Sand lobbyist Steve Aceti finds the one patch of cobblestones near Grandview Beach in north Leucadia to pose for this LA Times article about Prop K:
In Encinitas, a ballot measure to keep sand on the beach
Remember, the Prop K sand tax and the existing local sand tax collected have nothing to do with the SANDAG and Army Corp of Engineers sand projects. The Encinitas sand tax only pays for dumping sand once a year in the tourist section of Moonlight Beach (between the two lifeguard towers). Prop K sand tax collections will not replenish the area Aceti was photographed at.
From the article:
"At high tide, there is no beach," said Steve Aceti, executive director of the Encinitas-based California Coastal Coalition, as he surveyed the rocks littering the beach between the Bekins and Grandview access stairways.
Exactly, it's called high tide for a reason. On a 6 ft high tide you cannot walk on the beach between south Ponto and north Moonlight Beach. But you know what? You could not walk on the beach on a 6 ft high tide after the 2001 sand project either. Again, it's called high tide! You can buy a tide book at any surf shop or 7-11 for like a $1.50 and plan your beach walks accordingly.
6 ft high tides make it tricky to walk the bluff areas but low tide is a regular sand freeway. The low tide sandbars in Encinitas are smoother than the coast highway. Photo of Swamis taken from the J St overlook.
From the article:
Even if Prop. K loses, Encinitas still plans to dump sand next month above the mean high-tide level at Moonlight Beach, its most popular area. The sand will be trucked to the site from a construction project as a tradeoff with the developer.
Gross, construction dirt masquerading as beach sand-blah. No wonder so few people ever sit on that section of the beach, they are all down by the water in the natural sand. It would be better to plant a nice park instead of the itchy ashtray style sand they keep dumping there.
My proposal for Moonlight Beach, grass instead of the itchy sand area:
This is the other photo in the LA Times article, ahhhhhhh! Look, there is a small patch of cobblestones that have been there since before I was born, ahhhhhhh!
Burning question: If the cobblestones are such a menace, why no plan to remove them? We could dig them out, haul them off the beach and use them to landscape the center medians on Leucadia's coast highway 101.
My take on Prop K-In my opinion a 10% tax is way too much. Double digit taxes are evil! (and uncompetitive with the other beach towns). If we are going to tax tourist for staying in our hotels, motels and short term rentals the tax should be more like 5%. 2.5% of that tax can go into the general fund and the other 2.5% can go directly into a special beach fund that would pay for upgrades to our lifeguard stations, beach restrooms, showers and drinking fountains, trash collection and other beach infrastructure repairs.
I am voting for Prop K. Short term rentals should pay their fair share. Just like every other resident and tourist.
ReplyDeleteI do like your idea about keeping the money separate from the general fund and earmarking it for use on beach related services like trash cleanup or improvements to make it cleaner and nicer.
And not lifeguard services. Carlsbad doesn't have one lifeguard and they don't have any more drownings than Encinitas. Lifeguard duty equals welfare.
Well first of all, Beacon's is not named after a moving company....
ReplyDeleteSecondly,
ReplyDelete"Prop K sand tax collections will not replenish the area Aceti was photographed at." That's a great picture of Steve and the clouds, but I'm surprised of the tactics to promote Prop K by going a mile out of his way to find cobble stones.
Lastly, tourists already pay an 8% Transient Occupancy Tax at hotels etc. The 10% proposed brings our TOT funds to the level of most other CA cites. Not a tax fan regardless, but those are the stats.
PS. There used to be an island of grass around that large palm tree at Moonlight beach. But it probably went the way of neglect.
ReplyDeleteAceti and Bozo Doug Long saw that Prop G only missed passage by less than 100 votes, so they thought,"Wow, this is a slam-dunk. We can get another hundred votes!" It's not as easy as it looks. Besides, a man who literally makes a living feeding off municipalities that want sand, that never delivers is like a Rainmaker in a perpetual drought. When Norine Sigafoose fell ill and had to vacate her seat on the Carlsbad City Council, Aceti sat for four days in City Hall, trying to convince Mayor Buddy, Ann, Matt and Packard to appoint him to her seat.
ReplyDeleteHe was a virtual stranger to them, but his ego is so big he truly believed that they would do it.
When that failed, he immediately informed the press that he didn't like the Carlsbad Council and would be moving to Encinitas to run for Council; carpetbagging ego-maniac without an honest bone in his body; oh, what's that? His wife is making a movie?
He claims he never heard of Prop G until he entered a voting booth in June, bull pucky.
Wonder whose idea it was to pose at the beach?
Prop K is really about Dalager's vendetta against the short-term rentals he tried and failed to outlaw, not sand.
Screw the vacation rentals! They are a blight on our once great town. Just a bunch of carpetbagging transplants out for big bucks with the neighbors having to put up with their noise, cars and trash. They snuck in the short term rental ordinance with assistance from city staff and we are stuck with it. Make them pay as much as possible. I hope they lose money in this economy and have to convert to sell out.
