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Encinitas No Rail Trail group displeased
Don Barth, husband of Teresa Barth (former abysmal failure of a mayor of Encinitas), you certainly know how to write. Based on your post, it seems reading comprehension is your shortcoming. Given your politically connected background, you should know better than to call other Encinitas residents "privileged." You'd also more reasonably apply slanted terms such "misinformation" to actual cases of misinformation ... your post, for instance. I mean, if you actually read and evaluated ANY of the points written here objecting to what Blakespear and her ideologues did with the CMLWGroup -- all of which are verifiable by obtaining public campaign information or looking up easily accessible information given on the City website -- you'd notice that the allegations of Blakespear's switching the people on the citizen's group to stack it with campaign donors and agenda-driven candidates are valid and factually supported. While there are some well-meaning and qualified Encinitas residents on that working group, I pity them for what the City Council has done to undermine their credibility. You, however, have only offered baseless accusations and assigned guilt by innuendo at those who want to correct this sad situation. Shame on you. You state that, "the CMLWG is not about which side of the tracks the Coastal Rail Trail should be on in Cardiff. That decision was already made." Bravo. How can most of the posters here not know that? The No Rail Trail grassroots movement was the reason the "decision" (i.e. City Council revote earlier this year) was made to put the Rail Trail on Highway 101, a decision that still stands. We certainly don't need the guidance or admonition of someone with your undesirable credentials to state the obvious. This article and the outrage associated with its story has everything to do with the CMLWG, a point well understood, so spare us the sanctimonious corrections. Get over ourselves, you say? Sure. Now you try it. What a sad state of affairs Catherine Blakespear has generated with her recent actions. All citizens, yourself included, should recoil at the appearance of pay-to-play politics. The CMLWG is supposed to be an egalitarian, resident-based group assembled to take on a very serious and important function involving establishing a vision for the railroad corridor, not an assortment of connected special interests assembled to do the bidding of power brokers lurking behind the curtains. But you're not sickened, and that's because your wife Teresa, her friends Lisa Shaffer (and husband), Tony Kranz, and their neophyte patsy, Blakespear are neck deep in this mess, your objective view is obscured by those same curtains. And here you are trying to sling mud at concerned citizens calling you out. While disgraceful, it's certainly not working. P.S. Good luck with your own mayoral campaign, Don. You pulled the papers ... you have until tomorrow to complete the task of announcing and making an utter fool of yourself.— August 16, 2016 9:33 p.m.
Encinitas No Rail Trail group displeased
Lots of people want a Rail Trail, John. But this isn't about the Rail Trail, which the Encinitas city council voted in March 2016 to put on Hwy 101, with SANDAG authorized to design and construct it. This is about a public committee that was supposed to be assembled to help facilitate direct feedback from residents to City Hall about a long term vision and strategy for the railroad corridor. It was meant to empower residents who are directly impacted to share their views about development, access across the tracks, parking, noise issues and environmental concerns with city planners as it pertains to this challenging but integral stretch of sensitive property. It is about councilwoman Blakespear moving the goalposts defining not only the scope and composition of the working group, but unilaterally high jacking the selection process the city council had unanimously established. At the 11th hour at a city council meeting held to facilitate a vote on an already established list assembled by a nonpartisan third party consultant, Blakespear dramatically announced her own list along with the new selection criteria she used in constructing it. It's about mayoral candidate Blakespear operating secretly with two of her fellow city council ideologues (Shaffer and Kranz) and select special interests to ambush a public process in a way that elevated certain insiders and, especially, those who were her campaign donors. It is public record and available for all to view on the City of Encinitas webpage, the fact that select special interests admitted involvement in assembling or vetting the Blakespear list of working group volunteers while other groups were excluded, uninformed, or both. This is about some on city council engaged in apparent back room dealing and crony favoritism extended to some. Government watchdogs call that a pay-to-play system, and it is disgraceful and needs to be stopped. Whatever good intentions went into conceptualizing the 'Mobility and Livability Working Group', the execution has shown itself to be flawed at best, corrupted at worst, and city council must address it before it devolves into a potential scandal.— August 15, 2016 5:58 p.m.