Encinitas mayor delivers state of the community address
ENCINITAS —- A planned, 43-acre park in Cardiff will have something for everybody, but may be challenged with another lawsuit, Mayor James Bond said Tuesday in his state of the community address.

ENCINITAS —- A planned, 43-acre park in Cardiff will have something for everybody, but may be challenged with another lawsuit, Mayor James Bond said Tuesday in his state of the community address.

Bond told a crowded ballroom at the Encinitas Community and Senior Center that the park on the former Hall property south of Santa Fe Drive and west of Interstate 5 would have trails, quiet areas and athletic fields, “which we desperately need.”

Alluding to a previous lawsuit that challenged the city for not preparing an environmental impact report for the planned park, Bond said, “Some of the neighbors didn’t like what was going on. We may get litigated again, but that park will get built before I lose all of my hair.”

Bond was elected in 1992 and is Encinitas’ longest-serving council member. A retired telecommunications executive, Bond spoke casually to his listeners at the Encinitas Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event. Many in the audience represented the bedrock of his support.

Bond told his listeners he had not prepared a speech but instead had asked city staffers to prepare bullet points about the work their departments are doing.

The Public Works Department has equipment to shoot moving pictures inside sewer and storm drain lines to check their condition, he said.

As for streets, Bond said, “We need more of them and we need wider streets. Traffic will never be the way you want it. You will never be able to jump in your car at 7:30 in the morning and get to where you’re going as fast as you want to because everyone else is trying to get there, too.”

Residents can put all of their recyclable materials into a single barrel rather than colored buckets as they once did, Bond said, adding that Encinitas residents recycle 60 percent of all of the waste they generate.

Bond praised the city’s Fire Department and said its purchase of a ladder truck years ago was a good investment, even though it was criticized at the time. He said the truck was an asset for fighting the downtown fire of 2001 and is valuable for cliff rescues.

He spent at least half of his 30-minute address talking about himself and about Encinitas’ early days as a city. Far less of his speech focused on the present and the issues the city faces.

He mentioned the concerns of some residents that plans to improve the access to Beacon’s Beach include a sea wall.

“We’ll work that out hopefully and get that done,” he said.

After Bond’s speech, one listener, David Oakley, said the subject matter was important for residents to understand.

“He did a good job of bringing it to the fore,” Oakley said.

Bond closed his speech by praising the balance of Encinitas’ business and residential communities.

“Without that, we would not have the budget to do all the good things, like paving streets and building parks,” Bond said.