Encinitas city council plans priorities for coming year

The Encinitas city council last week set its priorities for the 2017-2018 budget.

After a seven-hour planning session with key staff and department heads on April 18, the city council decided to focus on four efforts that they believe need attention in the city.

Those items include: attaining a legally compliant housing element; improving connectivity and mobility for all users; making the rail corridor a better, less noisy and safer neighbor; and promoting green initiatives.

The purpose of the meeting was for the five-member council to to come to an agreement about what issues are among the most important for the city so they can direct staff in the future, Mayor Catherine Blakespear said.

“The idea behind this is to establish our priorities in advance of our budget so that when we’re budgeting the city’s money, we’re doing it in line with our priorities,” she said. “These priorities are crystallizing what we have expressed on the dais and otherwise in multiple ways over multiple years. The importance of it is we speak with one voice to our professional staff so that they know what it is that we care the most about.”