turns out that way back in March, city staff had secretly already selected 95 properties they wanted to upzone.

From the Inbox:

"Staff" applied some fancy math and identified 95 proposed upzones around town to identify the allocation. The approval of these upzones would not invoke Prop A because they'd be rolled into resident approval of the Housing Element Update (HEU). The upzones take some properties, for example, from R3 to R30, and that doesn't include the certain application of density bonus.

The City notified these 95 parcel owners of their upzone status in a mailer that went only to them back in March. You'll see from the attached that the potential "options" that these identified parcel owners could enjoy, should they decide to redevelop their property. Suffice to say, there's a message in there.

The City's current problem is, they kicked off this Update in the dark. They approached the identified parcel owners alone, as they considered them first-line "stakeholders." The City did not notify adjacent homeowners. Six months after notifying these 95 stakeholders, the City still did not notify adjacent homeowners or residents in general. So much for "transparency." Only Lisa is saying that she had no prior knowledge of this outreach, although has said she is ok with staff not telling her about it. Tony MAY have said the same, but I'd have to go back and look at the tape from this past Wednesday to see.

Residents learned of this contact to the 95 when an uphappy one of them came forward to tell her story at oral communications.

Funny how the Housing Element Update was quickly placed as an agenda item a week after the oral comms speaker made her revelation. The City could not afford to sit on it a minute longer.

Here's the city flyer that went out only to the chosen few.

But it gets worse.  Controversial political operative Mike Andreen was let in on the secret 95-property plan, and organized an event with Mayor Kristin Gaspar to get property owners behind the mass-upzoning campaign.  Titled "Encinitas Up-Zoning Can Mean Increased Property Values," the flyer for that event is here.  The purpose is clearly to get the property owners to see dollar signs and help fund a mass-upzoning vote in 2016.

More from the Inbox:

In addition to the 95 city staff-identified property owners, representatives from the development industry were at the Andreen meeting, including Pasco Engineering. Word from others who attended was that Andreen, with Gaspar nodding in agreement, blamed this "need to upzone" on Prop A.

So residents are just now finding out about the underhanded approach that the City took in starting the HEU six months ago with not a peep. Residents are not and will not be told that they may vote "no" on the HEU and what the consequences of a "no" vote would be (a few $100K in lost revenue from the State and some extra assigned low-income units), so that they may truly weigh options. They're merely being asked to decide "go up or go out," and will find out about the "no" option at the polling booth in 2016. Council is ok with that approach. By 2016, voters' heads will be so filled with "must comply with State mandates," they'll feel that they must vote yes; I assume that's part of the City's strategy to push the update through this time.

Best for last: we learned from the oral comms speaker, who is a real estate agent, that if you are a homeowner in the vicinity of a proposed upzone property, you must disclose that on when selling your home. It's an item on the list of disclosures alongside things such as cracked slabs, deaths in the home, freeway widening, etc. This puts the selling price up in the air, as the seller will have to say "there MAY be an upzoning" down the street, I have no idea." You can imagine that the home price will go down. There is no threshold for distance from the upzone; the only test is whether the seller knew about the possible rezone (per real estate/State law). If you fail to disclose, you could be sued later by your buyer who was not counting on 40 low-income apartments down the street.

What's the point of the upcoming Housing Element "public input" sessions? The decisions were made in secret six momths ago!

UPDATE: Here's the map of the proposed mass upzonings.

High-density developer attorney Marco Gonzalez wants Desert Rose grandfathered under the old denser rules

From the Inbox:

[Forwarded with this comment: Item 10 C is Marco fighting to ensure that Desert Rose was presented to council before they were caught breaking their own rules, so Marco wants to assure that Desert Rose is grandfathered in to the good old times when developers were able to threaten the council into giving them special favors.  Please help us get everyone related to a Density Bonus project at this meeting!]

I'm a firm believer in playing your aces wisely so I simply want to advise you of an important, upcoming City Council meeting that you might want to consider attending…..you can make up your mind how important you think it is for you to attend.  Remember, a good turnout sometimes helps to generate a good result. This Wednesday, September 24^th, at 6:00pm, the Encinitas City Council has two agenda items that directly relate to density bonus in general and Desert Rose specifically.  The meeting will be held at City Hall, on Vulcan, in Encinitas. 

Item 10-B: Public Hearing regarding the introduction of City Council Ordinance 2014-09, Option A or B, to consider a Zoning Code Amendment to Title 30 of the Encinitas Municipal Code and the Home Depot Specific Plan, pursuant to Council direction related to Item 10E of the July 16, 2014 City Council meeting, to amend the definition of 'Net Acreage' to specify that detention basins and wetlands (rather than significant wetlands) are excluded from net acreage. 

Note:  The Planning Commission recommended Option "B".  Members of the community may suggest minor revisions to the City Council. 

Item 10-C: Questions have been raised as to whether the new policies are applicable to projects that were approved by the Council before July 16th, but are now pending appeal before the 4th District Court of Appeal; such as the 16-lot Desert Rose Density Bonus project that the Council approved on March 13, 2013. This is the only project currently under these circumstances. 

Note:  Since Judge Judith Hayes, of the California Superior Court, ordered the approval of Desert Rose, by the City Council, vacated, the Desert Rose project is technically not an approved project.  Therefore, it would seem that it will fall under the new ordinance/guidelines, unless the court ruling is overturned on appeal.

 I hope to see you there!

 Bill Butler for SDR and Encinitas 

EU note: Gonzalez is a friend and fellow Smart Growth traveler of some of the council members.  So it wouldn't be too surprising to see them comply with the Superior Court's order to require an environmental impact report, but still try to grandfather in his extra-densy densiness.

Convicted felon Rod Wright's density bonus letter to County Supervisor Greg Cox

Back in March, city staff included a letter from convicted felon Rod Wright as an excuse to keep violating city code and interpreting density bonus law far more leniently for developers than other cities do.

Here is that letter.



Fortunately, and only after displays of public outrage and threats of lawsuits, our city council finally did the right thing and reversed their ridiculous density bonus interpretations.

Side note: do we even know the half of Wright's crimes? How the heck do you afford a Maserati and a Jaguar on a legislator's salary? Why did a former legislator suddenly decide to get involved in a local development issue far from his district?