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.
Good lord, what IS Kranz saying??? He just wove a snail's trail of who knows what that no one could follow.
ReplyDeleteYikes. Too much ??? addles the mind.
He's at it again - election year - too bad he can't distinguish between quality and quantity. Definitely choosing the latter.
ReplyDeletePoor thing can't be anything but an incoherent me-too.
Once again, things are turned on their head. Muir backs Cardiff residents on the "quiet zone" that turns out not to be quiet after all.
ReplyDeleteGuess Kranz and Shaffer need to consult their dictionaries and look up the word "quiet." Both voted against residents who probably voted for them and are now really sorry they did.
Live and learn: don't re-elect Kranz!
Add Blakespear to the list: she just voted to eat her own by voting against fellow Cardiffians.
DeleteIt is curious that the definition of a wayside horn required for at-grade crossings was a mystery to our representatives. These still qualify for a quiet zone but of course are not silent. Duh. Their advantage is that they sound off at that particular crossing compared to the train that just blows so loud, all can hear it from miles away. What was so difficult to comprehend? Quiet zones are not completely without sound induced warnings. What am I missing, if indeed I am? I relish the opportunity to be informed If this was more involved than I thought.
ReplyDeleteIs the rule that "quiet zones" are allowed for at grade crossing for traffic + pedestrians, but not for at grade crossings for just pedestrians? I don't understand the rationale for this distinction. Tunnels are expensive, but it seems the only way to get legal + quiet crossings where there is no road, would be to have a tunnel (or above ground walkway, which gets in people's views).
ReplyDeleteUnacceptable that getting the info out of staff was like pulling teeth - that is, when they knew the answers.
ReplyDeleteSomeone remind me why that incompetent Pruim is still blocking our view of the wall?
Yet again, this council votes on issues that will have real impact in the community without all the facts. They love to spend money that isn't theirs.
ReplyDeleteMore consultants hired to do a job that the staff should be able to do. What an inept bunch!
Clean city hall and get rid of this ridiculous council. They are clueless.
And they voted to make Encinitas amenable to Syrian refugees! Next on their agenda - intergalactic space travel.
DeleteTrench the tracks and we could have real quiet zones. We are being left behind because of inaction while Solana Beach has theirs and Carlsbad will get theirs. This could have happened before the double tracking, but no, we are stuck with what we have for the foreseeable future with only tunneling under as a truly quiet option. At $12 million a pop, more or less, good luck on that ever happening at the many crossings that we need to fix this disastrous division of our community.
ReplyDeleteAppeal to SANDAG and others to take some of the I-5 expansion dollars and apply it to lowering the tracks is about the only hope we have.
While our neighbors to the north and south get their trenched tracks, we don't stand a chance.
From Shaffer's newsletter. Again the city puts the cart before the horse.
ReplyDeleteQuiet Zone at Chesterfield Rail Crossing: The Council approved a small budget increase to allow the consultant that is designing the Montgomery at-grade pedestrian rail crossing to work with SANDAG and NCTD to design and get approval for a quiet zone at Chesterfield. This will allow trains to pass through the intersection without sounding their horns as they approach. It would require more extensive gates and fencing around the intersection. The consultant also said that a quiet zone cannot extend the full 1/2 mile to Montgomery, and are not authorized for pedestrian crossings - we could have to use wayside horns to have a "quieter" zone, through the Montgomery crossing, and eliminate the need for train horns in that area. Wayside horns are at the crossing site and sound only in the immediate vicinity, as is done in Del Mar.
It was news to all of us that a quiet zone is not an option for an at-grade pedestrian crossing. Members of the public and some Council members want to revisit the at-grade crossing idea and look at whether the earlier plan for a grade-separated crossing (i.e., tunnel) would make more sense. We don't have good cost information for that location for a tunnel - we do know that it's more expensive than the at-grade crossing. But it has the advantage of not requiring train horns. There was Council consensus to bring forward an analysis of rail crossing options for that location.
And there was extreme frustration on the Council that, despite Tony Kranz asking for, and the Council approving, in 2013 that we develop a comprehensive rail corridor vision, we are just now releasing an RFP for a consultant to put together such a vision. We should have had a discussion of the whole corridor and how to address safety and horns and other related issues. But we haven't gotten there, and SANDAG is proceeding with double-tracking and changes to the Chesterfield intersection, so we did get Council agreement on this agenda item to invest in the design and engineering of a quiet zone there.
Where did the City find this consultant?
DeleteSan Juan Capistrano has a quiet zone that encompasses an at-grade pedestrian crossing and a road-rail crossing that are only 0.25mi apart. (Verdugo Street and Del Obispo Street, respectively)
"It was news to us...." She doesn't even hear herself. Staff running the show leaving council out of the information loop and council barely wakes up. They all know who's in charge: "staff."
