Future Vision Missing

Community chatter about the General Plan Update and the Right to Vote Initiative are too often reminiscent of those predictions of the future we used to see years ago.

Without a clue of what was coming in technology, ecology, politics, economics, culture or social dynamics; the vision of the future was simply a tricked out version of the status quo. And it is funny.

Here is a 1967 short minute and a half of Walter Cronkite visiting a home office in the 21st century. The obsession with gadgets (albeit clunky and huge) and the failure to acknowledge women hasn't really changed much at its essence in almost 50 years.

Tonight at the Encinitas City Council meeting we will hear the realtors, developers and other business interests version of the future land use for housing in Encinitas via the ERAC report. The Planning Commission report and the GPAC report were given in the previous to weeks. Neither of these reports or the speakers gave much of a clue to what the future might hold for our community beyond more of the same. Maybe the agendas were kept really narrow for some reason.

Innovative thinking has yet to be encountered since the so-called start up or in community reaction that followed. Lots of passion and effort, but envisioning the future or innovation - not so much. Besides ignoring completely the known challenges of our new century's climate change, fossil fuel depletion/pollution, economic breakdown; there was no strategy to address how our community might address shortages in our currently strong supplies in water, food or energy as current systems change. 

Oh wait, Mayor Barth has suggested rethinking the density bonus to fit our community and its resources, asked that certification for existing market low income housing be explored, recommended dozens of articles on housing and land use trends, challenges, alternatives and patterns in her weekly "Thought You Might Like to Know" newsletter's Food for Thought. Imagine if the new city council members and some city residents follow through and support some of this direction? Maybe something that recognizes a changing world could be incorporated into the news coverage of Encinitas' housing, land use, transportation, environment and economy.  

Tonight is also going to be about basics in our City Budget.  This is welcome if we are to acknowledge that we are immersed in change and the economy is not just going through a little bump. Citizens have been begging for open government and a clear picture of the City Budget.  As we have been seeing since this new council began, we are getting what we requested and this is good. My first questions . . . Have we a range of revenue sources for our city? If not, will this be explored? 

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Encinitas City Council's "Hire" Power

Lisa Shaffer submitted this to Encinitas Patch, AOL's online paper and we decided to keep a copy here at Encinitas You Need Us. Love the title!

On June 20, the Encinitas City Council used its "hire power" to extend and amend a contract for Peder Norby as a consultant to the City. Unfortunately this move will not fix the problems with the General Plan Update (GPU) process, nor is it an example of responsible administration.

Mr. Norby has been employed as the Highway 101 Coordinator, and this move formalizes the role he has been playing for the last several months as facilitator of the General Plan Update process. I had planned to speak at the Council meeting, but I realized that my comments were unlikely to impact the vote, so I offer them here instead.

The agenda item at City Hall mixed together two issues that each deserves a separate discussion. One is how the GPU process is handled, particularly the housing element; the other is how and when the City hires consultants.

The GPU Process: The decision on June 20 formalizes Mr. Norby’s role in facilitating several concurrent groups that are reviewing each element of the General Plan and making recommendations to the City Council. This process is a “restart” after the City spent over $1million on a consultant whose work product was rejected by the Council. No explanation has been offered of how that contract got so far off track. Who was responsible for oversight? Where is the accountability? Until the Council provides some leadership and lays out a vision, hiring more consultants won’t fix the problem.

The initial focus of the restarted GPU process is the housing element. There is a state mandate to show high density zoning that would, in theory, allow for 1300 affordable housing units to be developed in Encinitas. Mr. Norby has taken each group through a mapping exercise that is supposed to show which locations should be given highest priority for such upzoning. When all is debated and tabulated, we still won’t know what are community preferences. We won’t know which maps were dotted by Encinitas residents and which by non-residents. We don’t know which were dotted by people with business interests in development and which by people who might actually want to live in affordable housing if any were to be built. And we don't know which areas have the infrastructure to make affordable housing practical.

The question remains: what is our strategy? Is our goal to do whatever it takes to get our housing element approved? Is our goal to provide as much opportunity as possible for property owners and real estate developers to make money? Or is our goal to honestly and creatively meet real needs for affordable housing while preserving community character? Should we try to work with the League of Cities, state elected officials, and other groups to seek changes to the population projections and associated mandates?

I want to maintain a diverse community where business owners and their workers can all find housing here; where we provide for the housing needs of young families, seniors, and others who cannot afford or don’t want big single family homes in this community. I think we need to take a holistic look at traffic, land use and supporting infrastructure and decide where such capacity makes sense.

