Council Member — Ciudad de Encinitas

My family moved to Cardiff in the 1920s and my great-grandfather, L.P. McChesney, was a local inventor and former President of the San Dieguito Irrigation District (now the San Dieguito Water District). My grandfather, William McChesney, was the town plumber and an avid gardener. He built his family home near Stone Steps in the 1950s in the Seaside Gardens neighborhood and it was from there that he led his campaign to save Torrey Pine trees. My mother, Grace McChesney, was born and raised in Encinitas, but moved to Riverside after being the first person in her family to attend college. I was raised in Riverside, and always looked forward to spending summer vacations in Encinitas with my aunt and uncle, Bina and Bill McChesney (also a local plumber). Because of our strong family ties to Encinitas, I have had the great opportunity to see it grow from a sleepy little beach town to the thriving coastal city it is today.

I attended the University of California, Berkeley, where I received my bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1995 and received my master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University in International Studies. As part of my doctoral work I studied at the Humbolt University in Berlin, Germany, where I met my husband in 2002 and we married in 2005. After several years of living in European cities, my husband and I moved to Encinitas in 2012 to raise our children near my family. 

With both of these perspectives, I understand people who have lived in Encinitas a long time as well as those who have adopted Encinitas as their home. I love that my children attend Paul Ecke Central Elementary School just like my mother, and that we are raising our children in the house that my grandfather built in the 1950s. But I also appreciate the many places I have been able to live, so I know how special it is to call Encinitas home. As a third-generation Encinitan, I have a deep respect for our natural environment that forms the basis of our high quality of life.

To maintain our high quality of life, Encinitas needs leaders who work hard for all of Encinitas. As a Planning Commissioner, businesswoman, community leader and third generation Encinitan, I have a proven track record of listening to all sides, asking tough questions and crafting collaborative outcomes to balance important interests like property rights, community character, thriving local businesses and residential needs for peace and quiet across all five communities. On City Council, I will find creative solutions and get things done to preserve what is special about Encinitas and make it an even better place to live, work and play.

COMMUNITIES WITH CHARACTER: By far the most important issue in Encinitas is land use, which is complicated by our outdated municipal code. Homeowners and businesses face complex regulations for minor improvements; residents feel they need to fight to protect community character; developers use state laws to avoid our local regulations. We must modernize our code to better preserve our neighborhoods and ensure that Encinitas continues to have communities with character. I have worked with fellow Planning Commissioners to improve the compatibility and quality of many projects and to begin the process of updating our code. Encinitas needs a leader like me, who has a proven track record of balancing property rights, community character and making improvements where necessary.

THRIVING LOCAL BUSINESSES: Encinitas lacks a cohesive approach to fostering economic growth that helps preserve the existing fabric of our city — that unique combination of creativity, passion, lifestyle and ambition. We must work together to develop an economic strategy for Encinitas in the context of North County that helps us continue to grow our local economy. By engaging local business leaders through an economic development working group, we can support existing businesses and emerging start-up, local and for-benefit companies in Encinitas.

SAFE STREETS FOR EVERYONE: Development in surrounding cities has turned neighborhood streets into main thoroughfares. We must make it easier to calm traffic in our neighborhoods; to walk and bike to schools and local businesses safely; and to address connectivity in the rail corridor through a community-centric working group.

GREAT BEACHES, PARKS AND TRAILS: Our natural resources — our beaches, parks, trails and lagoons — are part of the high quality of life we enjoy in Encinitas. Protecting these natural resources to keep them clean and safe for all to enjoy includes preserving open space, better managing greenhouse conversions, properly treating stormwater run-off, and evaluating community choice energy aggregation.

My city council priorities are: 

Public Safety - It will be my top goal as a city councilman to ensure that we have superb public safety resources and to do it in a fiscally responsible way. 

Jobs - Promoting job creation is paramount to a strong and healthy Encinitas. 

Environment - Promoting ways to either secure what we have or improve on it through sound fiscally responsible technologies and policies will both protect the environment and ensure that we are not wasting tax dollars chasing bad ideas. 

Fiscal Responsibility - By planning for the long term and spending the city’s revenue as carefully as we would our own, we can stop wasteful spending, abuse of our citizen’s tax dollars, and plan for the day when the economy is weak. 

Civic Engagement - It is the city council’s job to ensure transparency of decisions and to engage with all of the various groups in our city, which safeguards that our government works with and for the citizens. 

Land Use - I will work to ensure that we both protect property rights but also deal with our affordable housing crisis, in addition to the protection of the unique cultures of our five city communities. 

Small Business - I’ve had the opportunity to work for small, medium and fortune 50 companies. During this time, I have learned that it is the small businesses who often take the largest risks and who provide more than their fair share of driving economic growth. These small businesses -- be it a local florist, mom and pop owned restaurant or a surf shop-- are an important source of employment and economic activity and serve as the foundation of our community.