Word from the Leucadia Underground, dig it:
The Andrew Neighborhood appealed the Planning Commission’s approval of Barratt America’s Nantucket project last week.
Our top eight reasons to cringe at the Ecke/Meyer/Barratt project are:
8) Barratt graded without grading permits (just like Rosa Parks)
7) Barratt got a custom home exemption, averting a publicly aired review
6) Underground gasoline tanks were ignored in the EIR,
5) No street parking within the development
4) The project leaves Andrew Avenue more narrow than it started,
3) Lot pads were raised 2-5 feet higher than necessary (to steal ocean views from existing homes)
2) A density bonus was granted to Ecke/Meyer even though they didn’t add any new low income housing,
1) Staff made numerous untrue statements to the Council regarding the project and Council has been uninterested in ascertaining the truth.
The neighborhood was too late to appeal the top 8 reasons. They weren’t too late to appeal Barratt trying to build houses that violate the height limits by several feet. So, last week the neighborhood went in front of the Council with their appeal. In an appeal the Council is suppose to act in their judicial role, ensuring all relevant laws are obeyed.
The appeal got going with Michael Schwaebe’s presentation to Council. He was really smooth, and paused at important points so that Council would remember them. It didn’t seem to work. That is Andree standing in the background. He had to flip paper copies of Michael’s powerpoint presentation because the City didn’t load Michael’s presentation on the computer. Staff was nice enough to provide a set of hard copies of the presentation, but they forgot to tell anyone that the pages had been shuffled.
Barratt’s staff sat together and did not look proud. They got caught cheating. Ron Rouse did all their talking. Seems like Rouse is always the attorney when developers are trying to get away with something in our town. He must be rich.
That is Ron Rouse standing and Everett Delano sitting. Delano is the neighborhood’s attorney. Rouse got that map in his grip by yanking it out of Delano’s hands. That was super funny. Delano is smiling. Right then, he knows the case against the approval of Barratt’s permits is only strengthened by Rouse’s attempt to distract the Council. Everett even agreed with the facts described by Rouse, but they were totally irrelevant to the appeal. Rouse’s arguments were “the most amount of nothing” we have ever heard. At that point, the uninitiated audience members thought that there was no way that Barratt was going to win.
The Council was treated to an extra dose of nothing, because about 8 minutes into Rouse’s address, the City Clerk stopped his clock and added about a minute and half to his ten minutes to speak.
That is Jerry Sodomka. He has been monitoring the Planning Department over that last few years. He tried to get Council to deliberate on the merits and actually address the issues relevant to the appeal. He has seen this Council get good at blowing a lot of wind and avoid addressing the issue on appeals. He also reminded Council that the appeal was an appeal of the Planning Commission and Staff’s recommendations. It doesn’t make sense for Council to just ask staff if they made a mistake and then say that they are voting for staff’s recommendation because staff attested that “No mistakes were made.” No justification necessary. It is surreal when the Council does that.
That’s Jerome Stocks. A very classy lady came to the appeal and read all the conditions requiring a Council Member to recuse themselves and then asked the entire Council to affirm that they didn’t have any conflicts of interest. None of the Councilmembers responded. At a different Barratt appeal I humbly asked Jerome to consider recusing himself because he accepted illegal campaign contributions from Barratt America. It would have been a good way for him to help promote trust in the system. The aware public surely needs some of that.
The appeal ended in a 4-1 vote, letting Barratt violate the municipal code(again). Houlihan dissented. Dalager, Jerome, Christy, and Bond did nearly flawless impressions of activist judges. Except for Danny they didn’t have the strength to just come out and say something like, “Today, we don’t like this law so we aren’t going to enforce it.” Instead they used some pretty messed up arguments. Danny gave staff direction to change the law, so in the future it would be legal to do what Barratt proposed. When he did that we thought he was going to vote to reject the plans because he seemed to admit to understanding that Barratt's plans violated the Encinitas Municipal Code.
-Kevin C
The city gave Barratt the 20,000 cubic yards of dirt that was hauled into the Barratt project. With the going price of fill dirt, Barratt may have received a value of over $100,000 from the city.
ReplyDeleteThe city used the excuse that the dirt was removed because of an emergency, and it would have cost the city to haul away the dirt. Barratt was doing the city a favor.
During February rains a small amount of dirt from the city property flowed onto La Costa Blvd and was removed by the city or Carlsbad.
The dirt given to Barratt was removed from the city site about six months later.
That project is a insult to both Leucadia and Nantucket.
ReplyDeleteHow did they get a custom home exemption when the homes are not custom?
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! I just got back in town to read a whole pile of unbelievable bs posts by petty Aceti who talks out of the side of his mouth worse than Billy Idol.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever taken a course in logic, Steve Assets of City?
If you had, you would understand the Socratic Method and fallacies of logic, with which your bogus arguments are rife. It’s going to take awhile to catch up with the newspapers. Thank God, really, for this blog, and all the caring participants.
Let me just comment, right away, that the ballot itself is misleading. It says that only storm drain users with water meters will have to pay the fee. The City told the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, in a court ordered stipulated judgment, that the fee would be weighted, because it would be applied per active water meter. Steve A (prop. loser) City knows this. That was the deception.
