Questionable ad
My husband and I love The Coast News and make sure we pick it up faithfully outside Seaside Market every week. I was surprised to see that The Coast News has accepted and been printing a large ad from a strip club called Eye Candy in Chula Vista advertising Nude Only lap dances.
This ad doesn’t seem consistent with the beach and local lifestyle that you are all about and promote. I know it’s tough to find advertising dollars these days but I know you guys can do better than this type of ad.
It was also weird to see this suggestive ad (red panties down below her knees) next to an article about Holiday Clearance and family saving tips.
Trish Walsh Haskell,
Cardiff
Consider expanding
I have lived in Oceanside for 12 years, and for that time I was a subscriber to the North County Times. Occasionally, but not regularly, I picked up a copy of The Coast News.
After the NC Times was purchased by the Union-Tribune, I have been disenchanted with that paper. My primary interest in the NC Times was local news. State, national, and world news are available in other forums — online and through periodicals such as weekly news magazines. (I do not own a TV.) The Oceanside/Carlsbad/Vista news in the new U-T North County section is much less satisfactory than the local news in the old NC Times. I have cancelled my subscription to the U-T.
During the transition, I have explored other sources of local news. The Coast News supplies most of the coverage that I miss from the old NC Times, and I have been picking up The Coast News weekly. I find that local organizations send you their event announcements and other news, and you cover many local events and local government meetings. I’ll continue to read The Coast News regularly.
Is this an opportunity for you? Are there other readers disenchanted with the new U-T North County paper, who are now reading The Coast News? Would you consider expanding to, say, twice a week? I would be willing to pay a small charge for a good weekly or bi-weekly local paper. Is there support for that in the community?
In any case, I want you to know that your paper is helping to fill a gap left by the recent loss of the old NC Times. Thanks for that.
Ann Carol Hohl,
Oceanside
Housing element problem
Del Mar City wrestled with the knotty Housing Element problem of providing affordable housing in the City, and prepared to adopt locations for such inclusion, which raised uproar with the majority voters who defeated Prop J in November. Why? The City wanted to include most of it in the downtown commercial zone!
Yielding to such uproar, the City is holding further workshops to find a better solution.
The following are some solutions to consider for the affordable units –
1. Challenge the 10 unit penalty added to the 12 allocations for the current period, leaving 12 instead of 22 required to provide. It appears the City didn’t do enough to challenge the penalty. This penalty was arbitrary — not based on pre-determined criteria, or applied evenly to all cities not meeting their allocation. Penalties have to be known, so they can be weighed against the decision to not comply.
2. Include the Public Facilities zones in the area for possible inclusion. One person recently suggested putting affordable housing at the tennis court location. If we have to provide affordable housing, that location should be a lot more beneficial to the Del Mar citizens than the tennis courts!
3. Did you know that we have approximately $720,000 sitting in a Housing Fund? Why couldn’t that be used as a starter for developing the required units as suggested in No. 2?
4. It is continually said that we get credit for providing subsidized housing (to eight families at approximately $70,000 a year), but the credit we get is NOT used to calculate the number of affordable units we are to provide for ANY period. So why not allocate that $70,000 a year to providing the required units in No. 2, and those eight families can live there?
5. If Government has the power to eventually require us to destroy our City of Del Mar through the Housing Element, there is another option — unincorporate and become part of the county. These periodical allocations of required affordable housing apply only to cities and the county, not neighborhoods like Rancho Santa Fe, La Jolla and Del Mar.
I’m sending these suggestions to the City. Be sure you send yours to them right away so we can handle the affordable housing in an agreeable way.
Ralph Peck,
Del Mar