ReplyDeleteVote Nanninga!
ReplyDeleteBeach restrooms?? Where?? Not in Leucadia!! You missed the boat again JP. Instead of pushing for beach restrooms for Leucadia beaches, you are advocating upgrades to facilities that don't exist.
ReplyDelete(RSPB shakes head and laments the lost value of the blog ...)
"If we are going to tax tourist for staying in our hotels, motels and short term rentals the tax should be more like 5%. 2.5% of that tax can go into the general fund and the other 2.5% can go directly into a special beach fund that would pay for upgrades to our lifeguard stations, beach restrooms, showers and drinking fountains, trash collection and other beach infrastructure repairs."
ReplyDeleteI've been the only vocal advocate for restrooms at Beacon's and Grandview besides you RSPB.
Encinitas residents--Not tourists--pay these TOT taxes.
ReplyDeleteI own a vacation rental. If my revenue from that vacation rental is $10,000 in 2009, I will have to give $1,000 of that to Jerome & Co. Sure, I could charge my customers that extra $1,000, but then I would lose customers (it's better to give my money to Jerome than it is to sit on an empty rental).
BTW, I already pay $8,000/year in property taxes. That's not a "fair share"?
And let me also add that my renters get along with my neighbors better than I do. My short-term renters and neighbors (on both sides) are constantly chatting it up together over the fence. In fact, I even get comments from my renters about "what nice neighbors I have".
THANK YOU!!
ReplyDeleteJ.P. Could we take a "blog vote" on how many locals want resrooms at Beacons and Grandview? I could then pass it along to Council, who hopefully would direct the Parks and Rec Commission to look into it. In case there is any confusion, the Parks and Rec. Staff is accountable to Phil Cotton and the City of Encinitas, and the Parks and Rec. Commission is accountable to the City Council. The Commission cannot look into things that we are not directed to look into ie: the Hall Property. I was confused about this until I became a Parks and Rec. Commissioner so thought I owuld pass it along.
ReplyDeleteCorrection:
ReplyDeleteIf Prop K passes, vacation rentals with $10,000 total revenue for 2009 will owe $909.09 in tax.
...I didn't do my math homework fer nuthin.
You're not alone. I'm for bathrooms at Beacons too. I even got yelled at for words I used to describe human waste that doesn't go into a bathroom at Beacons. Imagine them taking away the bathrooms at Moonlight or Swami's. But it's ok for Leucadia to have none?
ReplyDeleteWalker 2- You don't need to pay short term rental tax, if you don't short term rent. Just Rent you place out for over 30 days at a time and you don't have or cause problems.
ReplyDeleteI like most Encinitas homeowners, do not want to live next to short term rentals.
Fred and RSPB- I will gladly take no bathrooms at Beacons with No Bums.
Those stinky disease infested, fowl mouth and dangerous bums are gross and I don't want to build a bathroom that only they will use.
I for one, never poop in a restroom cause you can catch crabs from the place. And If I have to go pee... I'll go to a restaurant or just hold it until I get home.
Sad to say, but if you put toilets at Beacon's or Grandview the bum's will be living there. 7-11 or a liquor store nearby for booze, what else do they need? I'm sure that city will keep them up just like at Moonlight and Swami's. Enough to make you puke. Maybe instead of toilets we could put in roundabouts, that makes about as much sense as the ones we have now.
ReplyDelete"Fred and RSPB- I will gladly take no bathrooms at Beacons with No Bums."
ReplyDeleteVery good point. But why stop there? Get rid of the bathrooms at Swami's, Moonlight and Seaside. If we can hold our beer and caca until we find a restaurant's toilet open near any beach access locally, everyone else should be able to do that.
Besides, if bums had a place to relieve themselves it would probably only make them ornerier and more stinky.
There's nothing funny about crabs from a public toilet seat. It's happened to me 12 times. Glad I finally figured out where they were coming from! Thanks for the restaurant tip. Here I come When in Rome...
Geeze smarter feller, you don't sound that smart.... most people figure out rhe crab thing after one instance. Why did it take you 12? Are you a Dalager?
ReplyDeleteYes, it's better to have homeless people pissing and shitting in the alley instead of a public bathroom that is cleaned by city workers.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure local restaurants wouldn't mind a constant stream of dripping, sandy, barefoot and half clad people trapsing into their establishment to relieve themselves day and night, (like me and Mr. 7:39 do to insure we don't get crabs).
ReplyDeleteI don't mind one bit. I could use the business. The more beach business for me, the better. Come on by!
ReplyDeletePS- We don't let bums in, we clean our bathrooms, and they smell a whole lot better than the outhouses at Moonlight or Swamis.
Put the public bathroom at the roadside park. So the bums can use it.
ReplyDeleteWe could put it at Roadside Park and employ RSPB to keep it nice in exchange for the key to the quarter machine on the door. Problem solved.
ReplyDeleteIf he's willing to change his screen name here to Roadside Park Employee, that is.
ReplyDelete