Plenty of time

Editorial:

We've had lots of victories in the past few years. Just writing and speaking words changed the course of Encinitas history! We've lost more than a few too. We were dismissed by people who believed what city hall told them to believe. Stuff like, the city had the resources to build the hall park, even though the city had already spent too much of the money that was borrowed to build the Hall park. 

It is Super Funny. Was the plan all along to borrow TWICE to build the Hall park? He he he. It is actually funny, if you don't live here. 

We all know borrowing twice was not the plan. They borrowed $20 million for the park, PWY, library and firestations. Remember, the fire chief said we had to rebuild the 3 fire stations RIGHT AWAY or it would cost the taxpayers too much money to maintain old stations. Was that bullshit? Or, are we putting parks in front of public saftey? If you didn't catch on, the hall park is so underfunded that they are going to use fire station funds for the park.

A lot of people were told by male members of the council over the years that those NIMBYs and Barth continued to stall the park. Those NIMBY's had super powers. Even council candidates who ran on a "let's open the Hall park" platform were surprised to find out that financing the park was a problem. 

Nothing about millions of dollars and our city's crown jewell should be a surprise to the public, no?

It was no surprise to anyone who did a little homework (listing to propaganda doesn't count, do your own public records requests, please).  People who actually asked for documentation of the reasons behind the delays came to different conclusions, or at least a Hefty dose of skepticism and the realization that the city was not being transparent. The city refused to release key documents to the public. The public was kept in the dark.

Now we know why.   

Since at least November 2011, the City of Encinitas has been laying the groundwork to go to the bond market, AGAIN. That's huge. All signs point to staff scrambling for years to figure out how create a plan that gets the park built, but the public wasn't included in this process. The council can't credibly blame NIMBYs for poor financial decisions, so it was better to be hush hush.

Did it matter that the city sat on the issue of bonding? Yes. By keeping it secret and delaying the council discussion beyond the point where alternative options became unviable, they manipulated there way to a smooth and victorious decision. One that left us with a more risky financial plan than some of the alternatives.

Isn't it all so ironic?

There were the MANY years of delay to the construction of the fire stations.  Artificial delays? Recall, the council refused to program the construction of the fire stations or have much of a discussion in open session about the PLANNED delays to the station construction. That kinda looks  like they had made some decisions behind closed doors, in hindsight.