Secret Gardens of Leucadia

UT The old grove in Leucadia

Garden flourishes on the site of ‘avocado acres’

[excerpts] Over the years, the two have taught themselves to garden in Leucadia’s mild, dry climate. Mediterranean climate plants fit both their design aesthetic and their family’s needs.

The entrance to the Jollys’ garden is through a handmade lotus gate and beneath the huge red and purple blooms of a ‘Ruby Glow’ passion vine. The structure that supports the vine was built to keep trash cans out of the neighbors’ view corridor, but on tour day, it will be a lovely way to access the garden. The gate leads to a sloping pathway of brick set in circles, the spaces between filled with small gravel. This permeable surface controls runoff from the street and irrigates nearby plantings....


The fifth annual Encinitas Garden Festival & Tour, a self-guided walking tour.

When: Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visit the Jollys’ garden and 22 other private gardens along with a greenhouse, the Paul Ecke School garden, The Monarch Program butterfly vivarium, and the newest Encinitas fire station garden.
Admission: $21 for adults in advance, $7 for children under 10. If space remains on tour day, admission will be $25 and $10.
The Gardener’s Marketplace at Orpheus Park in Leucadia is free and everyone is welcome. From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., speakers will address topics ranging from composting to low-water plants to gardening with children.
Vendors will offer specialty plants, art, photography, food, and more.

 

Safe Routes to School

Incoming mail:



Western Dirt has created a severe traffic hazard during construction of the "safe route to school" in front of Paul Ecke Elementary. Union Street evidently is to be shifted northward by several feet, but they have encroached more than halfway into the southern (eastbound) lane before widening the northern (westbound) lane, creating a pinch point less than two SUVs or trucks wide. This is what we call a "break before make switch" in electronics -- "make before break," widening the westbound lane BEFORE choking off the eastbound, would have been much better for the community.



They have also failed to provide a safe alternate route for pedestrians, who are currently forced to share what is left of Union Street with bidirectional traffic. Western Dirt has also torn up the entire route and left things in disarray, with fences down, temporary bans on parking, etc. Why can't they finish a section and then move on to another, working a block at a time?

Other things our readers have found questionable:

1) Why not make the walking surface permeable? Why not use D.G. paths instead of concrete, which will put more water into our already overtaxed storm drain system?

2) Putting a sidewalk on the east side of Vulcan when there is one on the west side already will cause some issues. This is where dozen of parents cue up to pick up and drop off kids. Does this mean more parents will have to circulate or block traffic and create a dangerous mess now?

3) Another spot where cars line up is being removed, causing more cars out in the streets. This is the strip between the corner of Union & Vulcan and the entrance to the little lot off Vulcan. Why not put the sidewalk along the fence line up to the kindergarden classroom instead of along vulcan. This would put kids further from traffic and allow the cue to continue to stay out of the way of north bound traffic on Vulcan.4) Why isn't this work being done during the summer recess?

4) Why isn't this work being done during the summer recess?

Thanks for the tires dood!

Someone left us tires on the corner of Jasper St and Hwy 101. For some
reason I don't see this happening in downtown Encinitas.

Leucadia Night Lights

Active flower growers off La Costa Avenue.

Cool Dorymen exhibit at the Encinitas library

Robert Wald, who puts out the fine free publication Ocean Magazine, has a really neat exhibit at the downtown Encinitas library right now. It's 46 photographs of all the classic original dorymen who operated out of Cardiff. Back when men were men and the lobsters were afraid. Go check it out.

Daphne's Corner

Water, water anywhere?

This was originally submitted to the North County Times and never ran.

sub: nct 2/11/10 @1159
Merriam Mountains and Rancho Guejito are both developments of over 500 dwelling units. As such, they are subject to a California Code that “prohibits a city or county from approving development agreements, parcel maps or tentative tract maps for any subdivision with more than 500 dwelling units unless a sufficient water supply is, or will be, available for the development prior to its completion. “

Given those conditions you have to wonder how project developer NNP Stonegate-Merriam ever got that verification, or that the Rodney Company (for Rancho Guejito) ever hopes to.

California’s Government Code 66473.7 also requires proposed residential developments of more than 500 dwelling units to submit verification from the local agency (in the case of Merriam Mountains it’s the Vallecito Water District) that such supply is, or will be, available prior to completion of the project.

So consider these facts:: 1. Our overuse of water from the Colorado River has been cut back because other states now want their full share, 2. State Water Project (SWP) supply is cut back due to environmental and engineering problems, and no timeline exists as to when/if it will return to full flow. 3. Drought conditions continue, and 4. the Imperial Irrigation District transfer of Colorado River water to San Diego is in legal limbo.

Those sources of water comprise approximately 80-90% of our water supply annually. Two of them -- Colorado River water and the SWP water -- are purchased by the San Diego Water Authority (SDWA) from the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), who are projecting a shortfall of 251,000 acre-feet of water in their chart for the year 2010. And a note attached to the chart reads: “Estimated demands include 235,000 AF of extraordinary conservation under MWD’s 5-Year Supply Plan.” How much further can we cut back if they fail in their plans? How “extraordinary” must we be? The other sources remain questionable also. Obviously, our water supply problems are not caused by drought alone, nor were they all problems when the Merriam Mountains Water Supply Assessment was produced in 2007.

