The old Encinitas City Council spent money educating the public for Prop C. See here for a beachhead into that history.
The new Encinitas City Council is poised to spend taxpayer money "educating" the public on Proposition A. Will the new council be willing to personally back up the material that will be distributed? If they aren't responsible for the content being honest, complete, fair and balanced then who is?
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ReplyDeleteI certainly hope the city's balanced and educational lament for Prop A should it not pass, exposes the detrimental effect 3 story alleged "work/live lofts" have created with their inability to supply enough parking spaces for their tenants, workers and customers along N. Coast Hwy 101 in Leucadia. Also, that it might raise local consciousness to the level of ONE former Encinitas Planning Commissioner who once said "Is this what we want on every block in Leucadia?". It also might give the heads up to eager developers that the pattern problem of such huge complexes not suited for this area is proving to be bankruptcy. Also that few if any who work at these "work/live lofts" actually live there. What a misnomer and breach of their sole intention. What a jacked up selling sound bite that cannot be mandated. Because no one who lives there works there, it causes TWICE the round trips to and from work and home as well as TWICE the amount of supposed parked cars.
ReplyDeleteI am fully for the Leucadia Streetscape, but if it were truly aimed at sustaining a healthy business district, it WOULD NOT remove hundreds of parking spaces on the east side of 101, nor remove 24 car spaces with the new striped bike path (at Cabo Grill). I don't scream too loudly about those huge errors, as I believe they have light infrastructure, that could be amended. BUT, I strongly oppose the cavalier and casual acceptance of approving any more 3 story structures that destroy the life source of our businesses: PARKNG, and the ambience and attraction of our human scale, small town character. Cities get in trouble and lay a snare for their future with wrong decisions all the time. (Especially in CA Redevelopment Districts as we've learned from the mere 4% who've been able to pay back what they borrowed since the inception of Redevelopment Districts in 1952; robbing local ma and pa shops to build resorts then going bankrupt - that kinda Lake Tahoe approach.) Lastly, the city needs to come to their senses about what adequate public parking means in reality. On the corner of Phoebe St. and 101 for example, the Planning Commission approved a mere 8 public parking spaces for four 3 bedroom condos and 4 businesses. Is that sane? Is that healthy for business, residents or tourists? No. This kind of dysfunctional over-development also leads potential buyers who have a wee bit of vision to ask: "Where am I supposed to park?" For these reasons I believe Prop A is the only vessel by which these problems can be reduced. Please vote YES on Prop A and save your neighbors a lot of grief and your business from some non-customer parking in front of it all day or night. Thanks!
Dear, dear Fred, don't you see that the purpose of Leucadia Streetscape is to produce development along the entire N101 corridor comparable to the monsters that have put your store and home in permanent shade? Many of us are wondering when you're going to wake up and smell the coffee.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Nici. Did I tell you, I had an epiphany? I realize that the neighbors adjacent to 101 don't want or need roundabouts. We would like to see a great bicycle trail along the railroad right of way; we would like to get back the lane on North 101 that was prematurely eliminated by Council, against the recommendations of City staff and the Coastal Commission staff. Also, the City's staff report for 7/18/12 showed that accidents along North Highway 101 showed fewer collisions involving cars than similar intersections throughout the State for a ten year period. So lane elimination and roundabouts are not needed for safety reasons. Traffic has already been slowed to 35 MPH. That should be enforced.
DeleteCouncil could put this matter on the ballot for the General Election. People would vote no on Roundabouts as they did in Del Mar, during the last general election, and in the City of Cotati. Also, Solana Beach decided against them. Nowhere else are they being pushed along Highway 101, OR along a railway corridor. They don't make sense. Pam Slater Price advocated against them in Del Mar due to cut through traffic. They would cause more cut through traffic through side streets in Leucadia, too, as well as slower emergency response times.
