Snowfall predicted in Encinitas tonight

Weather.com:

Silver Santa Kook

Merry Vibrant Christmas!

Fairytale of New York has long been one of our favorite Christmas songs.

But in recent years, it has become particularly appropriate for Encinitas.

BREAKING: SWAT raid in Olivenhain

Happening now, on Rancho Encinitas Drive off Lone Jack.

Loud bangs heard, white plume (tear gas?) seen rising from house.

6:50 AM: "Ghetto bird still circling."

7:40 AM: All over now. Still no coverage on local news sites.



The commotion appears to be at or near 1507 Rancho Encinitas, which has multiple online business listings including "Aae Retreat" drug rehab and senior care assisted living.

UPDATE: NBC 7 has the story with video:

Multiple agencies are executing a search warrant at what one officer called a "drug house" in an affluent Encinitas neighborhood near the coast.

The officers arrived shortly before 9 a.m. [wrong, obviously] on Rancho Encinitas Drive where residents had deployed a non-lethal chemical agent after hearing the officers outside the house. Several people were handcuffed and escorted out of the house later.

Nick Backouris, with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, said officials had received multiple complaints about the 4,000 sq. ft. home over the past several years and the home has been a headache for the community. He had said at a brief press conference earlier that they had a warrant for some drug and some gang activity.

And this:

Homeowner Anastasia, one of the arrested, was charged with furnishing a home under the use of narcotics.

There's actually a law against that? They caught her bringing in a La-Z-Boy and throw rug while high?

So long, suckers!

Vina goes to Brentwood, gets raise to $234,387, plus $700/month automatic "incentive," and five weeks plus a day of paid vacation per year.

Which accomplishments in Encinitas stood out to the Brentwood City Council?

Rudloff and Vina gave away city's right to clean 10-year extension of Little League fields lease at Ecke YMCA

Former Mayor Jerome Stocks writing in the San Diego Reader:

The Ecke family donated the land to the YMCA for the benefit of Encinitas youth back in the 1980s, and in 1989 the then-nascent city of Encinitas entered into a 25-year lease with the YMCA.

The YMCA didn’t have the money to build the facilities, and the city didn’t have the money to buy the land, so a deal was struck. The city agreed to build three or four baseball fields which could also accommodate at least two soccer fields, plus a snack shack, and equipment storage areas.

In return for constructing and maintaining those amenities, the city would have the right to program those fields to suit public demand including Encinitas Little League, Encinitas Soccer League, and what became up to seven other user groups.

The lease payments for the five acres of prime real estate less than a mile from the beach was a whopping $25 for 25 years. Yep, a buck a year for 25 years. Do the math, the 25 years was up in 2014.

But the lease also had a ten-year option that the city could exercise at its discretion at the end of the original 25-year lease. But for some reason that no one will fess up to, they threw that away.

That last part, if true, is a stunner. The fiasco was bad enough when the city council rubber-stamped the 30-day termination clause without discussion. But that was assuming that the Y had bargaining leverage and wouldn't have agreed to an extension without such a clause. If the city actually had the option to renew the lease cleanly for 10 years and didn't, something extremely nefarious appears to be afoot. That would mean the city's negotiators actively worked with the YMCA to steal an asset from Encinitas and its kids right under the noses of an oblivious city council.

Do you think those folks up north who are about to hire Gus Vina know about this whole episode?

The Ecke YMCA is a respected community organization. Perhaps the public blowback they've gotten will persuade them to do the right thing and amend the agreement to take out the termination clause.

UPDATE: It's true! The city had an absolute option for a 10-year clean renewal, which Parks Director Lisa Rudloff and City Manager Gus Vina amended away with the council's apparently unwitting approval.



Both Encinitas Undercover and the Union-Tribune's Logan Jenkins had completely missed this bombshell. Jenkins wrote, "The conventional wisdom appears to be that the YMCA held the trump card. No sudden-death clause, no extension. The city had to agree to Draconian terms." Which is now clearly not the case.

If this city council truly believes in "transparency" and "open government," there will be a full, public investigation into who was involved in adding the termination clause added and why, and how City Manager Vina and Mayor Barth agreed that this should go on the consent calendar and avoid public discussion.

12/17/14 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.

Item of interest tonight:

- How much of a slap in the face of the council is it that Gus Vina refused to even give them the contractually required 90-day notice?  How do the council members feel now about spending the past two years on Vina's "visioning" exercises and unanimously rating Vina's job performance as "excellent?"