California’s Constitution says every city office is nonpartisan. When Encinitas voters fill out their ballots this month, no candidate for mayor or council will have a D or an R beside their name. The state first wrote nonpartisan local offices into its constitution in 1926, a century ago.
It was a wise choice then, and a wiser one now.
The parties have found their way around it. The San Diego County Democratic Party has endorsed a full slate in Encinitas this fall: Rimga Viskanta for mayor, Arielle Golden in District 3 and Brad Lefkowits in District 4. The county Republican Party made no Encinitas endorsements, though Reform California, a conservative group run by Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, backed two of their opponents.
My message to both is the same: No party line on a fire lane.
The questions a City Council decides don’t come with a party answer. Can Clark Avenue carry 199 apartments when the city says its access roads are narrower than the fire code allows? How much more traffic can our streets absorb, and where will new residents park when state law limits the parking cities can require? Will our water and sewer lines hold what Sacramento says we must build?
And who pays when they don’t? These are questions about this place, answered by the people who live here. A hard D or a hard R arrives with the answer before hearing the question.
The trouble starts when a city seat becomes the first rung of a ladder. A candidate with an eye on Sacramento learns early whose approval matters. I wrote in these pages last November that respect for public service becomes conditional when local office is treated as a steppingstone. I still believe it.
Party endorsements do offer something: a shortcut that spares voters the homework. But the shortcut comes with a platform, and the platform doesn’t consider what’s best for Encinitas. It is written for statewide and national campaigns and shaped by interest groups that pay for them.
Consider Encinitas’ best-known graduate. Catherine Blakespear went from our council to mayor to SANDAG chair to the state Senate. Last year, she voted against SB 79, which allows high-density housing near transit regardless of local zoning.
Many here were grateful. I read it differently.
The bill passed the Senate twice with exactly the 21 votes it needed, in a chamber her party controlled 30-10, and she faces a Republican challenger on Nov. 3. I believe it was a vote the party could afford to let her cast.
When her own project was at stake, she didn’t leave it to Encinitas. The Santa Fe Drive project began while she was mayor. As senator, she secured $3.09 million toward it, and the protected bike lanes were added at her request.
The finished street drew complaints about confusing back-in parking and travel lanes too narrow for ambulances and school buses. Last year, Blakespear defended the design, back-in parking, narrow lanes and all. This year, our council voted to change it.
In late August, she added language to a state budget bill, which passed three days later, barring Encinitas from removing the lanes for five years, and for 10 more unless the city repays the full $3.09 million. The city says no such conditions came with the funding. That is the farm team in reverse: Sacramento reaching back down to overrule City Hall.
Since Citizens United, no city can cap independent spending in its own races, and Encinitas council races have drawn outside money before. But money matters most where candidates can’t meet the voters. In a city of about 45,000 voters, a candidate can still knock on enough doors to win.
In 2024, Bruce Ehlers, an independent, beat the incumbent mayor, who had the Democratic Party’s endorsement, in a city where Democrats are the largest bloc of registered voters.
No party machine got him there. Neighbors did.
Don’t expect a court to fix this. In 1990, a federal appeals court found California’s ban on party endorsements in nonpartisan races unconstitutional. The law keeps party labels off the ballot. Only local voters can keep them out of City Hall.
Good ideas can travel up as easily as bad mandates travel down. Cities that test a law instead of quietly absorbing it, mayors who compare notes across party lines, voters who remember how a vote was cast: That contagion is worth spreading. If our communities are healthy, the state will be, too.
Debate the projects. Argue over the policies, with passion and with civility. But leave the party at the door. City Hall was never meant to be a farm team for Sacramento. It’s where we decide what kind of town we want to live in.
Mike Lewis is a longtime Encinitas resident.
