Tell-A-Vision

Here is a vision (overheard) for tonight's pit neighbor against neighbor Public Workshop 1 - Housing Element Edition - for participants to place 10 dots each, representing a total of 1,300 multifamily units, on a map.  This typical election year bread and circuses exercise is for the pretense of community input.  It is a rigged game that finds low income Encinitans who'd love a well designed, affordable housing approach close enough to employers, shopping and transportation to eliminate the cost of an automobile or the high cost of gas (and carbon dioxide emissions) for commuting.  Even the predominantly single family home owners aren't happy with this rigidly defined housing element's future scenario.

So, rebel.  In this vision you place your dots in the Pacific Ocean. This particular slant on the dumb map exercise says several things, including the message that we aren't stupid.  Many citizens have watched bread and circus exercises again and again and know the hours of general plan update workshops, council meeting statements, ERAC and open house sessions are essentially just for show.

Now there is a 21st century vision with a community extension on the water, with specially designed floating housing. Can you picture diving and working to preserve kelp beds and sea life?  Cultivating nearly extinct fish stock, maintaining deep water wind turbines, wave turbines and solar panels all working to produce alternate energy.  Yes, decades to develop but worth the effort of engaged work.  Gone the day of SDG&E central plants.  Some may talk doomsday, some wail about a changing status quo, but there is a place for the visionary notions of simply looking at our problems differently and coloring outside the lines.

Oh, and people who want to remain in their single family homes in a suburban setting a drive away from separate commercial centers or their respective work places can do that too.

This week's Tell-A-vision edition brought to you without advertisements of any kind.