omha.info - Oceanside council pulls mobile-home park from roadway plans

By Lola Sherman (Contact) Union-Tribune Staff Writer

11:23 p.m. January 21, 2009

OCEANSIDE — Mira Mar Mobile Community's residents can breathe a bit easier – the City Council has removed their mobile-home park and the Oceanside Harbor area from a plan for the future of Coast Highway, the major downtown thoroughfare.
Councilman Jerry Kern, subject of a recall because residents believed he favored including the park in the roadway planning, said it never should have part of the plan.
The plan should take in only one block in either direction of the roadway, Kern said Wednesday night. And, he said, there's no sense including the harbor in the planning because the state Coastal Commission would have the final say on what can and cannot be built there.
“I apologize,” Mayor Jim Wood told about three dozen park residents in the audience after the unanimous vote Wednesday night.
Jim Sullivan, president of the park homeowners' association, presented Kern with a petition seeking the recall last week. Sullivan said he believes Kern encouraged the city planning staff to include the mobile-home park in plans for renovating the three-mile stretch of Coast Highway running through Oceanside.
One alternative in the roadway plan called for eventually demolishing the park, which overlooks the San Luis Rey River and the Oceanside Harbor.
Speakers from the park Wednesday night said it has been impossible to sell or refinance their property with that specter hanging over their heads, and it literally was making senior residents sick with anxiety.
“It has done devastating things to our neighborhood,” speaker Eve Hall said. “These people are going to bed at night scared.”

Council members said they never wanted the park to be included and don't know why city planners reinstated its potential demise as an alternative in their draft Coast Highway Vision and Strategic Plan.
The plan, devised by the city staff and consultants, is aimed at revitalizing a stretch of roadway that includes used-car dealers and a hodgepodge of shops.
The plan envisions tourist accommodations in the north and a retail “village” in the south. In between, there would mixed commercial and residential projects with varied building heights and greater density of development around the Coaster and Sprinter train stations.
The plan also provides alternatives for the design of the roadway itself – one keeping it somewhat as it is and the other involving a half-dozen roundabouts to slow traffic.
Kern is known to favor development, and park residents thought he had told the staff to include Mira Mar in the plan.
Although he voted against it Wednesday, recall opponents have a laundry list of other complaints against him, including his support of certain roadway projects and of a controversial concrete plant near Loma Alta Creek.
Kern said they should just wait until the 2010 election to campaign against him and save the expense of a special election.
To qualify a recall for the ballot, probably in November, Sullivan must collect more than 11,000 signatures of registered Oceanside voters.
Kern has until 3 p.m. Thursday to file an answer to the notice of intent to recall him, assistant city clerk Holly Trobaugh said.
Such a reply isn't mandatory but would be included with the recall petitions, Trobaugh said. The next step is for Sullivan to publish his petition and give the clerk proof of publication.
In addition to his suspicions about Kern's role in the roadway plan, Sullivan faulted the councilman for endorsing controversial street projects such as a proposed extension of Melrose Avenue to link state Routes 76 and 78.
At Wednesday's council meeting, Councilwoman Esther Sanchez called for a review of the planning staff's decision to include the mobile home park and harbor in the roadway renovation plan.
Nine city commissions or committees will review the plan before it goes to the council on April 15.
The Transportation Commission spent two hours going over it Tuesday night, generally saying it liked the plan, although some commissioners were concerned about the efficiency of roundabouts.
The Harbor and Beaches Advisory Committee is to talk about the plan at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Community Rooms, 330 N. Coast Highway, in the Civic Center complex.
The Arts Commission will review the plan at 6 p.m. Feb. 2.
Other hearings:
· Feb. 11 at the Redevelopment Advisory Committee
· Feb. 17 at the Utilities Commission
· Feb. 23 at the Planning Commission
· March 3 at the Economic Development Commission and the Historic Preservation Advisory Commission
· March 15 at the Bicycle Committee