The Coast News, March 22, 2013

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PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID ENCINITAS, CA 92024 PERMIT NO. 94

THE COAST NEWS

VOL. 27, NO. 12

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MAKING WAVES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

MARCH 22, 2013

Celebrate spring with our special Home & Garden section inside

Barth: ‘much work’ needed on city’s housing plan By Jared Whitlock

SHINING THROUGH Comet Pan-STARRS (named for the observatory in Hawaii that discovered it) makes a brief appearance over the skies of San Diego on March 12. Pan-STARRS is approximately 1 kilometer in diameter and passed closest to Earth on March 5, but was not visible in the Northern Hemisphere until March 8. Another comet named ISON will be visible in late November, and is predicted to be even brighter than Pan-STARRS. Photo by Daniel Knighton

Board hears charter school’s appeal By Rachel Stine

CARLSBAD — At a hearing bef ore the San Diego County Board of Education on Mar ch 18, Oxford Preparatory Academy (OPA) representatives claimed that its petition to open a charter school in Carlsbad was misrepresented and denied unjustifiably by the Carlsbad Unified School District (CUSD). OPA spokespersons urged the boar d to f ollow California Education Code r equirements and appr ove its petition, while district staff maintained that the charter petition raised unmitigated concerns. The district initially denied OPA’s application to establish a thr ee-year charter school for 800 to 1,000 students grades kindergarten through eighth g rade in Car lsbad in late December 2012.

FLYING THROUGH HISTORY San Diego resident and World War II veteran Douglas Dowell heads into the wild blue yonder once again in a B-17 bomber. A10

OPA currently operates charter schools in Chino Valley and South Orange County. Still aspiring to open the charter school for the 2013-14 school year, OPA is in the process of appealing the district’s decision before the county board. “The district hasn’t approved a charter in its history and has no clue ho w to do it, ” said OPA’s attorney Greg Moser at the hearing. “The technicalities that the district is throwing up are really a smoke screen.” One of the more heavily debated issues at the hearing involved the school facilities requested by OPA in Carlsbad. Districts are legally required by Proposition 39 to provide facilities for approved charter schools to operate. Because OPA requested facilities near Interstate TURN TO APPEAL ON A15

Two Sections, 80 pages Arts & Entertainment . A20 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . A41 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A40 Food & Wine . . . . . . . . A22 Legals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A31 Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A16

HOW TO REACH US (760) 436-9737 Calendar: calendar@coastnewsgroup.com Community News: community@coastnewsgroup.com Letters to the Editor: letters@coastnewsgroup.com

ENCINITAS — Encinitas has until Aug. 30 to show where 1,300 statemandated housing units could be built as part of its housing element. If the city wants to meet the housing element deadline, Encinitas will have to make significant progress. Cities could potentially face lawsuits for not adopting a housing element by the end of August. However, Encinitas hasn’t certified a housing element since incorporation in 1986, and yet the city hasn’ t been significantly penalized. Still, representatives from the city said it’s important to have a housing element in place to take the threat of lawsuits off the ta ble, make Encinitas eligible for more grants and finish a long-contentious process. “I’m not sur e what will happen, but if w e were going to get it done by August, there’s still much work to be done, ” Mayor Teresa Barth said. She added that the city wants to at least demonstrate “forward motion” by August, and that councilmembers and residents have been notably frustrated by the housing element o ver the years. The department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) requires that cities turn in a housing element e very eight years. For the housing element, cities have to pencil out the potential

locations of state-imposed housing. The number of housing units, 1,300 in the case of Encinitas, is derived from population and economic trends. Encinitas’ efforts to complete a housing element have sputtered. A year-and-a-half ago, citizens soundly rejected a draft of the housing element that called f or concentrating housing units on El Camino Real. In response, City Council scrapped the dr aft of the housing element and sought more input fr om residents. After numerous meetings last month, two citizen groups and the city’ s Planning Commission, which were tasked with reviewing the housing element, presented recommendations for where the housing units could be located. City staff said it’s going to find points of consensus among the g roup’s presentations and bring them to council at an undetermined time. But council voted not to act on any of those recommendations until the fall, after they’ve had a chance to r evisit their goals for the General Plan, which is a document that will steer everything from land use to tr ansportation over the next few decades. The housing element is part of the Gener al Plan. However, in light of the August deadline, Barth said there’s a chance council could review the housTURN TO HOUSING ON A15


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