🏛️ Council Meeting Recap – June 17, 2026
6+ hours. Midnight adjournment. A $158.5M budget that drew less debate than a farmers’ market relocation. Let’s distill it down for you. ⏰
💬 Quote of the Night: “But that wasn’t in council direction… So if we’re in court, we’d strike the whole record of that whole conversation.”
— Deputy Mayor O’Hara, after the City Manager simply clarified that the new Urban Forester would lead the Encinitas Urban Forest Advisory Committee.
⚡ SPECIAL MEETING — Work Plan, Round 4+: Council reviewed the FY26-27 work plan, now at six focus areas and nearly 50 goals. No vote to adopt tonight, but it goes into effect July 1 anyway and gets reviewed again in August.
Notable changes:
· ✅ 11 carryover items from last year’s plan added
· 🚦 A red light camera review objective survived — over O’Hara’s objection
· 🚫 “Housing First” language tied to the Encampment Resolution Fund grant was stripped — Mayor and Deputy Mayor object to the funding requirements
· ⚖️ Prop 36 prosecution language added — even though enforcement isn’t actually within city jurisdiction. (Prop 36 allows prosecutors to charge repeat shoplifters and hard-drug possessors with a “treatment-mandated felony”.)
· 🏠 Zero discussion on additional shelter for the unhoused. Zero discussion on housing affordability.
· 🌮 Food For Thought: This work plan has now been reviewed at least four separate times since March — and still hasn’t been formally adopted. At what point does “more review” become a way to avoid actually committing to anything?
💧 SAN DIEGUITO WATER DISTRICT MEETING: Routine. Board approved the FY26-27 budget and received a water resources update.
⚡ REGULAR MEETING
🎤 Oral Communications — Highlights
· 🌿 Predatory cannabis dispensaries flagged as a concern.
· 🏠 Dave Dean, again, on inadequate homeless resources — the HOPE team is fielding 30 calls a day and needs 3 more people.
· 🏘️ A Cardiff resident wants mutual consent required from both units of a duplex before approving a short-term rental next door.
· 🔥 Fire Safe Council wildfire prep event happened 6/18.
· 🎆 Bernie Dillon reminded everyone: no fireworks shows scheduled — don’t break the law.
· 🚦 SafeStreets Encinitas on red light cameras; confirmed for the July 1 agenda.
📋 Consent Item 8F Pulled — Leucadia At-Grade Crossings, Phase 3 Final Design ✅ Unanimous.
$299,880 added to the RailPros contract (new total: $944,705) for final engineering. Opponents wanted to wait for full approval first. One parent wrestled her two young kids at the podium mid-testimony — solidarity. Reminder: undergrounding each crossing costs $20M+, which is exactly why at-grade is the plan. Approved.
🚜 Farmers Market Relocation Appeal: ✅ Denied.
Neighbors appealed moving the Leucadia/Encinitas Farmers Market to Oak Crest Middle School while Paul Ecke Central rebuilds — citing traffic, parking, and noise concerns. Supporters pointed to 20+ years of community history. Council denied the appeal, approved the move, and tacked on conditions: noise checks, parking review, signage, and code enforcement at the first few markets.
🅿️ Permit Parking Program: New Rules, New Questions. ✅ Unanimous. New municipal code lets residents petition for permit or timed parking — staff studies it, then it moves through the Mobility Commission to Council. But buried in the fine print: Council can establish permit zones unilaterally, by resolution, with or without a resident petition or parking study. Cost: $80K to a consultant for the program and app.
· 🌮 Food For Thought: Does this effectively let the council privatize public streets? Could a council majority restrict parking near the beach without a single resident petition? Watch closely where the first timed zone lands.
🌳 UFAC Work Plan. ✅Passed 3-2. Urban Forest Advisory Committee Chair Tony Gurnoe presented a strong year: the mature tree ordinance (built at minimal cost vs. $150K for the native plant ordinance), an updated tree species list, parking lot shading proposals, and the restored “request a tree” button. O’Hara went hardest, using a literal whiteboard diagram to argue the new Urban Forester role makes UFAC redundant, noting the committee hadn’t discussed tree canopy in 24 meetings. His substitute motion to gut the work plan failed 2-3. The base motion — approve the full work plan, add a 7th item evaluating SR-101 canopy coverage, and require UFAC’s structure to return for review in December 2026 instead of waiting a full year — passed 3-2.
📊 FY27 Budget Adopted: $158.5M In, $149.2M Out ✅ Unanimous. Final budget and 5-year capital plan. Four new positions, $15.8M in capital projects, a $500K CalPERS paydown, and the $33K economic development line added back from May 20.
The only real scrutiny came from a resident, who asked why a $150M budget got debated at 11 PM “when we wasted an hour” on a farmers’ market not even on city property — while a $310K sewer manhole repair and Lake Drive storm damage got zero discussion. Council’s answer: we’ve seen this four times, moving on. The motion was seconded before discussion even started.
· 🌮 Food For Thought: The most expensive decision of the year drew the least debate of the night. What does that ordering tell you about priorities?
🥊 The Encinitas Project MOU: Tonight’s Real Fight. ✅ Unanimous as amended. More than an hour spent cross-examining an all-volunteer charity that raised $10K for senior scholarships in three weeks. O’Hara recited a predecessor nonprofit’s decades-old delinquencies, told the treasurer to his face “you didn’t tell the truth,” and lectured the group to stop mentioning a prior organization. Ehlers piled on with his own history lesson.
Councilmember Lyndes tried to just approve the MOU as written — residents keep asking how to donate, and this is the obvious mechanism. The amended version, with two clauses stripped and a transparency line item deleted, passed unanimously anyway.
· 🌮 Food For Thought: A volunteer charity raised $10K for low-income seniors and got an hour of cross-examination. A $158M budget got a motion before discussion even started. Which one actually moves your tax dollars?
📱 Remote Speaker Rules ✅ Unanimous. SB 707 compliance, effective July 1: remote speakers go audio-only, called after in-person testimony, no name shown on screen. Time donations are gone entirely. And the long-promised council code of conduct? Punted again, to August. Ehlers took the blame: “That is my fault, I got behind on everything.”
📊 Quick Hits
· 🔥 Wildfire brush-clearing resolution direction given for August.
· 🎉 EcoFest: Sunday, June 28, 12-4 PM, Encinitas Community Park.
· 🎆 Extra beach patrols planned for July 4th.
· ⚖️ Buried in closed session: the interim city attorney was made permanent — announced almost in passing as Ehlers adjourned at 12:04 AM
Enjoy tomorrow’s Summer Solstice, the longest daylight of the year at 14 hours and 26 minutes. We know – Encinitas City Council meetings just seem longer.
–Encinitas Action