One of the last great free parking lots on a California beach will soon be gone as the City of Carlsbad, the California Coastal Commission, and California State Parks have settled a lawsuit regarding the installation of a pay parking kiosk at Tamarack surfing beach (click here for previous coverage).
Under the settlement agreement, State Parks will charge hourly parking, with a two hour minimum and a maximum daily charge of $10, the same day rate fee charged at South Carlsbad State Beach’s Ponto beach. The hourly fee has not yet been set but is agreed to be $2 an hour or less. State Parks originally proposed only a day use fee. Under the settlement agreement, the requirements of the coastal development permit for the project that the California Coastal Commission approved will remain in full effect.
The thing that sucks most about this agreement is that it’s going to push even more people up into the neighborhood surrounding Tamarack and there are way too many people parking there already. The only good news is that people with California State Park parking passes will always have a spot at Tamarack because once they start charging for parking the lot will be mostly empty most of the time.
Follow the jump for the official press release from the City of Carlsbad. [click to continue…]
The scenes were straight out of a spaghetti Western.
In Encinitas one afternoon last month, 12 self-styled patriots strolled down First Street, the downtown stretch of South Coast Highway, as a similar group had done at Carlsbad’s Village Faire a few weeks earlier. North County’s version of the “Dirty Dozen,” six men and six women, carried unloaded guns in holsters strapped to their waists. They said they were exercising their constitutional right to bear arms.
Six unarmed roadies distributed literature to passers-by.
Some on the sidewalk turned away in fear and disgust, as residents of Dodge City once did when gangs of hooligans rode into town. Above the traffic noise, you could almost hear the plaintive whistling of “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling,” from the 1952 movie, “High Noon.”
The events were enough to inspire another fairy tale from this columnist.
Once upon a time in the Land of Pink-Tiled Roofs, a collection of very angry little men formed a support group. Resentful that the royal rulers didn’t show them enough respect, they dubbed themselves the Minute Little Men, claiming to be the kingdom’s true patriots. [click to continue…]
We don’t even disagree with their point about the 2nd Amendment, but just from the looks on their faces we can tell these guys get off on strapping their “pieces” on and parading around the streets while smirking like exhibitionists with their flies open.
What’s interesting about the analysis is just how much the authors think a combination of irrigation technologies and management practices can save: 5.6 million acre-feet in an average year. That’s 17% of all water used by California farmers, and more than twice the total the state’s millions of city-dwellers could save if they wised up about their water use. It’s also a whole lot more than the enormous desalination plant in Carlsbad, Calif. will produce when it comes online.
When I learned North County Transit District directors are thinking about privatizing the operation of our local buses, I thought about my recent experience as a passenger on an outsourced bus during Carlsbad’s Village Faire a couple of months ago.
My wife and I took the shuttle downtown from the Poinsettia Coaster Station.
The driver was courteous, had a fine sense of humor and showed by his driving that he cared about getting us there safely. The return trip with another driver, however, was a white-knuckler.
As we boarded the bus at the downtown station, the driver was talking animatedly on his cell phone. I figured he was updating a dispatcher on his location. But when he continued the conversation, steering with one hand, as he drove through the heavy downtown traffic, it became evident it was a personal call. When my wife was about to ask him about that, he put his cell phone down.
We were relieved he’d be able to focus his attention on driving. [click to continue…]
The power of the pyramid prevailed when the Carlsbad City Council voted unanimously at its June 9 meeting to accept a report prepared for the parks and recreation department by a Colorado consulting firm paid $50,000 for their advice. Pyramids were all the rage in the 1970’s, with advocates claiming structures shaped like Egyptian pyramids unleashed magical powers that could preserve foods, clarify thinking and improve your sex life.
From the praise the city council heaped on the pyramid model of cost-recovery for Carlsbad’s parks and recreation programs, you’d think council members believe the power of this pyramid will help them escape the wrath of special interest groups. If they raise fees they can always blame the pyramid.
It makes good sense to base the funding of resources on who benefits most from using them. That’s what the cost-recovery pyramid attempts to do. The base level of the model represents resources that provide the greatest benefit to the entire community. The top level represents resources providing the greatest benefit to individuals.
Want to know how Lisa Irvine and her crew of number crunchers go about setting up the budget for the City of Carlsbadistan? Well, want no more. On June 4, 2009 at 6 PM at the city’s Faraday Center everyone will get the chance to review the city’s 2009-10 budget, ask questions, and provide feedback that will be presented to the City Council.
The City Council is scheduled to receive a report on the fiscal year 2009-10 budget June 2 and consider it for adoption June 16. . . For more information, contact the City of Carlsbad’s finance department at 760-602-2493. . . .Regular updates on the city budget and financial forecasts are available on the city’s Web site at www.carlsbadca.gov/finance.
Sure, the City Council is going to see it first, but at least we’ll all have time to give feedback before they adopt it.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard Keith Blackburn’s robo-call to action. While other North County cities struggle with budget cuts threatening vital services, Carlsbad’s rookie city councilman was asking for our help to keep his campaign promise to bring a second swimming pool to the city. I wondered if he’d been inspired by Congressman Bilbray’s recent onslaught of irritating electronic invitations to his “teletown meetings.” Was this just the beginning of year-round campaigning by our local politicos?
Although I didn’t attend the council meeting, I did watch the videotape of it several days later on the city’s Web site. To my surprise, I found myself in total agreement with Blackburn’s argument in favor of starting work now on the Alga Norte Park and Aquatic Center. [click to continue…]
In a City of Carlsbad press release the City says that the new NRG Power Plant proposed for land behind the Encina Power Station is “inconsistent with the coastal act.”
A 1990 Coastal Commission report concludes that a second power plant in coastal Carlsbad would harm the environment and is inconsistent with the Coastal Act. . . The report concluded that a power plant on the coastal Carlsbad site would have significant impacts on visual resources, marine biology and air quality. CEC staff evaluating the current power plant proposal were unaware of the Coastal Commission’s previous finding.
Then again, that was way, way back in 1990. Follow the jump for the rest of the release. [click to continue…]
Tonight, April 21, 2009, with a standing-room only crowd (most wearing bright yellow “Alga Norte Now” stickers) and even more out in the hall pressing posters up against the glass, the Carlsbad City Council voted 3-2 to push off the decision to begin construction on the Alga Norte Park by what could be another year.
The council was faced with 26 public comments in favor of the Alga Norte Park and five options presented by City staff:
1. Continue the project hold.
2. Build the park as designed
3. Rough Grade the site
4. Build just the aquatic center
5. Build everything but the aquatic center
When the discussions were over Mayor Bud Lewis, along with Councilmen Matt Hall, and Mark Packard voted in favor of the “rough grade” (option 3) on the Alga Norte Park property, while Ann Kulchin and Keith Blackburn voted against the motion.
Leave it to the convoluted workings of city politics to have the no votes be in support of building the park. “I am going to vote no on that because I think we have studied it to death,” Ann Kulchin said. “I think the time to build it is now.”
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One of the last great free parking lots on a California beach will soon be gone as the City of Carlsbad, the California Coastal Commission, and California State Parks have settled a lawsuit regarding the installation of a pay parking kiosk at Tamarack surfing beach (click here for previous coverage).
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