The mapping exercise I observed the ERAC, GPAC, and community workshops will not improve the quality of Council decision-making. I would like to see the Council provide some leadership. Give direction to the City Manager and let the Planning Department take responsibility for developing a GPU draft we can discuss. That doesn’t require taking Peder Norby away from this Highway 101 duties, where, by all accounts, he has been very effective. It does require accountability from public employees and the Council.

Hiring Process: The second issue is one of process. How and when does the City hire consultants? We have a Planning Department. I don’t understand why the Planning staff can’t facilitate meetings. But if we need a new facilitator beyond existing city staff capacity, issue an RFP and choose one competitively. If Mr. Norby wants to apply, and he is deemed most qualified, fine. But what if there is someone else who might have a better idea. We won't know if we don't ask.

The issue before the Council should not have been about Peder Norby’s character or competence. The issue is how the City Council and City Manager act as stewards of Encinitas. They have a responsibility to spend our money well, to enhance our quality of life, and to plan for our future. The General Plan Update process is a mess and putting Peder Norby in charge of it through a non-competitive contract with no clear deliverables won’t fix that.

Any expenditure on outside consultants should be made in accordance with established procurement policies, on a competitive basis, with clear deliverables and accountability. And when the whole Council votes to hire someone, whether it was the original GPU contractor, Mr. Norby, or someone else, let the whole Council be accountable for that decision. Everyone wants Encinitas to stay wonderful. We all want clean beaches, great schools, safe streets, a healthy economy, environmental stewardship, and neighborhood communities. Let’s work together in an open and honest dialog and move forward. We’re all on the same team.

Posted on June 20, 2012 at 11:07 pm

Booga, Booga – The Poor Are Going to Get Ya

This is about housing in Encinitas and some pretty hysterical accusations, reactions and forecasts of doom. Eavesdropping, talking, listening, fishin' and observing over the last several years of the General Plan Update (GPU) has been instructive.

To be fair, well off individuals are pretty low priorities on my anxiety index. All that comes along with institutionalized privilege is at the fingertips of these people to help them cope.  I don’t wish it on people, but I don’t worry either. I have compassion for the struggles that are life itself.  Losing some money becomes a relative measure.

Entitlement, in my observation, means all the businesses and commercial owners who believe profits need to be guaranteed. The “newest arm” of the GPU, ERAC (erase) was concocted by the council majority to give the El Camino corridor business, developer, construction, real estate group along with several residents and others input into the process. A recent meeting speaking about affordable house brought these “dog whistle’ phrases; "that kind of zoning," "those people," not "them" in areas that already have nice houses” and similar.

“The ONE representative of affordable housing at this housing element meeting tried to say that there are benefits to "that kind of zoning" and that diversity adds value, and the senior commission representative pointed out that we do have a lot of seniors and more expected, and they need to live somewhere.”

Bootstraps Boys, the Ownership crowd can stop this kind of input in a flash and they did. All the thinking is short-term, status quo without a whiff the next 20-40 years where reboot gets real. Everything becomes a goal of economic return and rewarding current property owners to enable them to maximize their return when they sell their holdings. Recall at the Sept. 19, 2011 orchestrated General Plan outrage parade when amongst so much hyperbole; Dan Ukkestad claimed the whole purpose of the General Plan was to drive profits. Really?

That’s completely backwards. If you have a city like Encinitas where nobody earned the year round moderate temperatures or the ocean or the sunshine or the beauty of nature the Bootstraps Boys can’t claim any of those things. A community that provides adequate housing and work opportunities and a safe healthy way to live and get around with ease to a wide swath of people with a wide swath of skills and interests is a bonanza for business and a council doesn’t have to bargain away tax money, land or zoning changes to woo them from the outside. And healthy towns encourage local over national businesses. Business will spring up because business goes where there is a healthy workforce AND market because owners want to live here too. Employees are customers and taxpayers, as these three aren’t mutually exclusive labels. With a livable wage, employees are the market and so much more.

But, to go further with what a General Plan entails, Melissa McEwen explains,

“My present concern is with the working poor, and the way they are regarded by the architects of the Ownership Society. Those men—and they are indeed almost all men, most of whose lives have been dictated by inherent privilege and family connections, which we're not meant to note while admiring their shiny bootstraps—believe quite firmly, and without seemingly a trace of irony or compunction, that one gets what one deserves in life.