The reason the voters/taxpayers' requests were for the "wrong list" is because the City deceived us all. Clearly Aceti admits that this is a property vote, not a property owner with water meter vote, as indicated on the back of the ballot. In this case, a property tax is to pass by a 2/3 margin. All residents should be allowed to vote.
The City attorneys and Mr. Aceti are name calling, lying to those gullible enough to believe their phony baloney. Too bad we can't trust our public servants, City Council.
Aceti, corrupt City mirror onto volunteer citizens working hard, spending time and money, Aceti and City's dishonest, sleazy methods of distraction, name calling and deceit.
California Constitution guarantees that the affected property owners can vote by a majority. Per the ballot, per precedent, per statutory law, and per the Calif. Constitution, this vote should be passed only by a 2/3 majority of all the residents. All residents, and businesses, benefit from storm drains.
Aceti tries to take advantage of the confusion caused by the City’s own misrepresentations and campaign of misinformation, lobbying, and political back patting. Aceti and City try to create a straw man, turning good citizen volunteers, activists, into fools and “suers,” and worse, bad mouthing us, creating confusion, division, distrust and partisanship, always escalating unfair taxation without representation. Throw the bums out. Vote No on C.
Honoring the wishes of us taxpayers who have supported their efforts, as our own, spending our hard earned money, and time, is the motivation of the taxpayers’ associations. These are true grassroots efforts, not crass manipulation by shills hawking their hyperbole and rhetoric, scams sponsored by publicly funded lobbyists and obvious con-artists.
The neighborhoods are tired of deceitful private and public corporation lobbyists being given preferential treatment. We all want due process of law, and quality of life. We deserve it!
Don't tread on me, wicked bad Aceti, City, including ineffective, two-timing Council biased city attorneys, overpaid, overspending City Manager, Miller, light in fiscal restraint, common sense, courtesy.
ok Ihave a question. If the pads were raised for ocean views why don't those new houses have big windows to take advantage of the views? what was the point of hassling all the old school locals?
ReplyDeletethe sad, sad thing is that the yucky developer attorneys and city attorneys will make big bucks out of this process, no matter what.
ReplyDeleteAlso sad to see the rudeness of Rouse at the City Council meeting, jerking away the paperwork from Leucadiacares attorney, Everett Deleano. Everett may have smiled; I'm afraid I would have held on to the paperwork for dear life.
Yes, No on C will send a clear message, especially after No on A. We need new Council members, new city attorneys, and new manager. Sad, but true.
Keep the faith, in truth, integrity, ethical public servants. Power has corrupted those that sit on high, now, making bad decisons. While we don't always agree with M. Houlihan, she showed courage in being the sole dissenter.
The form, rules become more important than the circumstances, situations, people they are meant to guide. We are not to be micro-managed. Government is to be by the consent of the governed.
Encinitas City Council and their lap dog staff are being led around by City Manager, Kerry Miller, and wicked city attorneys. Make no mistake. Their time will come.
Corrupt public corporations shall be undone.
Funny how Aceti's group is called ECCO. Pretty close to EDCO, trash collection co., which was illegally forced to collect our storm drain maintenance "fees" without our consent, and without the vote of the required supermajority of Council, either.
ReplyDeleteDalager voted on the dark side on this one, just like on this recent Barratt Nantucket fiasco.
City Attorneys love litigation. The more hours at $150.00, the better. City Council relishes crying foul when City is sued for its wrongful actions. Poor us, they holler. We are being sued! That is our only recourse, it seems. That and kicking you out of office.
If you care, Leucadia, vote out incumbents, pay attention to unethical politicians, lobbyists, manipulators posing as public officers.
Here is my letter to the dditor that ran in The Coast News.
ReplyDeleteBarratt American's/Michael Pattinson's Nantucket project was shoved through the City at the benefit of the Council’s main campaign backers and the expense of Encinitas taxpayers. The City has once again consciously broken the law and exposed itself to legal liabilities.
The neighbors around the site are not against development; many are in the building industry. Barratt’s development is located amongst five new developments. Only the project tied to political insiders has been troubling. The project was appealed because laws were being ignored and the City was not acting in the public’s interest. Laws should be followed or changed. The appeal, and recently filed lawsuit, will not stop development.
At the appeal the Council shattered the publics’ remaining trust. Councilmember Bonds threw up his hands and complained that he was unable to handle argumentation from two conflicting attorneys. The only problem was that the neighborhood’s attorney agreed with Barratt’s. Their attorney argued irrelevant points and the City’s attorney never spoke.
Dalager asked at what point did staff stop following the written law. He also asked who had the authority to override the relevant section of the law – the Planning Commission. There is no record of the Planning Commission voting to use that authority. To our amusement Dalager still voted to ignore the law.
Their arguments were illusive to follow but one arm of Stocks’ and Guerin’s argument against the appeal was that the neighbors should have appealed when the property was initially subdivided. Given that there was no notification or record that the Planning Commission voted to use their override authority that argument flies in the face of common sense, fairness, and transparent government. How could someone appeal a decision that was never made public? This is one more example of the Council using shaky explanations to cover shady behavior.
The vote was 4-1? Same 4 that get there money from Barratt!
ReplyDelete