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O PINION &EDITORIAL LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A different approach? The U.S., the richest country in the world, doesn't have the money to provide health care and security for its citizens, even though virtually every other developed country does. Republicans continue to call for social cuts that aid the poor of our country while Democrats seem hog-tied. So why can't we equal other countries in providing for our citizens? Is it because we spend half of our federal budget on military? George W. Bush increased the military budget ~30 percent, and it hasn't come down under Democratic rule. And look what our military has achieved: Iraq and other foreign disasters. With the greatest military on Earth, we can't win. Perhaps we need to take a different more responsible approach, helping rather than harming others, both here and abroad Milton Saier, Encinitas No on B In their latest flyer, the sponsors of Prop B claim their policy is, “clear, straightforward and uncomplicated.” Apparently they don’t want to muddy the waters by providing voters with actual facts. It’s easy to claim things are simple if one doesn’t bother to include the details that really matter. So just how uncomplicated and straightforward is Prop B? Prop B overrides the city codes on parking, noise and alcohol. And it leaves our City Council powerless to fix any problems that result from Prop B’s policy. Prop B proponents ignore the licensed traffic engineer’s conclusion that adding 75 additional parked cars to the area on two days of every weekend will create impacts on parking. And what about the costly elections that will be required to fix any and all problems that arise from Prop B’s lax policy? Or the legal fees the city will have to spend to defend this inflexible, poorly written policy? The only thing simple about Prop B is that it removes all common sense safeguards that our City Council enacted to protect the public and nearby businesses from parking and safety problems. Vote NO on Prop B Robert Glatts, Solana Beach
Lane diet According to Thomas Paine: “Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” Encinitas City Council hasn’t been reasonable in ignoring the public’s needs for transparency, clarity, and honesty in our city’s ongoing actions, and inactions. Encinitas too often obscures facts by relying upon data, which has been demonstrated to be massaged and manipulated, to meet preformed conclusions. Regarding the lane-diet on Coast Highway 101, and more traffic now diverting through residential neighborhoods and a school zone,council has depended upon traffic counts, relayed at the Dec. 5 Strategic Planning Meeting-Traffic-PART 2, including data compiled for Highway 101, Neptune and Vulcan, for the lower traffic months of October, before and after lane elimination, as well as the pre-summer months of May and April 2013, post lane-diet, only. No before/after lane-diet measuring of traffic during peak summer or winter holiday periods was executed; the city’s choice of specific months monitored to establish traffic counts for motorists, only, is misleading. A Jan. 3 Sharrows article in The Coast News reviews bicycle safety. Captain (Robert) Haley reiterates that cyclists, whether in a bicycle lane or Sharrows,are to ride single-file, unless passing. A new law also requires that when motorists pass bicyclists, a three-feet minimum clearance between car and bicycle is mandatory. Since bicyclists legally must ride singlefile, it’s insufficient reason existed for the city to install an 8 foot-wide bicycle lane northbound on N. Coast Highway 101 to La Costa Avenue, at the same time eliminating a lane for motorists, last February. However reasons abound not to eliminate a lane. Reducing a major roadway, circulation element arterial to three lanes from a fourlane configuration requires a Coastal Development Permit, Specific, General Plan and Local Coastal Program Amendments, which all remain incomplete. Local commuters now experience greater challenges turning north onto Coast Highway 101; emergency response time is also further delayed. Lynn Marr, Leucadia
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JAN. 10, 2014
Proceeding with a matter of trust INSIDE OCEANSIDE BY KEN LEIGHTON
T
he city manager runs our city. While it is the elected city council that sets the policy, it’s their handpicked leader who carries out their policies and is supposed to do what’s best for his city. We must trust that he will truly try to make the best decisions on our behalf. Steve Jepsen is back in the saddle as our returning city manager. He ran our town from 2000-06. Political changes (meaning he lost his council majority) led to his separation from Oceanside and his lateral transfer to manager of Yuba City. A new political reality (meaning he now has a majority of support with council members Jack Feller, Gary Felien and Jerry Kern) has called him back to run Oceanside where he has maintained a home for years. But Jepsen is not without his detractors. Mayor Jim Wood voted against his return. Councilwoman Esther Sanchez not only voted no, but said he couldn’t be trusted. Nevertheless, a majority of the council has decided he should be back in the saddle and they get to make that call. I would maintain that the best way forward is to support him as our leader and allow him to lead while also allowing councilwoman Sanchez to maintain her (hopeful) civil skepticism. In a recent interview with me, Mr. Jepsen did not shy away from admitting to grave errors that happened in his previous tenure as city manager. More on those mistakes later. Let’s look at one glaring reality: he hires the department heads that actually run our city. Jepsen didn’t seem to do so bad when he hired our current police chief, Frank McCoy. The OPD has generally done well under McCoy’s eight-year stewardship; I think it is safe to say. McCoy is retiring and as it turns out, Jepsen gets to hire our next chief. It may be his most important decision. When he hired McCoy he went outside the department for his selection, even though there were applicants from within the OPD. There are at least two OPD captains who want to get the nod this time. Jepsen says that having been a chief already would certainly be a plus for a prospective candidate, but he also said
that an in-house candidate “may have an advantage” in that he would know the lay of the land. I always thought that one of the major decisions he makes is to decide which outside company gets awarded those lucrative and sought after contracts to do project work for the city. Jepsen informed me that those decisions are generally made by his department heads. All contract decisions are ultimately approved by the council. “We make sure the work gets spread around,” he said. Jepsen says local companies also get “every opportunity” to win the contracts over outside companies. I was pleased to be told that he agreed with me that our town could use a well-connected, magic man (or woman) who could successfully bring bigger and better businesses to town — someone who could envision and then affect a more robust, booming economy. But he added that such a position would have to come after something he calls “budget restoration.” In other words, we need to get areas of public safety and facility maintenance (potholes, etc.) refunded first before any new positions are created. “We need to focus on outreach. There needs to be a go-to person at a high level with established contacts who can focus on the big picture.”
Jepsen’s fingerprints will be all over upcoming major capital improvement projects... Regarding economic development, he predictably said that jobs, job retention, small businesses and tourism are his major priority. Jepsen’s fingerprints will be all over upcoming major capital improvement projects including new downtown infrastructure, El Corazon completion and the La Salina water treatment facility. I noted that at a recent planning commission meeting regarding the new Mission Cove low-income development at Mission Avenue and Airport Road, that there was a concern about what type of on-site businesses would be allowed to TURN TO OCEANSIDE ON A23
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