Item 10B on [this] week's May 23, 2018 Council agenda report will review output from yet another unnoticed meeting:
"On March 7, 2018, the City Council held a Special Joint City Council and Planning Commission meeting to conduct an inclusionary housing public workshop with a panel of experts specializing in inclusionary housing and Lisa Shaffer, as the workshop facilitator."
Say, what??? The originally-scheduled joint task force meeting was canceled. Was the public re-noticed that a Lisa Shaffer-run meeting would instead be held? Folks who signed up to be noticed say “no.” Is this another of Brenda Wisneski’s “unadvertised” meetings?
Output from Shaffer’s meeting – that claims to have been a “Public Hearing” – introduces policies the Council is too scared to really make public. It’s the usual “keep residents in the dark at all cost” tactic we’ve come to expect under Blakespear.
Shaffer’s meeting was a supposedly “Public Hearing to review and consider the introduction of City Council Ordinance No. 2018-03, titled “An Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Encinitas, California, adopting amendments to Title 24 (Subdivisions) and Title 30 (Zoning) of the Encinitas Municipal Code, which proposes changes to the City’s inclusionary housing regulations to better address the need for affordable units reserved in new residential development projects.”
Folks, get to reading and see what Shaffer and cronies are up to this time.
Monday, May 21, 2018
City cancels housing task force meeting, puts Lisa Shaffer in charge
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Poor Encinitas. As attractive it is to live here, Encinitas just can’t elect or hire good people. Every one is just like the last. If only the people who keep criticizing the City would step in and show us how it’s done. Alas, they confine their expertise to this blog.
ReplyDeleteF off, City troll.
ReplyDeleteResidents are under attack by the very people we elected to represent us. Secret meetings, no matter what you call them, together with developers, out of the public eye, are an attack. Bringing in someone who could not now be elected dog catcher to "facilitate" meetings with developers is an attack.
F off, melodramatic resident troll! "Under attack" Hyperbole much?
DeleteYou good with three secret meetings, one run by Shaffer? It's a yes/no question.
Delete12:12 PM
Delete"F off, City troll"
That's it? That's the best you can do? No wonder we're in trouble. Over the number of years I've read this blog we are always under attack. So does this mean you're running for council or you just can't be bothered? We're under attack but that's for someone else to fix.
Please just answer the question.
DeleteNuff is nuff. Lets clean house!!!!
ReplyDeleteShaffer again? Vote NO on the housing proposal.
ReplyDeleteEXACTLY. Right there we have a reason to vote hell, NO.
DeletePoint here is clean house in November, find and replace those who do not represent you with those that do and hope your in the majority. Either way we will all have to agree with November outcome. So if your interested and concerned, time to get to work and get it done. If not, steady as she goes. Yes, it is the computer era and participating using this platform is the world we live in today. Meetings, tasks forces and workshops are passe. Agree, vote NO, but be forewarned read how the stuff is written and proposed as voting no may mean yes or voting yes may mean no. Remember Prop A wording.
ReplyDeleteJust got the city's proposal of the sites intended for high density development. It'll add to neighborhood deterioration, the current parking crises and will increase traffic on already overcrowded streets. For example, 60 units are proposed for an area adjacent to the Coast Highway, very near Moonlight Beach. This area is already over-loaded with parking for the beach and downtown businesses, with several high patron capacity establishments in that immediate area yet to open - so parking problems will only intensify.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to indicate a lack of foresight on the potential problems associated with this plan and seems more of an accommodation for the developers, who will make a killing on these projects. If this is the best they can come up with, I am voting NO.
Shouldn't fire fighters be volunteers?
ReplyDeleteFirefighter Donn Thompson of Los Angeles earned some $300,000 in overtime in 2017, aside from his $92,000 salary. If that sounds like a lot of money in overtime, it is. In fact, as Transparent California reports, Thompson has pulled down $1 million in overtime since 2013. Eric Boehm of Reason.com explains:
Here's how the math breaks down. Thompson, like all firefighters in Los Angeles, works 2,912 hours every year. With a base salary of $92,000, that comes to an hourly rate of $31.60. That means Thompson would earn overtime pay at a rate of $47.40 per hour—that's one and a half times the base rate. But earning $302,000 at a rate of $47.40 per hour would require working more than 6,370 hours. Add that to the 2,912 hours he worked as a salaried employee, and you get more than 9,280 hours worked, despite the fact that there are only 8,760 hours in a year.
From 1993 to 1995, Thompson made well over $200,000 in overtime; in 2008, he grabbed another $173,335 in overtime.
California excluded overtime from pension calculations only in 2012; that means that Thompson’s retirement pay will still be based on his overtime. As The Los Angeles Times reported in 2014:
A legal way to increase pensions by boosting the final pay of retiring state and local government workers could drive up public employee pension costs in California by as much as $796 million over the next 20 years, the state controller said Tuesday. … Two years ago the Legislature and governor overhauled public pension benefits for newly hired workers, but many critics called the legislation too little and too late.
Public employee unions have been bankrupting localities across the country. California’s unfunded pension liabilities are staggering:
CalPERS has unfunded liabilities — benefits promised compared with anticipated funding — of $136 billion, Nation says. For CalSTRS, the projected red ink is $87 billion. That's based on 2016 data, the latest available. If you total up the unfunded liabilities of all state and local public pension systems in California, the projected debt comes to around $333 billion, Nation says. But that's a conservative figure based on official reports. It could be up over $1 trillion.
