This week, Encinitas Deputy Mayor Jim O’Hara wrote an opinion piece in The Coast News (“Encinitas challengers campaign on contradictions,” Oct. 20) attacking local candidates Rimga Viskanta, Brad Lefkowits and Arielle Golden.
It’s unusual for a sitting council member to do this, but coming from Jim, this isn’t surprising.
For two years, we’ve watched temper tantrums and hostile behavior directed toward the one woman on the dais and toward residents during public comments. Oh, and he often ignores the facts.
O’Hara says these candidates talk about “local control” to hide the fact that they just want to follow state housing rules. But his own council does the same thing in reverse. Led by Mayor Bruce Ehlers and backed by Councilmember Marco San Antonio, who votes with O’Hara on 97% of motions, the council talks tough about defying state rules while still following them.
To O’Hara, “standing up” and “pushing back” seem to mean repeating his favorite phrase, “mitigation,” or complaining loudly while approving every high-density project. Mentioning the law doesn’t weaken the argument. It’s just being honest about reality. Ignoring it is either lying or being out of touch.
On homelessness, O’Hara picks the numbers that make him look good. He says the council reduced the number of unhoused people last year. But the whole county saw a drop. That drop is credited to renewed camp enforcement and, according to the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, to “targeted investments and strong regional collaboration.”
The council’s actual policies go the other way. The city’s own dashboard shows that 73% of permanent housing placements came from the Buena Creek Navigation Center, and that partnership has now ended.
The council also shut down the Encinitas Safe Parking Program and refused to apply for a $4 million homelessness grant. That means less investment and less teamwork with the region. Shipping unhoused people to National City is not collaboration, Jim. It’s a sloppy, offensive and inhumane attempt to mark “leadership” off your list.
Next, the deputy mayor brags about $50 million spent in the last two years on “traffic safety.”
Again, O’Hara’s interpretation is untruthful. The city’s own Roadway Safety and Traffic Enforcement presentation puts the two-year number at $36 million. His $21.4 million figure for 2024-25 exceeds the city’s entire capital budget of $13.6 million because he counts money approved in earlier years by previous councils.
He also includes a road repaving program and the Leucadia Streetscape project, which together total about $33 million. Fresh pavement isn’t a safety improvement. Even using his inflated numbers, spending on safety projects fell significantly, from 16.4% of the budget in 2024-25 to 11.9% this past year.
O’Hara thinks these candidates are copying the current council. They do share many of the same priorities. But that’s because O’Hara, Ehlers and San Antonio have handled these issues so poorly that new leaders are needed to fix them.
Mike Fulton
Encinitas
