2-minute voter guide: Encinitas 2024 ballot
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Encinitas Mayor Tony Kranz is running for re-election, voters are weighing a sales tax increase for city services, and two council district seats are on the ballot too.
Why it matters: Encinitas' fights with the state over attempts to increase housing development have framed the county's coastal politics for a decade.
Catch up quick: Kranz is facing Bruce Ehlers, a City Council member who wrote Proposition A, which Encinitas voters approved in 2013.
- That initiative required voter approval for any increase in housing density and kicked off years of fights between the city and state housing officials, who wanted the city to accommodate more growth.
- In 2022, Kranz helped expel Ehlers as chair of the city's planning commission over his opposition to city attempts to comply with state requirements making way for more housing. Seven months later, Ehlers won a council seat.
What they're saying: Kranz, a council member during the city's battle over housing mandates, told Voice of San Diego he now sees fighting the state to prevent development as "a waste of time and money."
- Ehlers said he has no intention of stopping the fight.
- "The state is not the primary legal entity to control local zoning laws," he told Voice.
By the numbers: Of Encinitas' nearly 45,000 registered voters, nearly 20,000 are registered Democrats.
- There are about 10,000 independents and about 11,000 registered Republicans.
State of play: Kranz is endorsed by the county's Democratic Party, while Ehlers is an independent.
In the city's District 1 council contest, Allison Blackwell is up for re-election after being appointed to fill Kranz's seat when he was elected mayor in 2022. She is endorsed by the Democratic Party.
- She's facing Luke Shaffer, a La Costa Canyon High School lacrosse coach who told Coast News that fighting state housing mandates can show others how to defeat "big bureaucratic requirements."
District 2 has an open seat, with local business owner Jim O'Hara facing Destiny Preston, transportation planner for the state, who has the Democratic Party's endorsement.
Follow the money: City staff pursued Measure K, a one-cent sales tax increase, to tackle the city's $257 million infrastructure backlog.
- If approved, the new revenue would go to the city's general fund and would not be earmarked for infrastructure spending.
- That means the measure could be approved with a simple majority of voter support.