Encinitas Mayor Blakespear Considers Resigning

When I got home the night we guillotined Bruce Ehlers, I had something of an epiphany.

Gosh, all those angry people! Clapping, booing, shouting, waving signs. If I had allowed the usual three minutes for people to speak, there could have been a revolt.

My thought at home was, golly, what if I’m wrong and Bruce and all those angry people are right? What if Bruce really is objective? Like a judge, I mean. As a planning commissioner, what if he really does put his personal feelings aside and makes decisions based on the facts and applicable laws and ordinances?

Could it be that my motives in decapitating him were political, with a dose of personal revenge tossed in the mix? Could it be that I’m just pushing my ultra-progressive agenda and trying to boost my state Senate candidacy? Could ambition be blinding me to my own motives?

Am I denying Bruce’s right of free speech? More broadly, free expression? Am I wrong in requiring planning commissioners to march in lockstep with me? For that matter, not only planning commissioners but all commission and staff members? Should I let them have their own minds?

I’m the elected mayor. Isn’t that the same as being the big boss, of having the right to require everyone below me on the totem pole to salute and click their heels whenever I speak?

Were Bruce’s decisions really putting the city in legal jeopardy and keeping families from being able to live here? Was he truly thumbing his nose at my 100% commitment to addressing the affordable housing crisis?

You know, when I look at the figures, how far has the city gotten in providing affordable housing opportunities? Not very, I’m afraid. When I compare the number of market-rate units built with the number of affordable units built since I’ve been on the City Council, I see the disparity is huge. If we keep the current ratio, I have to admit we’ll never reach our RHNA.

That added to my dilemma. And out came my epiphany. Gosh, what if my opponents are right and I’m wrong? Should I resign?

Mayor Blakespear: “I did not intend to have this be a public execution.” 

I wanted it to be private by phone call and instant compliance. That damn Bruce Ehlers had to make his execution a big, public issue — and during a City Council meeting of all things!

Listen, I’m mayor. It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to. I can have conflicts of interest galore, but I never have to recuse myself. I can cater to the BIA, my PACs and my developer friends while bearing no guilt or responsibility. And so can any member of the City Council — that’s our right as elected officials.

Residents? Citizens? Pfft! Thank you for your comments, which I ignore. What do you think this is? A representative democracy?

I pay no attention to your input, but you have to abide by my no-clapping rule during council meetings. I got that idea from the California Coastal Commission. They’re just as corrupt and unresponsive to the public as the Encinitas City Council, so that makes them a perfect model to follow.

And to answer one speaker’s question, no, you can’t clap for a recess. I gavel a recess whenever I’m about to lose my cool, and I don’t need any applause.

Bruce Ehlers has been so obviously biased in his Planning Commission decisions that I shouldn’t have to give examples. He’s been a naughty boy, and he deserves more than a spanking. He has had the unmitigated gall to criticize me and the City Council’s goals and policies. He fails to understand that the city does not challenge developers on the basis of the municipal code and state laws. We just rubber-stamp whatever they propose.

As mayor, I reserve the right to make petty, childish, arbitrary, vindictive political gestures. I enjoy the support of the council members in that right. As Councilwoman Hinze revealed by saying she would vote with the majority before the public knew what the majority was, we decided Bruce Ehlers’ fate before the meeting. Then we each devised an elaborate justification for our votes. That’s par for the course. It’s what we always do. We all look bored to death during the hearings because we already know the conclusions. The hearings are a charade.

It doesn’t matter that Bruce Ehlers is a man of high moral character, a genuine, principled man of integrity, a man who has served the best interests of the community for many years. What matters is he has not only stepped on my toes, he has stomped all over them. I will not be questioned. My motives and actions will not be sullied — especially when they deserve it.

I have my political future to protect. I cannot have Bruce Ehlers or anybody else jeopardize my ascension to the state Senate and governorship. Whoever gets in my way will suffer the same execution, whether in private or public. Mark my words!

Queen Catherine Speaketh: Thee Knave Bruce Ehlers—Off With His Head!

“Forsooth,” sayeth Queen Catherine, “thee knave Bruce Ehlers haseth the temerity to violateth my wishes! He speakeths and writeths for local control of development. He vowethed to representeth the residents and has kepteth those vows. He holdeths not to my program. He holdeths no loyalty to his Queen.

“I cannot haveth such a knave on my Planning Commission,” sayeth Queen Catherine. “I must haveth obedience and subservience. A righteous independent voice cannoteth be heardeth. He kneeleths not before Sir Randy. Off with thee knave Bruce Ehlers’ head!

“He makeths it worse by being a candidate for my Court of Jesters,” sayeth Queen Catherine. “Oh, reverseth thy timepiece. I haveth misspoken. If thee knave Bruce Ehlers winneths election cometh November, my reign as Queen of Encinitas by then will haveth ended. Without me there to cutteth his tongue and breaketh his fingers, he will runneth amuck, he will ignoreth thee BIA and enforceth local control by thee residents.

“I will not haveth such,” sayeth Queen Catherine. “Thee knave Bruce Ehlers musteth be stopethed. The privies be yon. Off with his head!”

City of Encinitas Plants Tree

On March 15, a few self-identified Loraxes showed up to speak for the Torrey pine the city of Encinitas planted inside the turnabout at El Portal and Leucadia 101.

At 15 feet tall and with a trunk nearly six inches in diameter, the tree puts the lie to naysayers who claimed newly planted Streetscape trees would be broomstick-diameter saplings.

City Arborist Chris Kallstrand has been assigned to monitor the tree’s health, to periodically measure its diameter and height, and to project in what distant year it will officially become part of the promised canopy. 

NCTD’s policy is not to let any tree in the railroad right-of-way grow large enough to make a canopy. So any canopy that might form would have to grow from the median and west side of 101.

It’s hoped that no surprised driver will jump the turnabout curb and plow through its center. That occasionally happens at the Santa Fe Drive and Leucadia Boulevard turnabouts. It would gravely damage or even vanquish the noble Torrey pine.

Local activists want the tree to survive, perhaps so they can festoon it with Christmas lights, ornaments and an angel topper. The Torrey pine could grow to rival the Danforth Norfolk Island pine at C and Fourth Streets across from Moonlight Beach.

In January 1992, Loraxes planted 101 trees along Leucadia 101. Twenty years later, 33 survive. The hope is that this year’s Torrey pine will outlast the 68 that didn’t make it.

The El Portal-Leucadia 101 Torrey pine was planted straight up and down. That’s opposed to most in the long line of Torrey pines that replaced sycamores along Garden View Road. They were planted tilted toward the pavement. 

Mayor Blakespear commented that some Leucadia 101 trees had to be removed due to disease or being in the way of Streetscape’s expansion. She said dozens of native trees will take their place. That’s at odds with earlier facts that at least 90 mature trees will be removed and 839 new trees will be planted.

Observers found City Councilman Tony Kranz speaking for the trees during the planting of the Torrey pine. Some remembered that during a 2010 candidates’ debate, Kranz declared he wasn’t a tree-hugger. Evidently, as a 2022 candidate for mayor, he’s wised up.