Roundabouts are unneeded and unwanted. We would like to preserve and enhance what's left of the canopy. The medians would have to be narrowed were the roundabouts to go in. The bogus workshops were not run by impartial staff members or an independent consultant. Peltz and Associates are known to travel across the country pushing redevelopment through roundabouts. People would lose all their parking along the railroad tracks if the roundabouts were to go in. But the worst thing about them is that they would be used by redevelopment and building industry interests to mitigate the environmental impact of increased traffic caused by high density development. Although we are already zoned for high density mixed use along the North 101 corridor, each development either has to perform an environmental impact report, or, use roundabouts to obtain "mitigated negative impact declarations," when, in fact, they would be traffic choking, not calming.
Fred Caldwell is right; more high density development is not good for Keeping Leucadia Funky. It would smother our community character in a gentrified, generic "Mainstreet USA" look, when we are unique in that we only have businesses along one side of the highway. Be assured, the actual neighbors, here, don't want to drink the developers koolaid. We do support a Greenscape, and Artscape, NOT the streetscam.
Nici- You are clueless. The streetscape is to improve the quality of life for all residents, business owners, and visitors to Leucadia. If you can't see that, than you are part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteSince you as anon April 23 9:34 PM have judged me as clueless, perhaps you can advise me and other Leucadia Blog readers just how "streetscape is to improve the quality of life for all residents, business owners, and visitors to Leucadia." Given the plan as foisted on the community against the will of the majority, its benefits are next to impossible to decipher.
DeleteWhatever clueless. You have no common sense. So no need to wast my time on the dumb ass clueless class like you and Lynn Braun.
DeleteSometimes its just better to recognize that there are stupid people in the world and its a much better choice to talk with more intelligent people.
Luckily our Council is more intelligent than you as well as 95% of the Encinitas voters.
Continue on in your clueless world and the rest of us will continue to better our community.
I'm so glad I had an epiphany! I take back everything I said. I'm completely and utterly AGAINST the roundabouts. I'm sorry I've chosen to call out a few people, like a big bully, while always remaining anonymous myself! I'm sorry that I've tried to fool you and don't admit that I am completely SELF interested in this issue, when I was advocating, before, for a STREETSCAM that would benefit a few at the great expense of many. I am sorry that I was trying to push more cut through traffic on you, and slower emergency response times. I apologize that I keep falling off the wagon and falling all over myself in my bitterness and my repeated boorish behavior.
DeletePlease forgive me. You're absolutely right, Nici. Thanks for participating here. It's good to have someone so bold as to post under your own name. I'm too afraid, still to do that, because I do see how others have been bullied and ganged up against, including by the gang of ONE, that was me. I apologize, and I hope that Council will do the right thing and either do a true needs assessment, or allow the public to vote on the roundabouts at the next General Election. That would cost less than $40,000.
The City has already paid over $567,000 to private contractors to lobby for and "facilitate" roundabouts on North 101, plus the $100K plus for Peder Norby, who, before was all for blighting Leucadia and setting up a redevelopment agency here.
Nici, thanks for your post. Like I said, before, I have had an epiphany. You are exactly right! The purpose of Leucadia Streetscape is to produce development along the entire N101 corridor comparable to the monsters that have put Fred's store and home in permanent shade!
ReplyDeleteThe storeowners, who want to remain small, or who are renting and don't want their rents to increase, and don't want to lose TONS of business during construction of the "streetscape,: with unneeded roundabouts at three way intersections WITH NO CROSS-STREETS, and the residents, are NOT in favor of redeveloping Leucadia, along the same lines as promoted by those who before pushed for a redevelopment agency. An RDA could only be initiated through BLIGHTING LEUCADIA. Thanks, in part, to JP, that didn't happen, and now RDA's aren't happening, at all in California. But certain commercial and redevelopment interests aren't giving up but have used taxpayer dollars to try to force roundabouts on us, when they ARE NOT WANTED, and are NOT RECOMMENDED BY THE U.S. DEPT. of Transportation along a railway corridor, or where cross-street traffic is significantly less than the main thoroughfare, which is Highway 101.
OMG... the rantings of the ignorant KLCC.
DeleteCan you be more stupid?
Dont use JPs name KLCC. He knows like everyone else that you have no sense.
DeleteIncidentally, we agree that monsters lurk next to my parent's address next door to the south. But even 1232 is not in permanent shade because of them. Not that that's not impossible for other lots should neighboring big boxes crop up. But there's no need to exaggerate what happened to us with a catchy term someone already borrowed from you. Besides, I think permanent shade is a plus when it's from trees.
