Is the city trying to push a sales tax increase again?

Encinitas Votes:

Get ready for new taxes from the Encinitas city council. City engineer director Jill Bankston is circulating a bid for the following: Professional services to provide polling, public outreach and ballot initiative drafting services. Required services will include community engagement, polling services, data gathering, data analysis, report preparation, and drafting of ballot measures for the November 2024 election whereby the City may request voter approval to support funding for infrastructure projects which may include: public safety, transportation, drainage, pavement, traffic calming, mobility, climate action plan, and various identified and unfunded capital projects."

Overspend projects that no one wanted: for example the 101 streetscape of $60 plus million, the green bike lanes with bollards that creates confusion and at least 2 deaths.

Back in 2014, the council majority of Lisa Shaffer, Teresa Barth, and Tony Kranz aggressively pushed for the hiring of push-poll propagandist firm Lew Edwards to promote a sales tax increase. Only the presence of Kristin Gaspar and Mark Muir denying them a supermajority foiled their plans.

Now Kranz has his supermajority, and needs money. In addition to the boondoggles mentioned at Encinitas Votes, Kranz also needs a multi-million-dollar city bailout of the "volunteer-funded" Pacific View fiasco, the vastly expanded city staff including the new, permanent homeless bureaucracy, and tens of millions for payouts for injuries and deaths due to negligent street design.

Hasan Ikhrata out at SANDAG

Coast News:

Hasan Ikhrata is resigning from the top job at the San Diego Association of Governments, he announced on Friday.

Ikhrata, who has been a divisive figure in his role as SANDAG chief executive officer, stated in a letter to Board Chairwoman Nora Vargas his last day will be Dec. 29.

Ikhrata seemed almost a comic-book villain. Born and educated in the Soviet Union, presiding over multiple SANDAG scandals, lavishly compensated, determined to push through an intrusive and wildly unpopular vehicle mileage tax.

Quite a history for a role that's usually a faceless bureaucrat. It's fun going back through the EU archives.

Fatal Encinitas e-bike crash covered in NY Times

NY Times:

On a Thursday evening in late June, Clarissa Champlain learned that her 15-year-old son Brodee had been in a terrible crash, the latest teen victim of an e-bike accident.

He had been riding from home to shot-putting practice. The e-bike, a model made by Rad Power, had a top speed of 20 miles per hour, but his route took him on a busy road with a 55-mile-per-hour limit. While turning left, he was clipped by a Nissan van and thrown violently.

Morris again dodges criminal charges

 Coast News:

The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office has declined to bring criminal charges against former Encinitas mayoral candidate Jeff Morris in connection with a slew of anonymous threats made on a local blog.

Since then, a local woman who claims she has been the target of much of the online abuse has filed a civil defamation lawsuit against Morris, his wife, and other parties related to their alleged online conduct.

In May, the Sheriff’s Department confirmed it was investigating threatening language posted anonymously on the Blogger forum Encinitas Undercover, with the matter eventually being passed on to the District Attorney’s Office.

This blog cooperated with the Sheriff's Department in trying to identify the IP address of the abusive comments, but we didn't have the log files going back far enough in time. That information surely still resides with Blogger owner Alphabet (Google) should anyone wish to subpoena them.

RIP Fred Caldwell

Fred Caldwell, long-time proprietor of Leucadia's Caldwell's Antiques has reportedly died.

We had the pleasure of meeting Fred a few times. Always kind and funny, and ran a uniquely Leucadian store. Fred was also politically active in the "Keep Leucadia Funky" sense and was an occasional contributor/commenter to this blog.

We also remember Fred for his campaign to free his sister, pretty clearly wrongly convicted of a brutal murder in the 1990's. Fred told us that campaign was eventually successful back in 2016, but the family wanted privacy at the time, so we didn't post the news. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Caldwell family.

Woman arrested for starting fire in parents' condo

Encinitas Advocate:

Sheriff’s investigators have arrested a 42-year-old woman on suspicion of setting her parents’ home on fire in Encinitas on Wednesday afternoon, July 12, officials said.

Sheriff’s deputies and firefighters were called to a condominium on Via Terrassa off Via Molena around 2:45 p.m. after someone spotted smoke coming from the home. They extinguished the small blaze, which was confined to one room.

The homeowners — a couple in their 70s — were not home at the time, said sheriff’s Sgt. Anthony Portillo of the bomb-arson unit. No one was injured.

Wild wild West

Coast News:

Around 7 p.m. Wednesday, a man called 911 to report he was the victim of a carjacking in the 800 block of Nolbey Street in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, according to sheriff’s officials. He told police he was carjacked at gunpoint and the suspects drove off in his white Ford Fusion. The victim and another person who witnessed the vehicle theft tried to follow the suspects in another car.

[...]

A man got out of the stolen vehicle and fired multiple shots at the pursuing carjacking victim and witness in the 900 block of Sandcastle Drive in Cardiff, said Sgt. Jessica Vanoort of the North Coastal Sheriff’s Station. Several unoccupied vehicles were hit by the gunfire, but no one was hurt. The suspects then drove away from the scene.

Just after 8 p.m. Wednesday, deputies found and arrested the suspects, identified as Calvin Brown, 26, and Rolaena Darlene Blunt, 18, at a gym in the 200 block of South El Camino Real in Encinitas. Deputies recovered a handgun and ammunition at the scene.

It doesn't sound like they're local kids, as their crime spree started earlier in the day in Imperial Beach and San Diego.