Back from summer break. First meeting with call-in comments. And within 20 minutes, the Deputy Mayor had declared himself out of order.
🏛️ Council Meeting Recap – August 12, 2026
💬 Quote of the Night
• Mayor Ehlers: “I wish you would stop, Jim, because you’re violating… I should put you out of order at this point.” Deputy Mayor O’Hara: “I am out of order on this.”
The exchange came after O’Hara tried to shut down a resident’s public comment with a “Point of Order,” claiming personal attack. The Mayor overruled him. O’Hara kept angrily interrupting the Mayor anyway. A supporter in the audience joined in shouting “Point of Order” too. 🎤 The resident got to finish. His two minutes became four. 🤷
⚡ Special Meeting @ 4PM — Sewer Code Gets Its First Real Update Since 2002
Staff walked council through proposed amendments to Municipal Code Title 18 (Sanitary Sewer) — untouched in any meaningful way for 24 years. The update brings the city into compliance with current law. One change worth flagging: the window to appeal sewer charges and receive a refund would shrink from four years to six months. No action taken. Council gave feedback; staff returns with a public hearing later.
• 🌮 Food For Thought: Going from a four-year refund window to six months is a significant reduction in resident recourse. Who benefits from that shorter clock — ratepayers, or the city’s accounting?
🎤 Oral Communications — 10 in person, 2 by phone
• 📞 First meeting with call-in participation. SB 707 is live. Two minutes each.
• 🏘️ The development record, read aloud. Brad Lefkowits listed every project this council promised to fight and then approved: Bella Vista, Camino, Ocean Bluff, Sage Creek, and Quail Meadows — the largest project in Encinitas history. He also pitched AB 787, a 2021 law letting cities convert existing market-rate apartments into deed-restricted affordable units and get RHNA credit for it. A 400-unit Huntington Beach complex already did it. No new construction required.
• ⚖️ Bob Ayers relayed the August 7 Vista Superior Court ruling in City of Encinitas v. Western National Properties: the judge sided with the developer, dismissed the city’s claims — and denied leave to amend. No rewrite. No second try. He criticized the council majority for ignoring expert legal advice and shopping for an attorney who’d tell them what they wanted to hear. (That’s the public comment O’Hara tried to shut down.)
• 🚸 Safety, from every direction. Kelly Kelce (Safe Kids San Diego) spoke about lives lost on Encinitas streets and urged council to keep the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan moving. Judy Berlfein (Encinitas Bike/Walk) made the same point more bluntly: we already have a Safety Plan — don’t reinvent the wheel. Molly Hintlian thanked council for the Park Dale Lane crossing guards and asked for more at Encinitas Blvd & Balour. Ellen Burr wants an actual education program.
• 🎆 Drones worked. A Cardiff resident reported the first quiet July 4th in 39 years, thanks to the Sheriff’s drone enforcement.
• 🕐 Mobility & Traffic Safety Commissioner Ron Medak asked council to extend the 3-minute limit for public comment.
• 🐕 Parks & Rec Commissioner Dave Dean wants a city-sponsored July 4th event and gave a shoutout to the recent Dog Days of Summer event.
• 🚭 Two callers raised youth vaping and opposition to AB 2697 (cannabis drive-throughs).
📋 Consent — Two Items Pulled
• Climate Action Plan Annual Report ✅ Vote 4-1 (Lyndes dissenting) A routine monitoring report turned into a referendum on whether Encinitas should have a Climate Action Plan at all. Several residents used public comment to argue climate change isn’t a real concern and the CAP should be scrapped for a vaguer “Environmental Action Plan.”
Council largely obliged the framing. Councilmember Lyndes moved to approve the report as presented — her motion died for lack of a second. Ehlers then substituted a motion to merely accept it, with O’Hara seconding and pushing for environmental measures like reef restoration and beach sand instead of emissions tracking.
Lyndes voted no, warning that the amendment language puts the holistic nature of the CAP at risk of being diminished. She also reminded colleagues the city already has a natural resource conservation element in the General Plan — the tools exist, they just need integrating.
Full CAP review + cost analysis returns September 16 or 23.