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ReplyDeleteDearest Nici, If waking up and smelling the coffee means ditching 20 years of local input to make Leucadia the best it can be, I'll stay in bed. Besides, your coffee smells more like Kool-Aid to me. After living here for over 50 years, it's hard to not recognize what's good and what's bad for our area's businesses and residents on and adjacent to 101. And long before the 3 story structures next to me were built many did all they could to turn down the volume. Unfortunately it only went from 10 to 9 decibels. Brilliant ideas like robbing parking by building dysfunctional "live/work lofts" on 101 in Leucadia is NOT what the Sparc committee members envisioned when they wrote the Specific Plan, but when it got thrown to the Planning Commission for 2 years, all kinds of changes were made. Following and helping improve every element of Streetscape for over 20 years, it will indisputably enhance beauty, safety, efficiency, etc. But the root of the problem of over-development is NOT Streetscape, it lies in the bad elements entered into in the Specific Plan, California's SB1818 density law, developers who could care less what effect they have on our community, a Planning Commission that is clueless about what is good for a healthy business district and happy neighbors (especially when it comes to adequate parking and human scale development); council members that are blindly pro-development; affordable housing groups that sue cities for lack of density, and everyone who will be voting against Prop A. The only good news might be that water seeks it's own level and thinking developers are learning the hard way it doesn't take too long to discover that the 3 story work/live lofts they planned to make a bundle with go bankrupt on our skinny, one-sided stretch of 101. Sure, a nicer looking community has more value and is naturally more attractive to everyone. But the "Send This Junk To Disneyland" sign that was put in the park by your buddies at the KLCC (right after that area's improvements) is gladly not the sentiment for what the majority of locals want for Leucadia. I'm completely supportive of the healthy development of any business district that does not encroach upon or work ill to it's neighbors or itself. And that includes filling in the now vacant lots to create more continuity and synergism between businesses in our awesome town by the sea we all cherish.
ReplyDeleteFred dearest, As a longtime resident of Encinitas, you probably remember that after the freeway opened in 1966, Coast Highway traffic disappeared. That vacancy lasted literally for years and killed many 101 businesses. Traffic on 101 gradually crept back as population grew and some people got tired of the freeway.
ReplyDeleteSo it seems to Nici that the gridlock Streetscape's roundabouts will produce and the diversion of traffic to the freeway, Vulcan and Neptune it promises will have a similar deadening effect on 101 businesses. And that's saying nothing about the killer effect construction will have. Talk to the merchants on 101 and Cedros in Solana Beach to see how construction on 101 affected them.
Nici knows nothing about Disneyland buddies, but you do know that Streetscape's principal planner was Mr. Magoo, right?
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DeleteWow- Refering to yourself in 3rd person. Always a scary sign. I suggest a good shrink.
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:04, you fail to understand. Please try to do better.
Deletedido. and that why you deleted your comment. Right?
DeleteWhy yes, I do recall the day the freeway opened in 1965. Mom announced to Dad that evening "We've got crickets!" It was a welcome change with the speed dropping from 60 MPH to 40, and the daily backups from the Del Mar Race Track greatly diminished. The onslaught of development in the last 50 years has still not matched those days. Gas stations dried up and blew away as they cropped up om freeway junctions. A trend of major businesses was moving to El Camino Real. DEMA formed to retain a healthy business district and was extremely successful. Tax revenues from downtown last year more than doubled what they were 10 years ago to 2 million dollars. Downtown has never looked or functioned better. There are still problems with some bars late at night, but I'm like Ross Perot who said you see a problem, fix it. And the rebirth of downtown was not without the growing pains you mentioned for sure. But very few businesses were lost during downtown's reconstruction, but the outcume was fully worth the wait. And yes, Peder Norby held the torch the whole time. Just like he did for free when he, Sheila, me, Bob Bonde and Ida Lou Coley banded together to retain the library downtown. Dan Trifone recharged DEMA as well, quadupeling it's membership in one year. But he was not able to keep the Post Office downtown - another major entity along with banks and hardware stores that downtown was losing. Peder also went with me to NCTD for free to promote public transportation and the graphics whim I had for putting a woody truck on the sides of city busses. Not because of personal financial gain (like me, HA!), but because he like the idea and the attention it brought to 101. The same goes for when I asked the city to restore the 101 sheild to the hwy in 1997, and Sheila's immmense help renaming the entire road with one name from lagoon to lagoon. BTW, "Coast Hwy 101" was her idea for it's name. When people like these work together the better of all it yields wonderful results and I am very optimistic about the outcome of the Leucadia Streetscape as well. Roundabouts at first are a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow, but when you research them and see what they achieve in other cities, the vast majority of times they have stellar results. This in not unlike your gloomy forcast of roundabouts creating "gridlock" for Leucadia. But when you do the math. and count all the time people save traveling through Leucadia by NOT having to stop, more cars can travel from point A to point B in LESS time than was possible with all the stop signs and signals. The notion that they will cause more "cut-through" traffic on Vulcan Ave and Neptune is not realisitic when 101 will work better than it does now. And it will.
