11/14/18 City Council meeting open thread

Please use the comments to record your observations.

Mountain rises behind Sunset High School

In 1943, a volcano suddenly arose in a cornfield in Parícutin, Mexico.

Similarly suddenly, a mountain has arisen here in Encinitas, behind Sunset High School on Requeza Drive.

L.A. "road diet" program comes to Encinitas

On Wednesday's agenda:

Vision Zero starts with the ethical belief that everyone has the right to move safely in their communities, and that system designers and policy makers share the responsibility to ensure safe systems for travel.

Vision Zero is a significant departure from the status quo in two major ways:

1. Vision Zero recognizes that people will sometimes make mistakes, so the road system and related policies should be designed to insure those inevitable mistakes do not result in severe injuries or fatalities. This means that system designers and policymakers are expected to improve the roadway environment, policies (such as speed management), and other related systems to lessen the severity of crashes.

2. Vision Zero is a multidisciplinary approach, bringing together diverse and necessary stakeholders to address this complex problem. In the past, meaningful, cross-disciplinary collaboration among local traffic planners and engineers, policymakers, and public health professionals has not been the norm. Vision Zero acknowledges that many factors contribute to safe mobility -- including roadway design, speeds, behaviors, technology, and policies -- and sets clear goals to achieve the shared goal of zero fatalities and severe injuries.

Here's how that's implemented in practice:

In July of 2017, Los Angeles imposed a "road diet" in the quiet beach community of Playa del Rey, replacing car lanes with bike lanes and parking spaces. The roads were suddenly jammed with traffic. The community was livid.

"Most of Playa Del Rey didn't know this was happening," says John Russo, a local resident and co-founder of Keep L.A. Moving, a community group formed to fight back against the city's unilateral decision to reconfigure the streets. "It really created havoc for us because we have no other roads to take."

Road diets are part of a strategy known as Vision Zero, in which Los Angeles aims to eliminate all traffic-related fatalities by 2025. It's an idea borrowed from Sweden, which in the '90s started experimenting with reconfiguring the roads to encourage more commuters to bike or take mass transit to work.

"In order to achieve zero deaths, public officials have been doing some odd things," says Baruch Feigenbaum, the assistant director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, the 501(c)(3) that publishes this website. Road diets aren't "based on science" or any "empirical findings."

"After the road diets were put in, we actually saw traffic accidents go through the roof," says Russo. "We had an average of 11.6 accidents per year on these roads in Playa Del Rey. We've had 52 accidents in the last four months."

In October, Pasadena residents successfully fought the city's attempt to put a "road diet" on Orange Grove Boulevard.

Will the city be honest with the court about why Measure U failed?

Open letter from Luke Dion to the city council on Encinitas Votes:

Encinitas will go before a judge on November 13 in a status hearing for lawsuits against the city related to our non-compliant Housing Element. These cases were delayed pending the outcome of Measure U, which if passed would have mooted the basis for the suits. Measure U was defeated, and so the cases will somehow proceed.

This is the second time voters have rejected a ballot measure. Judges are notoriously deferential to voters, and rarely issue sweeping rulings that invalidate the will of the electorate. I expect the judge to look for ways to avoid or minimize the scope of judicial intervention. I would expect the judge to ask our city leaders if they feel voter approval of a compliant housing element is impossible in Encinitas.

I think it’s important for our elected leaders to answer carefully. After watching voters reject months or years of work by our city council, there will be a temptation to say that council did everything possible, and that blame for the failure rests with voters—that there is no hope for a voter approved plan. This would be factually incorrect, and an insult to voters that we will never forget.

The difficult truth is that there is a voting bloc who will never vote yes on a compliant housing element, but they are a minority. There are others in the middle who voted no on this specific plan because of mistakes and poor decisions made by our leaders in the crafting of this plan. When the judge asks, we expect and deserve leadership that accepts responsibility for the flaws that caused Measure U to fail. I realize this is a difficult and painful thing to do, but it’s the truth, and it’s what is best for the City legally.

I ask each council member to spend real quiet think time over the next few days to write down a list of specific decisions and elements of the process and the plan that you think cost votes. Go to court prepared, and when asked by the judge, do the hard right thing.

Tasha triumphs

Did anyone get the license plate on that Mack truck that hit the city council?

Tasha Boerner-Hovarth came out of nowhere, spent a brief time on the planning commission, spent less than two years on city council, gerrymandered Mark Muir out of a council seat, helped kill Measure U, and got elected to the state assembly over the strenuous objection of her council colleague.

That's more in two years than any Encinitas council member we can recall has accomplished in multiple terms!

Election results

With so many people voting absentee and provisional now, it will take a long time to count the votes in the close races.

Here are some early results: Levin and Horvath winning, Hubbard and Mosca narrowly ahead, Measure U narrowly trailing.

Opinion: "Measure U is such a scam that even Goldman Sachs would blush"

Charlie McDermott in the Coast News:

Measure U is an attempt to coerce the residents of Encinitas into gifting our most valuable public asset, our established zoning, to select landowners and developers to enable them to earn an instant risk-free windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. In return we will get more traffic and infrastructure strain. What the Mayor and her fellow council members will get down the road has yet to be determined – but we have seen this kind of movie before.

Our zoning laws greatly limit what each of us can do with a piece of property. Individually, we all agree to these rules because they limit what others can do with their property and this prevents them from doing something that would negatively affect us. Thus, our city zoning largely determines what each parcel of land is currently worth; and as a whole it defines the character and layout of our city. Literally billions of dollars in Encinitas land value is allocated across the established zonings – and this hidden value is a very tasty pie for special interests.

The Measure U lobbyists are asking us to create a massive exception to the rules to enable them to develop over 2,000 high-density, “up-zoned” housing units, which will allow up to 30 units per acre! Plus it will gut Prop A for good measure.

If Measure U passes, these “special” individuals will enjoy an instantaneous zero risk land value profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars (e.g., 2,000 units x $120,000 land profit/unit = $240,000,000). The total profits when the finished units are sold will be much higher and yet not one penny of this up-zone value will be paid out in fees as dividends to the public or to the City for public infrastructure projects.

Once Measure U passes, we the people will see these units built out ASAP and our local population increase significantly. However, if Measure U fails then developers will have to to buy and develop the land at market prices and under the current zoning rules. Thus they will move very slowly, block-by-block, because of the high costs and free market risks. But if we socialize all the risks then all these units will be immediately built out because so much profit will be baked in from the Measure U land value increase.

Measure U is such a scam, that even Goldman Sachs would blush, but it is right there in black and white for you to vote on. Send a very clear message to interloping developers, Mayor Blakespear, and her comrades in the City council that our town is never ever going to be for sale by voting No on Measure U in overwhelming numbers. Make this one really hurt so the interloping special interests go away for good.

Charlie McDermott, Encinitas