Sunday is Encinitas Day

Sunday must be Encinitas Day at the UT.  They had stories on Bob Nanninga's death, a school district health update, Leucadia tress being cut down, a ballet school,  and EUSD superintendent Lean King's retirement.

Bob Nanninga - RIP

Rest in peace, Bob.

Battle of the Lagoon Nature Centers

My family and I attended the past weekend's ribbon cutting ceremony for the San Elijo Lagoon nature center. The new center costs $5.6 million and is the pet project of County Supervisor (and former Encinitas council member) Pam Slater-Price. This structure has risen the stakes in the Battle of the Lagoon Nature Centers and the other lagoons need to step it up.




Batiquitos Lagoon has a trailer with limited hours. I predict Carlsbad will get quite jealous of Encinitas' nature center and starts pressing the county for money build a new center there.

Agua Hedionda Lagoon nature center is housed in the former sales office of some random Carlsbad development. The building is nice and has some decent displays. The grounds are also nice but there are no trails as of yet. I would be surprised if this nature center gets more funding other than to add some nature trails. This lagoon is already tapped out for aquatic activities.

Buena Vista has, in my opinion, the finest nature center. It has by far the best animal exhibits and the most hands-on activities for the kids. The only drawback is the lack of good trails. There is has talk to build a hotel across the street so get there while the scenery is good.

San Dieguito will soon enter the fray after receiving some seed money for their new center which will replace their current mini-trailer.

Although not technically on a lagoon, the Chula Vista Nature Center deserves mention mainly because the city is threatening to close it due to budget problems.

Is Encinitas the New Detroit?

Albertson's is closing.  Toygarden is going out of business.  Home Depot Expo is kaput.
Soon there will be nothing left except drug stores and golf "superstores." The city council should organize a junket out to Detroit to learn about urban decay and blight.
New Encinitas businesses supply the majority of sales tax revenue and local jobs for the city. So we should all hope as the economy turns around, new businesses will fill those empty locations.
Perhaps we should bulldoze it all and turn El Camino Real back into Green Valley.

Circuit City doors






Green Valley - before all the failing business were built it had one business...a farm

Great Leucadia Tree War

Leucadia's trees are under attack from the city of Encinitas!
A timeline thus far:
First, the city cuts down the trees in Leucadia Park.
Then, they target several of the eucalyptus trees along 101 for removal.
Then, the city removes some of the trees from Orpheus Park because of some 1990's era verbal agreement with the developer of a condo complex. They would have removed more if an activist wasn't camped out in one of them. School kids from Ecke Central even got into the protest action.
I won't pretend to understand tree biology and know whether or not these trees needed to be removed. But the deal with the condos smells fishy. Assuming there was a verbal agreement, how long was this supposed to go on? Forever? How many other "verbal agreements" are there that we don't know about. I was surprised that city manager Cotton wouldn't listen to a sitting council member and delay the removal. How hard would it be to stop and figure things out.
Leucadia blog is covering all aspects of the Great Leucadia Tree War.