• 🌮 Food For Thought: A councilmember moved to approve a routine progress report and couldn’t get a single second. What does it say about this council’s direction when even acknowledging climate data has become a 4-1 fight?
• Storm Drain Rehabilitation ✅ Vote: Unanimous. Design package approved; project goes out to bid. But resident Fabian Gonell did the math nobody wanted to hear: the city is rehabilitating less than 1% of its 65-mile storm drain network per year, while repaving 8% of streets annually. And the objective from last year’s work plan to line all corrugated metal pipe within five years? Gone from this year’s plan. Ehlers pushed back — the video inspection is 60% complete (a first for the city), $2.6M in FEMA reimbursements are pending, and a 5-year CIP storm drain line item is coming.
• 🌮 Food For Thought:: With a super El Niño forecast and a five-year pipe replacement commitment quietly deleted from the work plan, is “we’ll decide at mid-year budget” a plan — or a gamble?
🎨 Commission for the Arts ✅ Vote: Unanimous. Four applicants became two after withdrawals; one no-showed. James Xley — commercial photographer and executive producer who converted the empty Rooster Ramen storefront into a pop-up gallery — was appointed.
🏗️ AB 2011 / SB 6 Ordinance ✅ Vote: Unanimous. A second reading required before adoption. The city’s move to establish objective design standards before any state-law housing projects arrive. Funded by a $329K HCD grant (deadline: August 31). Zero applications have been filed under these laws anywhere in San Diego County yet.
Standards include transition setbacks next to single-family homes, anti-“boxy-mass” building design rules, active ground-floor treatment, rooftop deck restrictions, a short-term rental prohibition, and 50% native landscaping.
Councilmember Lyndes caught the important thing: four Planning Commission recommendations would have reduced required open space. She moved to strike all four and revert to the original, higher standards — arguing developers will pull waivers regardless, so don’t hand them a discount up front. Staff and Ehlers agreed. Struck.
Deputy Mayor O’Hara called AB 2011 “absolutely nasty” and invited residents to vote out State Senator Scott Wiener, whom he called “Adam Wiener.” Side note: Isn’t it a violation to campaign from the dais?
🌳 Trees Along the Encinitas Community Park / I-5 Boundary ✅ Vote: Unanimous
Councilmember Shaffer and Deputy Mayor O’Hara initiated this item asking staff to return with a plan to plant trees along Encinitas Community Park’s freeway edge — 160,000 annual park users, mostly kids playing sports, are currently breathing I-5 exhaust. Lyndes suggested allowing 48″ boxed trees to get canopy faster. Mobility and Traffic Safety Commissioner Molly Hintlian recommended stufying Carlsbad’s Alga Norte park.
But here’s what didn’t get said out loud: UFAC Chair Tony Gurnoe submitted written comment with a detailed list of appropriate native trees — never mentioned during discussion. In the same comment, he stated that council has been so deeply offensive to UFAC’s expert volunteers that he no longer wishes to provide his free expertise to the city he loves.
• 🌮 Food for Thought.: Council spent this item asking who to call for tree advice. The city’s own volunteer tree expert submitted a full list — and simultaneously resigned in spirit because of how this council treats its volunteers. Nobody read it aloud. What is the actual cost of driving away unpaid expertise?
📊 City Manager Report
• 🛂 Immigration enforcement: City Manager Jennifer Campbell reported five federal enforcement actions in June and July — Border Patrol and ICE. The city received advance notice on three; no notice on two, including a targeted operation outside a Cardiff business. All logged on the city’s immigration information page.
• 📷 Those Flock cameras you’re seeing: Encinitas has 24 license plate readers at entry/exit points — plates only, 30-day retention, sheriff-managed, not shared with federal agencies. The cameras with red signs appearing in the public right-of-way are illegal and the city is pursuing removal. Report them.
📅 Quick Hits
• 🎨 Encinitas Art Night: August 15, 6-8 PM — City Hall, Library, Pacific View, Community Center.
Meeting adjourned at 9:05 PM. Mayor Ehlers expressed delight to adjourn on the same day the meeting started. ⏰
Until the next Point of Order,
Encinitas Action