ReplyDeleteWhat a surprise it must have been to staff to be exposed for a few minutes there...not that the council seemed to care. Or notice. All five quite comfortable with rings through their noses and reins nice and tight in staffs' grubby hands.
Did each one of the council complement staff on a wonderful job done? Can get through even one agenda item without at least three of the council members thanking and complementing staff.
DeleteYou bet your bottom dollar they did! Can't seem make it through a meeting, much less an item, without thanking staff for a bad job well done.
DeleteThe staff are a bunch of idiots, bigger idiots are the council and the biggest idiots of all are the citizens that elect these fools.
DeleteThe great reset can't come fast enough. Salaries slashed by 80%, pensions..?? We won't be discussing those, there won't be any pensions, Mr. Muir will be going door to door asking to fire proof your home for $25 bucks or a pizza. I could go on but why bother with you fools....
And you voted for...? Do you even live in Encinitas?
DeleteSuppose they decided to trench the Encinitas Corridor, if they hadn't spent $30 mil on Pacific View, they would have enough credit to pay for the trenching; as of now and ten years from now, neither Pacific View will be finished, nor will the railroad be trenched. Thanks Tony, Lisa and Cat.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone notice how cunning Blakespear was in getting herself appointed to represent council by traveling to Sacramento? Can you say nice trip for the family? She had her people all lined up to speak on her behalf.
ReplyDeleteBlakespear needs to get with the problems here. Fixing our roads would be a nice start.
Pension reform. The council needs to be discussing this.
"Cunning?" As much as I complain about Blakespear, what's been unacceptable and truly cunning is our lobbyist Johnathan Clay's and City environmental whatchamacallit McSeveney's sitting on legislation of most concern to residents.
DeleteAB744, anyone? Rounding up on base density? Neither of these bills did these wastes of taxpayer money care to bring to our city's attention.
Clay too busy doing nothing to justify his $100K consultant fee and McSeveney too busy snoozing in his office. So I hear.
And for the record: one person spoke on Blakespear's behalf. Exaggerate much, 11:33?
DeleteI clearly remember someone on council asking about AB744 in the last few months. Perhaps you missed it.
DeleteOnly because residents brought it to the city's attention and raised a ruckus. You definitely missed that.
DeleteClay and McSeveney are charged with bringing such items to the city's attention, that's the process. Instead, residents bring it to council's attention and they put it on Clay's and McSeveney's radar.
DeleteCity as usual has it backward, this time to the tune of Clay's $100K + McSeveney's overpaid salary.
Only Blakespear seems to have woken up to this fact and for that, she deserves credit.
5:07 I wouldn't give Blakespear that much credit. She is a little slow on the uptake with many issues.
DeleteHey, if she can get a free trip for her and her family, go for it. It is only taxpayer money.
Whatever. You sound more upset about your Blakespear story than taxpayers getting ripped off to the tune of close to $300K's worth of nothing. Am guessing you're in the minority here.
Delete9:26 Apparently you have me mixed up with another poster. What story are you referring to as I didn't post anything?
DeleteHAHAHA. I'll say it again: whatever.
ReplyDeleteLooks like we're not dealing with a full deck here. So, back at ya WHATEVER.
DeleteSimple request for future City Council members:
ReplyDelete-no government employees blind to the toils of 'real life' (Shaffer/Barth/Muir)
-no freeloaders apt to accepting $9000 propaganda trips to Israel from Leichtag (Kranz- who lives at his inlaws home in Leucadia, never owned property here, never had a real job)
-no silver spoons (she-male Blakespear- free house, job and $300k in schools bills from mommie dearest)
City council should be reserved for only straight working parents after all isn't life in America about preserving freedom and opportunity for our children by keeping government small and as far removed from our daily lives as possible? Thank you
Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination for President and will be the Republican nominee. Forget anything else; he won across the board on Super Tuesday, adding to his wins in a New England Yankee state (New Hampshire); a southern evangelical state (South Carolina), and a Western suburban state (Nevada). It is all over.
ReplyDeleteSo how did he do it? Two words explain it: racial resentments. Very simply, Donald Trump appealed to a deep prejudice of racial and cultural resentment among Republican voters. In an America undergoing rapid demographic change brought on ny Jewish cultural marxists, the Republican electorate is overwhelmingly white, elderly and WASP. In 2009, Republicans were mystified that an unknown hyper-liberal Cultural Marxist African American with a funny name took over the country. Then their worst fears were realized when his Jewish handlers, appointees and his policies seemed to many to favor non-whites over white people; and in these seven years deep white resentment has built up and it seems to be coming home to roost.