[. . . ] If you want to live in a capitalist society that gives you the opportunity to get nasty rich, then we can't all be wealthy. And if you want to be the kind of person who doesn't pump your own gas, or make your own sandwiches, or clean your own house, or manicure your own fingernails, or drain your own dog's anal glands, or build your own car elevator, then there are going to have to be people who fill all those jobs.

[ . . . ] People who honorably dedicate their time, energy, and talents to jobs that might not pay well are indeed entitled to something—to not work their whole lives only to find themselves poverty-stricken, or hungry, or homeless after one small (or not small) medical crisis. And if we're not going to ensure that every job comes with a livable wage, access to affordable health care, and retirement benefits, then we've got to provide a robust and well-funded social safety net.

I don't think that's asking for much, in exchange for a lifetime of providing service to their chosen vocation.

Though I grant it's certainly easier to scream BOOTSTRAPS! and carelessly assert that people who don't have everything they need just aren't trying hard enough.

Funny how the Grand Advocates of Hard Work are always the ones making the easy arguments.

The poor are simply people without enough money. A great deal of energy in planning and working around the obstacle of limited funds means more money and time must be spent at tasks, travel and adaptation for survival. Unlike the people of privilege, every single day is fraught with potential disaster. One disease or medical emergency can plunge a person, a family into utter destitution – on top of the emotional devastation that comes with such an ordeal. Even so, the poor are blamed for their own condition, accused falsely and punished for a system they have not created. I know because I’m poor. I also know because I know privilege. This last is so much easier.

Images: Mobile homes were not a real thing in the real world. This was a set for a play in Europe some years ago, but a popular image on the Internet. McMansion from Canadian magazine Ad Busters.

Tuesday is Dues-day: Sunshine Ordinance

Tuesday is Dues-day. The dues are schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported?

You’re a citizen, an advocate for democracy with this first step, paying attention.

Introducing Oliver and Duff yesterday as the new guys, was intended as a welcome by proxy of a large community of people who may, like both Olivier and Duff, have just begun learning the ropes at Encinitas City Hall. Begging indulgence, I’d like to use their recent experiences specifically with this GPU snapshot in time to frame the idea of enforceable proscriptions through a Sunshine Ordinance’s in Encinitas.

The new guys give us the fresh eyes of what the city appears to be saying and doing. We’ll use these new guys’ experience of last fall’s melodramatic council majority and crony outrage tour de force. Veterans have watched this particular road show over the years to create political fanfare in an election season. So the tendency could be, “nothing to see here folks, move along, it’ politics as usual for this crew.”

But the new guys are mobilized to protect their own, and speak out. Moreover, though it initially sounded like they took the city's mayor, staff and seemingly reliable business people at their word that their best interests are at last going to be recognized and appreciated; now it grow more apparent that there is an unfolding understanding of more. 

Today's Sunshine Ordinance tip isn't a lesson in how the law reads as the newspapers (in print and online) will be filled with these facts all week. This citizen tip is for all newly activated people in New Encinitas and the other four communities regarding much needed sunshine on the General Plan Update, the ERAC and other council majority-inspired antics. Be aware of these dubious points and the potential violation each represents under current state laws:

• Pre-arranged or serial meetings amongst three or more council members. 
• Misrepresenting city contracts and procedures for political positioning. 
• Acting on non-agendized actions within meetings. 
• Misstating staff involvement in agenda
• Forming an advisory group without public disclosure; including applicant information or criteria for selection. 
• Changing meeting times without adequate notification and lawful time requirements. 
• Unstated goals and mission for citizen advisory group. 
• Unrecorded (that is, no city video) meetings for advisory group. 
• No accountability for . . . whatever lies ahead sans consultant contract or staff mandate. 
• No timeline or budget targets and no measure of success outside mayor and deputy mayor’s private targets. 

This list is speculative as the budget at Encintias You Need Us for investigative time (zero) and resources (zero) disallow pursuing the full truth of each. Please consider the following as homework; pick 1 or all:

1        email the mayor and deputy mayor to say you are watching and you want sunshine / full transparency:

·  Mayor Jerome Stocks jstocks@encinitasca.gov

·  Deputy Mayor Kristin Gaspar kgaspar@encinitasca.gov

2        email Teresa Barth to thank her for initiating Sunshine Ordinance goals for Encinitas for years now.

·  Teresa Barth tbarth@encinitasca.gov

3        watch for Patch and Coast News articles this week and please leave comments on articles related to Sunshine and Transparency in City Government.  

These are the dues for now, go and demand some sunshine. That is all.