Survey on extending contingency period on Pacific View contract

Dear Neighbors:  (direct link to my survey on Pacific View Purchase")

Encinitas has purchased a communication package that you may have heard about in all the local papers with the name "Open Town Hall."   This is being promoted as a way that those who never go to council meetings can still have their views reflected in the actions of our elected members of the city council.

Except it really isn't about this at all; rather it's to create such an illusion which will allow the powers that be, currently mostly in the hands of the City Manager by default, to do what he chooses.  I have made the case both in person and by blog articles on the two issues that now intersect. The first is that the Open Town Hall program should not be foisted on citizens, where to use it they must agree to a set of terms that includes allowing a tracking code be inserted in your computer and then allow the Open Town Hall company to alter your feedback to the city. Yes, the company demands the right to delete or sanitize your comments before they are made public. 

The second issue I've been addressing is the purchase of the three acre site of the abandoned Pacific View school near the coast for ten million dollars, with the plan that it will be turned into some undefined "arts center."  I pointed out in this article that because of the special coastal zoning enforced by the state this could be impossible, and that we have other land already owned by the city that could fit the bill.  But the council and the city manager have turned a deaf ear.  They assume that other than the handfull of people who demanded we buy this land under conditions dictated by the seller, that the rest of the city residents won't even be aware of what's happening. While we will pay for this with our taxes, the city is not really interested in getting our opinion!

Since they won't even allow the flawed Open Town Hall product to be used for the very purpose that it is designed for, I'm circulating this -- a survey that will allow residents to weigh in with a message to city hall.  There is an item on the agenda of the council meeting of July 12 to address this, but without considerable feedback from this survey, it will be a rubber stamp for the existing flawed purchase agreement.  Unlike Open Town Hall, here you don't have to agree to any terms of service, no tracking cookies and giving your name and email is optional.

Please forward this to those with any interest in how their tax money is spent. Better some duplicates than this  not getting full circulation.   

HERE'S THE LINK TO THE SURVEY
     Review your responses, since after you click "done," it directs you to the survey company's web site and closes this letter.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JS2N5XX

Yours truly,

Al Rodbell
Commissioner of Encinitas Traffic and Public Safety