Hi Everyone,

Hear from local candidates for office in this important Escondido Candidates Forum hosted by the League of Women Voters.  Ask candidates about issues important to you.  The Forum will be held Thursday, September 25 in the Escondido City Council Chambers at 6:00. Escondido Candidate Forum Flyer  Learn more and hear from our local candidates!

IMPORTANT. Here is yesterday’s response from the Regional Water Board to DTSC about the recent submittal on Chatham. Water Board July 10 2014 Response Letter  There is some important information in here that supports several of the comments made in our Escondido Neighbors United comment letter ENU Comment Letter on July 11, 2014 submittal.

Among many important comments, the Water Board recommends and affirms that:

• Contamination trends are increasing in downgradient wells;
• Site related constituents continue to discharge to Felicita Creek above water quality objectives;
• TCE is not the only site contaminant of concern and others should be plotted;
• Well owners with detected contamination must be notified quickly;
• DTSC should require more investigation and evaluate actions to stop the discharge into Felicita Creek;
• Discharges to the Creek are causing direct human and ecological exposure to site related constituents;
• Additional wells, including near the school, should be sampled;
• decades to centuries was not the agreed to timeframe for the remedy to work; 
• Process of natural attenuation is not yet proved; and,
• The Chatham PRP Group continues to be in violation of discharge prohibitions of the Basin Plan.

PLEASE REVIEW if you are interested in this site!  We remain very grateful to the Water Board’s involvement in this issue and for continuing to engage and stand up for water quality in our region!
A public meeting is expected SEPTEMBER 30, 2014.  We will share more information when we receive it.

If you’re looking for a fun activity for the family, try building  a nest box for wrens.  Place near your organic garden and they will keep the insects down! Sept 21 at 3:00 pm See info here  wren-box-building-workshop 

Here is an action alert about the September 22 6 pm Public Meeting on the DEIR for Oak Creek. We hope you will attend.  Please come and share your questions and views.  We appreciate the city providing this opportunity.

We all know that Felicita Park is a jewel in the North County.  The County agrees and celebrated significant upgrades to is for wedding and playground use in an event yesterday.  This video, featuring our own Kate Orf, tells about the upgrades. County Park Upgrade video  This commitment of the County to Felicita Park is ever more reason why the contamination issues in Felicita Creek need to be addressed and soon.  Felicita Park, and its users, deserve a safe and clean place to enjoy nature.  We continue our request for Felicita Park to be designated as a high-priority water body in the County and City’s Water Quality Improvement Plan.   This is a problem we can fix and we should take action now.

The City has tentatively planned a public meeting for Monday evening, September 22 in the Council Chambers.  Everyone is urged to attend and put your comments on the record.
Please tell your friends and neighbors!!!!
Here is the text of the City Manager’s report from August 27, 2014
Oak Creek (NUW) – The public review period for the Draft EIR is underway, with comments due on 9/29/14. The document is posted on the City’s website at the following link  http://www.escondido.org/Data/Sites/1/media/pdfs/Planning/oakcreek/CD/INDEX_-_Report_Navigatoin.pdf 
In response to requests from community members, a neighborhood meeting has been tentatively scheduled for Monday evening, 9/22/14, in the City Council Chambers to discuss the project and the findings of the Draft EIR.

The San Diego ACLU has appealed the Escondido Planning Commission denial of a Conditional Use permit to house unaccompanied immigrant children.  The City Council is expected to hear this on Sept 10th.   Please look into this issue and send a letter to the Mayor and Council asking them to approve the permit. Here is More Information.
This issue is one of many litmus tests regarding what kind of city we want to be– exclusive and callous or inclusive and compassionate.
You can find the emails and contact info for the Mayor and Council emails.  (Scroll down)

• Residential character: The proposed facility would have the same number of residents and provide services similar to the previous use. In fact, the neighborhood would be improved by preventing the vacant building from becoming an eyesore due to decay or vandalism.
• Traffic: The youth shelter would generate less traffic than the previous use, and the Escondido city staff’s report raised no concerns about traffic.
• Parking: The commission’s general concerns did not address how 53 parking spaces would prove inadequate, or why any concerns could not be addressed through appropriate and reasonable conditions.
• Security: Since the police department’s statement on the youth facility said there were “[n]o apparent law enforcement concerns at this time,” and requested—and Southwest Key agreed to—only that a 6-foot fence be constructed, there is no plausible basis for the commission’s statement that “the fencing for the site appears inadequate for the anticipated security needs of the proposed facility,” especially given the undisputed fact that only 0.004 percent of approximately 9000 children served by Southwest Key made unauthorized departures in the previous year.
• Noise: The Escondido city staff’s report raised no concerns about increased noise, and acknowledged that most of the activities would occur indoors; outdoor recreation would take place at nearby parks and schools.
• Size: The commission inexplicably determined that the proposed facility had “too many people” in “too small a space” but gave no reason to believe that the staff or resident population would be greater than the previous use.  The proposed facility would have no more residents than the nursing home had.

Our thanks to City Manager Clay Phillips for responding to the ENU letter of  recommendations for improving public participation in Escondido.  You can see his letter here City Manager Letter to ENU August 11.
It is good news to hear that there will be a public meeting during the comment period for Oak Creek! We hope to learn the date soon and request that there will be a formal structure including a presentation that is provided to the attendees together so that everyone has the same information.  We also request that there be an opportunity to put oral comments on the record verbally as most hearings provide. We note that a Scoping meeting was held for Oak Creek, but our point was that it was only after a regulatory agency requested it and not as a matter of policy or in response to public requests.
We also shared in our letter that the RSS feed that the city has on the website has proven elusive for most (all?) of us to use.   We hope the City will consider an automatic email notice for people who request is such as is done by the city of Chula Vista with great success.
We also appreciate that, while the city may do more than other jurisdictions related annexation (e.g a pre-vote on annexation), in our view, if the notice to the public is insufficient the Council does not have the adequate input to make the decision regarding to whether or not the effort should go forward.  The pre-vote for Oak Creek for example, did not provided adequate notice to impacted communities so the Council did not the benefit of the full public perspective .  We hope the city and County will work together for a better solution in the future that is not so heavily reliant on a public outreach strategy directed by developers.  Minimally, all ‘sphere-of-influence’ residents impacted should be notified and local public areas (like Felicita Park) should be posted of any contemplated annexations.
We appreciate the comments in the letter and we hope to have a meeting with the city to discuss our recommendations in full.  Here is our original letter. ENU letter to City on Public Participation

We filed a comment letter today requesting clarifications, improvements, and additional agency review on the Homeland/Oak Creek Site Assessment by DTSC.  This is a very important regulatory oversight action that is directing the sampling and analysis of the contamination on the Oak Creek site and it is just beginning now.   The site suffers from both historic, on-site contamination and from the migration of contaminants onto the site from the Chatham Barrel Yard.  We feel that this assessment should have been completed prior to the DEIR for the housing development on Oak Creek being released.  We are requesting additional agency review of this work plan due to its high importance for current and future residents in the area, workers, and the environment. You can see our comments here:   ENU Comments to DTSC on Oak Creek Site Assessment Workplan
We urge others to review and comment on this document as well if you are interested.