ReplyDeleteBesides, Mr. Magoo stands by his record. 36 crashes and not one fatality.
Seems your recollection of the freeway's opening in 1965 is a year early, but let's not quibble. Comparing 101 through downtown Encinitas with 101 through the 2.5 miles that Streetscape calls Leucadia is way off. The two commercial areas and respective geographies are vastly different. One of the most surprising things about the Leucadia Streetscape plan is that its strongest proponents don't seem to have studied it very closely. When its facts are correctly cited and attributed to the professionals who established them, those proponents deny or ignore the facts. For the sake of discussion, why are the only two options red lights/stop signs vs. roundabouts? And where do you suggest the five planned roundabouts will be placed?
ReplyDeleteHello Clueless the plans are already developed. Give your old mind some excerise and find them on line. Other main streets have prospered by similar streetscapes and so would ours. Go on a walk this morning and clear your head. Your mind is not working well.
ReplyDeleteNici dollink, Oh come on, who learns anything from nonquibble? My recollection is that my 2nd Cousin John D. Burgess was president of the Del Mar Chamber of Commerce in 1965 when he cut the ribbon on the opening day of 5. Lunch on me if I have the year wrong, but it'll have to be at Keno's. Hmmmm. I'll have the number 8 please, with cottage cheese instead of animal flesh.
ReplyDeleteStreetscape isn't the only entity that calls south of Athena St. Leucadia. The settlers did as well. I would imagine 100 years ago, Leucadian's called A st through Athena "New Encinitas". I would have. But let's not let names stand in the way of making an area better, like that one anonymous blogger loves to do.
No quibble here that downtown and Leucadia are "vastly different" geograpically. But logically, any place that improves circulation, infrastructure, appearance, safety and air quality reliably prospers.
There are not two options "red lights/stop signs vs. roundabouts". What I was highlighting are that two existing intersections with mandatory stops will be removed at La Costa Avenue / 101 and the north/south stops at Marcheta St. (formerly Orpheus and before that horned toads, doodle bugs and legless lizards - now that's vastly different!). Collectively, the time motorists save annually by not having to stop at those intersections amounts to YEARS of idle time with people idling; engines idling and then accelerating wasting time, money and fuel. You sound like a bright lady, do the math and see how long it would take you to get from La Costa Ave. to Encinitas Blvd with these stops, compared to how long without them. Figure in the new lower speed limits and you'll almost be in Cardiff in the same amount of time it took before these circulation improvements. The suggestions for where roundabouts should / should not be placed were made at Leucadia Streetscape workshops and included field trips to these sites for interested locals, each area having healthy attendance and participation. Where were you?
Fred, my dear boy, I was at the workshops with my garden club members and walked hand-in-hand with Mr. Mustachio south toward your establishment from La Costa Ave. You didn't see me? I'm hurt.
ReplyDeleteIt seems we got different impressions from the workshops and the walkabout. The girls and I felt manipulated and lied to. There wasn't a genuine article in the bunch of presenters. The fix was in before they opened the curtains.