Meanwhile, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) “2030 Regional Growth Forecast Update”, released in September of 2006, says that “By the year 2030 the San Diego region will grow by approximately one million people . . . “

We’ve got supply problems causing a mandatory reduction of water usage and we’re growing by about one million people? I’d say there isn’t a sufficient water supply for them now.

But the code doesn’t stop at “now.” It also says “will be.” That and mandatory conservation are where County Supervisors and the local agency find a way to approve these and other projects.

Desalination is the SDWA favored “will be” solution. The Carlsbad plant. along with possible plants at Camp Pendleton, Chula Vista and the South Bay Ocean Outfall Site are all options discussed by the SDWA Water Planning Committee -- even one at Rosarito Beach in Mexico. But the Carlsbad desalination plant can only supply “50 million gallons of fresh water a day, enough for 9 percent of the county's needs” (NCT 7 December, 2009.) Nine percent is far short of that needed by a swarm of new residents. Four plants at the same capacity might fill the need, but when? And at what cost? Do we really have a stable supply of water for the future?

And then there is this: A complete Annual Water Supply Report as required by Water Authority Administration Code is not available. As noted in the Water Committee meeting minutes of January 28 this year the “Staff was unable to draft Supply Report for Committee consideration because Metropolitan’s Integrated Resource Plan, critical to completing the report, has not yet been updated to reflect changed conditions associated with the State Water Project. Next report is scheduled for 2011, with the Urban Water Management Plan prepared in 2010.”

Given all of the above, how can County Supervisors decide that sufficient water supply exists, or will exist, to approved the Merriam Mountain project? Isn’t an updated Water Supply Assessment needed for the project? ‘Doesn’t “will be” require at least some certainty of future improved supply? Where is that in the face of recent SWP cutbacks, IID transfer legal problems and expected legal challenges to yet more desalination plants? What about Rancho Guejito and other as yet unknown large projects ahead?

Shouldn’t we plan water supply on the worst case scenario and without putting rigorous conservation measures on the backs of the residents of San Diego County? Aren’t current residents are being hung out to dry?
______________________________________________
John Lynn is a resident of Carlsbad 770

John Lynn has written about are issues that would have gone completely unaddressed by the local media without his input. He is the guy who does the tedious research that the rest of us aren't doing and he asks his elected representatives, "what's up with that?" He then shares his perspective on their response (or lack there of) with the public.

See Also:
San Diego Finds More Water
No Answers from State Rep Garrick

Building Codes

Haiti

One of the hurdles for building in Leucadia is getting your plans through Encinitas plan check. Should the free market be allowed determine engineering quality of homes and businesses?

Here are some excerpts from the CS Monitor.

Why Mexicali earthquake damage is nothing compared to Haiti

One reason for the lower death toll and damage is that the epicenter of Sunday’s quake was in an agricultural belt with few buildings 38 miles from the city of Mexicali in northern Mexico. The Haiti quake was only 18 miles from its densely populated capital of 2.5 million people...

The secondary factor would be seismic codes,” says Eduardo Miranda, a civil engineer specialized in earthquakes at Stanford University, who has studied earthquakes in the Mexicali region and is heading there this week. “Both in Mexico and the US we have seismic codes that in general are being enforced. There is a culture of earthquakes.”

But geography alone did not help limit damage. Just as in Chile, where a massive 8.8-magnitude quake, one of the strongest in a century, killed far fewer people than in Haiti, building codes and enforcement of them here most likely played a critical role, too...

Experts from both countries share research and therefore end up with similar building codes, says Stephen Mahin, a structural engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. He says that Mexicali's proximity with the US has led to a robust interchange of information on how to build correctly.

Mr. Miranda says that, unlike in the US, residential housing does not have the same standards as commercial buildings, which means many people build their own homes without the input of an engineer. But he says people still build smarter because of their experience with earthquakes.

Read the entire article here.

EARTHQUAKE

Everybody is talking about where they were during the Easter afternoon 7.2 earthquake.

I missed out on the whole thing because I was driving through the Leucadia blvd roundabouts.

Any local damage to report?

SignOnSanDiego.com reports 2 deaths in Baja: story

-JP

Happy Easter Leucadia

Leucadia Yard Art

HWY 101 Roadside Art

Friday News Links

Cardiff library expansion approved

Cardiff Vons shopping center renovations planned


City to change valet parking policy. This simple ordinace change took staff two years to update. Staff say they can't find records of why the city put the original policy into place.

Water forecast

Vintage car show at the fairgrounds. Expected to see them cruising 101

R.I.P. Kit Horn

Kit Horn passed away on 3/26/2010 at age 80. He was a true stoked surfer and a gentleman and an inspiration to all. Leucadia will not be the same without him.