2/16/22 City Council meeting open thread

 Please use the comments to record your observations.

2/9/22 City Council meeting open thread

 Please use the comments to record your observations.

Large brush fire behind Lazy Acres

 This afternoon.

Carpet-bagging Blakespear crony given influential housing position

From the Inbox:

Mali Woods-Drake is one of two "Project Planners" on the city's Housing Acceleration Plan on next week's Consent Calendar.  Tasked with spending $310,000 in grant money, she will work to change city code with a "major area of area of focus to attain a legally compliant Housing Element."  Would love to know her qualifications other than she can be counted on to continue the mayor's attack on Prop A: MetaViewer.php (granicus.com).  Mali bizarrely blames Goodson [the huge Olivenhain condo development] on Prop A, not the council that put it on the map, and is getting her facts from who knows what source.  This is the latest mayoral appointment in a string that puts Mali, someone severely undereducated in Encinitas, its history, and its citizens, into yet another important position of influence.

Blakespear's Equity Committee suspects city and sheriff's department are profiting from ticketing minorities

FOIA request:

Robin Sales from the Equity Committee asked the below question re: traffic stops. Specifically, she wrote, "I had a thought that the sheriff's department and the city reap the financial benefit of traffic tickets and I'm wondering how we can look at that from an equity lens as the RIPA data clearly indicates a significantly higher stop rate of BIPOC in Encinitas. I would like to hear from Pam Antil how much the City takes in annually on those traffic stops."

There's lots more at the link between city staff and the outside consultant paid to coordinate the Equity Committee. Are we getting our money’s worth?

Cities abusing the public and minorities with fines for revenue is an actual thing, primarily in small towns in the Deep South. Thinking it's happening here requires an especially vivid imagination. As we learned in the Redflex saga, the city nets very little from traffic fines, as most of the money goes to the state, courts, and county. Further, our deputies are rarely observed spending all day manning speed traps (or even enforcing straight-pipe noise violations on 101, as a frequent commenter will tell you!).

Arrest made in racist high school vandalism

Regarding last month's racist graffiti incident at San Dieguito Academy:

From the Inbox:

Letter from school:

Yesterday [Feb 1], the Sheriff’s Dept made an arrest in relation to the vandalism that occurred on our campus on New Year’s Day. We appreciate your support in respecting the integrity of our site-based investigation and the privacy of any individual(s) involved by quelling any rumors or student-specific discussion related to the matter.

The suspect is reportedly a 16-year-old student at the school.

Another Democrat joins state senate race

Until recently it looked like Catherine Blakespear had a clear path to the state senate. She was the party insider choice. No other Democrat had announced for the race. She caught another break when redistricting made the district significantly more Democratic.

So it will no doubt come as very welcome news to voters who are loyal Democrats but don't like what Mayor Blakespear has done to Encinitas that now there's another choice:

Firefighter Joe Kerr.

If Blakespear holds on to the support of the party bosses, Kerr will need a lot of grassroots support. You can donate here.