Coastal Commission to Leucadia Streetscapers: Not so fast!

Coastal Commission to city staff:

Staff appreciates the responses, but remains concerned that the issues raised in the previous correspondence continue to raise significant Coastal Act and LCP consistency issues related to the public’s ability to access the beach or enjoy a recreational drive along the historic Coast Highway. Specific concerns include the following:

[...]

The reduction of traffic speed and the desired outcome of deterring cut-through traffic or traffic shifts from Interstate 5 most likely means that the time it takes to travel through the corridor on Highway 101 will increase. The Commission’s primary concern is that the increase in travel time will deter the public from traveling to Encinitas beaches from inland destinations. If it will take significantly more time for a member of the public to travel from their home to the beach and then to get back from the beach to their home, they may be less likely to use the public beaches in the City.

Additional serious concerns at the link.

What's a spring egg?

City of Encinitas:

Dense enough already?

Builder Online:

There’s an outdated view circulating around that California urban areas are lower density than those of the Northeast Corridor, according to New Geography, but a comparison of Census data shows coastal California suburbs more than double Northeast suburbs in density.



New Geography compared “Coastal California” hubs Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose to the Northeast Corridor which runs from Washington, D.C., through Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Hartford, Providence, and Boston. The analysis shows urban core population density in coastal California is at least 60% higher than urban Northeast populations while suburban density more than doubles that of Northeast areas. New Geography’s Wendell Cox writes:

Given the already elevated level of density, proposals to cram more people into already settled areas of California could worsen the quality of life. California’s high urban densities are accompanied by the worst traffic congestion in the nation and some of the worst in the world. With plans in place and more proposals to increase densities, this can only get worse.

HT: Bubbleinfo

City Council spikes firefighter pensions again, this time by 11.5%

City press release:

At its March 21, 2018 meeting, the Encinitas City Council approved a new four-year contract with the Encinitas Firefighters' Association. This replaces the previous contract which expired on December 31, 2017.

Effective Date	Base Pay Increase	Cost Sharing Increase	Net Increase
March 16 ,2018*	3.5%	1.5%	2.0%
January 1, 2019	3.0%	1.0%	2.0%
January 1, 2020	2.5%	0.5%	2.0%
January 1, 2021	2.0%	0.0%	2.0%

The median firefighter pay was already $138,000 in 2016, and $183,000 including benefits.

The effect of the cumulative 11.5% increase in base pay is an 11.5% increase in future pension benefits and costs, while the "cost-sharing increase" minimizes the impact to the current council's budget. The council could have just given firefighters the straight 2% cost of living increase without using the "cost-sharing" gimmick to spike pensions even further.

Encinitas' pensions remain severely underfunded despite the decade-long stock market rally.

Meanwhile, the Encinitas $100,000 pension club already has 20 members.

City Council meeting open thread

Please use the comments to record your observations.

Gaspar launches campaign ad

Transparency and Trust

Voice of San Diego:

California law requires cities to keep emails for a minimum of two years, but half of the cities in San Diego County delete most of their emails from city servers in much less time — in some cases, within a few weeks.

A recent survey by Voice of San Diego showed that Encinitas and Poway have the shortest retention policy, deleting emails after 30 days. Del Mar deletes theirs after 60 days. Carlsbad, Escondido and Oceanside wait until the 90-day marker, while Solana Beach waits for 100 days, Santee for 180 days and Coronado for one year.

In justifying these policies, city officials argue that the law isn’t as clear on email retention as some would believe and they delete emails they view as non-public records to save taxpayer money. In the process, they’ve designated themselves the arbiters of what’s public and not public — a practice that troubles some of California’s leading open government advocates.

“It goes against what state law requires of them,” said Kelly Aviles, an attorney and vice president of transparency group Californians Aware, who reviewed Voice’s findings.