That’s nearly $26,000 per household in the state.
This is what happens when a state is governed by unions, as California is: California unions elect public officials, who then sign rich contracts with the unions, who then elect public officials. The cycle creates debt and serious safety problems as well — if public employee unions strike, that’s a disaster area. We can love our firefighters, but these deals are destroying localities.
How does that compare to the bank bailout in 2010?
DeleteI wouldn't worry about the system breaking over Calpers. City's will have to figure that out. Encinitas usually rides a 10 million dollar surplus so it could easily buy down the obligation.
If you are concerned about financial anarchy, think about how much more massive the Social Security bailout or the college loan bailout will be. $300 billion is a drop in the bucket.
I just went on the City archives for the March 7 agenda. It states the the city clerk posted the notice of the meeting on the city website Friday, March 2. I don't subscribe to email notification so I don't know if an email alert went out prior to the meeting but to say "...Item 10B on [this] week's May 23, 2018 Council agenda report will review output from yet another unnoticed meeting" isn't true.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the same, but also can't get over Shaffer being brought back into the mix. The fact that her names appears nowhere on the March 2 notice or the slides from that meeting, that listed only the developers, is creepy. The City is hiding yet another sleight of hand. They just don't get that such trickery signals to residents that "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
DeleteEven Blakespear admitted at a recent council meeting that we are upzoning for market-rate homes and will get no low income from this plan.
So I would vote "yes" because...? And please don't trot out the tired lawsuit threat.
The notice is designed to be obtuse, like everything else "staff" produces. Shaffers name is nowhere just like developers names are nowhere. "Staff" knows mentioning shaffer or stakeholder would have raised antenna.
DeleteTransparency is not the city's strong suit.
While they are interrelated, the workshop was to get input for the inclusionary zoning ordinance update not the HEU. Shaffer organized and moderated it. She made a few comments but the four panelists provided the majority input.
DeleteI'm not sure where this trickery aspect comes in. Are you contending that anything associated with Shaffer is suspect no matter how minimal that is? I went back and looked at the March 8 EU article on the workshop. Then as now there was very little discussion of the content. Most people just dismiss it out of hand. No wonder we don't get anywhere.
It sure indicates trickery when her name is not listed anywhere except as an attachment on tonight's agenda, two weeks after the meeting was held.
DeleteWhy hide her name from view? Just kind of weird and very naturally raises red flags for residents. No wonder we don't get anywhere, indeed.
1:07 PM
DeleteSo you are saying that anything that involves Shaffer is suspect on its face.
3:15 - nooooo. Anything the city hides is suspect on its face. Throw in Shaffer and that takes it to a whole new level.
DeleteI have to agree. Shaffer is the most dishonest and dispicable person who has ever been on council. She strikes first by backstabbing with lies then forces other to prove their innocence.
DeleteWell more than "achtivists" will be voting no on this housing plan. Really the answer is simple but council keeps choosing sites that don't work. This is already doa so you don't have to even wonder.
ReplyDeleteTonight 'Our' council will be attempting to codify what the voters rejected with Measure T.
ReplyDeleteLisa Shafters previous statement that council should ignore the publics will and override the voters to implement the failed Measure T will be approved tonight unless we stop them and show up in overwhelming numbers to just say no.
Time to pack the hall again.
Time to throw the bums out.
Please show up, or at least email the city and tell them no. Again. And again and again. Enough is enough. Time is up for all of them.
Is there a keeper in the bunch? I had previously thought so, but with this move tonight, I can't see any of them deserving of our trust.
Tonight matters. Please show up.
The hypocrisy of the housing plan is that it has nothing to do with "affordability", and all about opening up the zoning of open space to jam pack maximum density housing for maximum developer profits. A neighbor in an adjacent apartment, who has been there for 19 years, is being driven out by a substantial rent increase. If the city is so concerned about the plight of the less fortunate, why not implement rent controls? This State policy of forced development should be contested, as it removes the communities of self-determination in the democratic process of voting. Vote NO on the housing farce. And get rid of Sabine - he is a shill for Meyers.
ReplyDeleteThe culture in our city government is entrenched with stench from those who have been there a very long time. The day the City Attorney is removed is the day of a new beginning.
ReplyDeleteThe solution for a successful housing element update was given freely to council Wednesday night, not by the high paid consultants, but by a private citizen. Peter Stern, thanks.
ReplyDeleteCouncil, break from the past for a change and represent those who put their trust in you with their votes.
You can be successful this time. if you do. If you continue on your current track, you will see a familiar result. This current plan is already dead on arrival and there is no one to blame but yourselves. Does history have to repeat itself again? It appears it does. Again. And again.
NO to Horvath, Stocks and Gaspar!
ReplyDelete$tock$ is like a reoccurring rash - hard to get rid of. He has already done permanent damage to the city; no need for a second chance.
DeleteThose three candidates polling numbers indicate they are not in contention. Small blessings.
ReplyDeleteNo also to Muir and Kranz and spineless Joe. Don't leave them out from blame.
ReplyDeleteEspecially No to Mo with her too many signs on the public right of way. She is far from alone, but it shows how little respect she deserves when it comes time to vote.
Go Elizabeth Warren.
Yes - add these to the sell-out gang too.
Delete