We girls are not gullible types so we didn't buy Mr. Mustachio's dog-and-pony show. He took the money and ran after selling the rubes on the same scheme he sold at who-knows-how-many other burgs across this great country of ours.
We would like to see our beloved Leucadia truly improved -- not the canned PR version -- with ideas and plans from locals who respect the past and want a livable future.
We've been puzzling our pretty little heads why a guy like our Fred has swallowed the sham hook, line and sinker. He's for Prop A, we say, so how can he also be for that silly Streetscape thing? Maybe it's in his nature to be contradictory -- after all, he is a man!
As for choices: When silly Streetscape was OK'd, there were two. One was stop signs along the way, and the other was roundabouts. But, glory be, the roundabouts aren't along the way! Four of 'em are bunched together up north, and the fifth is way down at Leucadia Glass! What's up with that? Unless the constables enforce the speed limit, there's still gonna be a raceway between Jupiter and El Portal!
OK, signal at Leucadia Blvd., and that'll slow things down a bit when traffic is light and the sig is red. Otherwise, when traffic is heavy and that red goes long, the plug past your establishment and farther north will be made worse by three one-lane donuts at Jupiter, Grandview and Sea Bluffing You.
And can you imagine the confusion and fear caused by a two-lane donut at La Costa Ave., especially when a leg is added into the hotel that's gonna go there? It's enough to terrorize even Sherman tank drivers!
Why is there now a stop sign at Juanita's when there's not another going north-south along all of the Sheila-named roadway?
Finally, here's an idea that popped up at the garden club. Why not do a poll of everybody who lives in "Leucadia," honestly tell 'em all about the Streetscape thing, and ask them if they want it? I'll betcha that lunch at the Chinese-Italian restaurant they'd say no. And on Prop A, I betcha they'll say yes.
So, Fred, there's your contradiction jumping up again!
My Precious Clueless-
ReplyDeleteWhat garden club? Yours blows because Leucadia looks like shit compared to Cardiff. Cardiff has a garden club. Leucadia has a herb club (Marley man).
Again. You are so clueless you just waste time like that blubbering Lynn Braun.
The workshops and polls have been taken for 3 years. We the community created the streetscape and can't wait for its implementation.
We know you will continue on with your antics to try and stop any positive change, well good luck with that....
One thing for certain is change.
I am for positive change. People for no change are by default for negative change.
Sorry Clueless. Your going to have to do better than your cute little garden club stories to try and make a valid point.
So far your sounding like an entitled old mind with no ability to see positive vision.
So I hope you can find peace in your blind drawn old dusty home. Enjoy and tell My Precious hello.
My pretty neighbor,
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing contradictory about voting for sensible rules for the future of 101 - specifically voting yes on Encinitas' Prop A and voting yes on Leucadia's Plan 4A.
The romantic addition of yet more stop signs you and your Garden Girls would prefer to be installed on 101 are quickly becoming known for what they really are: inefficient, unsafe and needless. More stop signs would collectively waste yet more years of people's precious time annually; be bad for the environment and create more congestion on 101. Likewise, you refuse to acknowledge let alone are thankful for how well our long awaited and recently lowered speed limit on 101 is working.
I have a math assignment for you. Add all hours per day vehicles currently spend at the mandatory stops on N. 101 at the locations that will be removed by Streetscape. Calculate the average sum of time you come up with annually and report back to the blog. But you don't have to if you're not good at math and/or prefer to rely on your impression that Mr. Mustachio is an insincere charlatan, hell bent on destroying cities across the US for personal gain.
Thanks!
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ReplyDeleteHint: 22 mandatory stops will be removed with Streetscape.
ReplyDeleteYou are counting stop signs over and over at each intersection. Where does it say that the Marchetta stop signs will be eliminated? You have never answered that, Fred.
ReplyDeleteNowhere else in the State or the Country could Peltz and Associates come up with roundabouts at thee way intersections, only, along a railway corridor. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation recommends that they not be installed there. The psuedo roundabouts have a narrower diameter than that reccomended by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation, also, with less safety features. They will have the effect of narrowing the highway down to one lane in each direction, as they are one lane roundabouts, except for the one at La Costa.