Blakespear tries to tie council’s hands on road infrastructure with SB 569

Save Encinitas Now:

Catherine Blakespear has "gutted and amended" Senate Bill 569 to try to prevent the needed changes from happening to Santa Fe Rd. This ignores all of the daily drivers, residents, physicians and emergency service personnel who have highlighted the problematic design.

Seems like this might prevent removal of Blakespear's fatal 101 bike obstacles too?

6/10/26 City Council open thread

 Please use the comments to record your observations.

Encinitas history in Times of San Diego

Times of San Diego:

Beneath today’s surf culture, cafés, and coastal neighborhoods are traces of very different eras: a silent film actor who invested in early town lots, a historic movie palace still operating downtown. This cliffside spiritual retreat gave a surf break its name, and flower fields that once helped define the region’s economy.

Most of it is still there — if you know where to look.

Sydney Chaplin, the older brother of Charlie Chaplin, purchased acreage in Encinitas in 1923 during a coastal land boom, paying about $5,000 for property along what was then a developing stretch of Highway 101.

More at the link on La Paloma, the Ecke flower fields, Swami's and the Olivenhain Germans.

Happy Friday open thread

5/13/26 City Council meeting open thread

 Please use the comments to record your observations.

Seattle negligence looks suspiciously like Santa Fe Drive bike lane fiasco

 Facebook:

The city of Seattle will pay $9.25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a bicyclist who slammed into a car and suffered a traumatic brain injury while riding in a “protected bike lane” near Green Lake, according to attorneys for the injured man.

The settlement came after King County Superior Court Judge Kent Liu found the city was negligent, violated its own standard of care and breached its duty to the bicycle-riding public in designing the bicycle lane, according to court documents.

 

Supervisors try to extend their own term limits under the guise of “ethics”

 Encinitas Votes:

It is a bundled power grab.

On April 21, the Board of Supervisors pushed it forward on a 3–2 vote. On May 19, they decide whether to send it to voters as a single take-it-or-leave-it package. #UnBundle

Here’s what’s buried inside:

– Extending supervisor term limits from 8 to 12 years
– A so-called ethics commission controlled by the same supervisors, with no subpoena power and no enforcement
– New authority for supervisors to control senior county officials