🤠 Encinitas City Council Scorecard
(First Six Months in the Saddle – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)
January – June 2025
🤠 The Good — Tip Your Hat
🛏️ Retained Homeless Action Plan:
Maintained previous plans to improve outcomes for unhoused residents, with an added emphasis on municipal code enforcement.
🏳️🌈 Continued Pride Recognition:
Upheld the tradition of Pride Month proclamations and flag-raising.
🌳 Preserved Park Land:
Took action toward transforming city-owned land on Quail Gardens Drive into a public park.
🚔 Funded 2 New Traffic Deputies:
Budgeted for more enforcement to address speeding and collisions.
📞 Improving Communications:
Monthly city video and pre-meeting slideshows will help keep citizens informed, per council 2025-2026 goals.
😬 The Bad — Rough Around the Edges
🏗️ Promised to Stop Overdevelopment — Then Didn’t:
Approved every development project, despite campaign promises, including the largest-ever housing development ever planned for Encinitas.
🚧 Passed up a $3.5M Grant Opportunity:
Declined to apply for a major SANDAG grant to construct the long-planned roundabout on Leucadia Blvd. at Hygeia Ave.
🪧 L-7 = Vanity Project?:
Early park design talk includes significant pavement and parking, and cost, contrary to the donor’s request for a nature preserve.
🏘️ MIA on Housing Affordability:
Failed to lead or act on addressing housing affordability, despite its inclusion in annual goals.
⚖️ NPP Facade:
Claimed “no party preference” during campaign, but demonstrate partisan behavior.
🐍 The Ugly — This Town Ain’t Big Enough…
🚗 More Cars > Safe Streets:
Despite recent tragic pedestrian deaths, favored road expansion, disparaged protected bike lanes, and barely passed support for bike safety education for kids. (Update: at last week’s meeting, many people showed up for a promised agenda item about declaring a traffic emergency, only to discover that the item wasn’t on the agenda at all. Mayor offered no explanation.)
🤥 Broken Promise on District 4 Council Appointee:
Mayor backtracked on pledge for an impartial D4 appointee from New Encinitas who would pledge not to run in 2026. Instead he appointed Marco San Antonio, a MAGA Republican from Olivenhain who plans to run in 2026.
🔫 Extremist Rhetoric:
Shaffer threatened rifles to “defend” private land, called citizens to arms and called our state a “domestic enemy.” Mayor compared a housing decision to Sophie’s Choice between the lives of her two children during the Holocaust.
🧢 Conspiracy Vibes:
Shaffer and O’Hara made multiple accusations of corruption and shadowy dealings without evidence, parroting activists and anonymous social media voices.
🪓 Attacking Commissioners and Disrespecting Staff:
Mayor allows repeated, unwarranted and unsubstantiated attacks on city staff and volunteer residents by public speakers and council members. Staff morale is low, and Encinitas is losing skilled, long-tenured staff.
🐴 Final word from the Range
Six months in, this posse has made a few solid moves — but they’ve also stepped in more than their fair share of cow pies. The jury’s still out, but Encinitans ought to keep their boots on and their eyes open.
—Encinitas Action