This General Plan Update (GPU) restart process was brought to you by the city council majority's scheme described in a whole series, start here and here if this is new to you.
Despite community-wide frustration and disappointment coming out of the open houses in New Encinitas, Leucadia, Cardiff-by-the Sea, Old Encinitas and Olivenhain; there were 500 people who attended the 2 big workshops to place dots on maps to communicate where they thought high density housing development should be located.
Now, two months later the agenda item on last Wednesday's meeting included an update on this update process. One aspect of the evening's deliberations are captured in clips below. A public speech from Pickering regarding respect for citizen participation and clips of two different responses to the overall public participation in the mapping exercise experience, from Gaspar and from Barth.
The great chorus of voices 500 strong (albeit a few out of towners and overlapping commercial participation stuck in the mix) are a group that must not be placed in a secondary position behind ERAC as the council majority is insisting. It has already been done once, where hundreds and hundreds of community members participated in months and months of workshops and events to only have their voices silenced by Gaspar and the rest of the council majority and community provocateurs and financial players generating fear and discord instead of deliberation and problem solving. In a politically staged process at council and in the press, past community work in the GPU was declared dead under the guise of the monster from Berkley consultant takeover. Bwaahaaa! Not again.
Now there seems to be plenty of time and energy towards redlining and exploration of alternatives (a good thing) that for some reason was absolutely not even whispered of last September 14th. Yes, it does indeed smell badly. But now there are hundreds more from New Encinitas who are quick studies and dedicated activists working really hard. Taking time, exploring things could be a real thing in the real world. Counting on New Encinitas as the sound asleep voter base, little sacks of cash and votes, isn't as surefire as it used to be for the super majority sitting on council and running for election.
Rachelle Collier wrote a wonderful letter in April about this and it is a perfect time for a re-read, especially for the New Encinitas activists. We are all in this together.
