Councilmember Jim O’Hara is proposing to change the way the annual Encinitas State of the City address is handled, saying he wants to create “an opportunity for everyone to participate in this process.”
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Currently, the Encinitas Chamber of Commerce hosts the mayor’s State of the City presentation as part of an annual, ticketed gala with a dinner and various featured speakers. Days after that gala occurs, the mayor then gives a repeat, free performance at a City Council meeting. The two events typically are video-taped and play on the city’s web site or the city’s broadcast TV channel.
O’Hara is proposing to flip the two events, thus having the council meeting presentation go first and any paid occasions come afterward. His proposal is scheduled to be discussed at Wednesday’s meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
Making this change “gives everybody a fair opportunity to hear it first,” O’Hara, who was elected to the council in November 2024, said Tuesday.
In a document that he produced for Wednesday’s meeting, O’Hara wrote that having the State of the City address listed on a council agenda will “ensure full public transparency, guarantee that the address is delivered during an official public meeting with complete public access, and confirm that all council members may attend and participate without any concerns regarding Brown Act compliance.”
The Brown Act is the state’s open meeting law. In April 2024, the state’s attorney general issued a legal opinion saying that the law also applies to State of the City events held by private organizations, if a quorum of the City Council attends them.
In response to that ruling, Encinitas Mayor Bruce Ehlers, who was elected in November 2024, announced that the spring 2025 State of the City would consist of two events — the chamber gala, plus a session at a City Council meeting a week later. He and Councilmember Joy Lyndes, who was deputy mayor at the time, would attend the chamber’s dinner event, while the three other council members would attend the chamber’s informal social mixer before the main gala event, he said at the time.
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On Tuesday, the mayor said he could support O’Hara’s new proposal, adding, “Quite frankly, I had similar reservations” about the current system.
Carol Knight, CEO of the Encinitas Chamber of Commerce, said the State of the City event is one of her organization’s biggest fundraisers of the year. About 250 civic leaders and business people attend the annual gathering. Representatives for the city’s three Main Street organizations give their annual addresses and a great deal of networking between business people happens, she added.
“If State of the City goes away, we’re just going to pivot a little bit and there will still be a community celebration,” she said.
Over the years, the style, location and the date of the State of the City address has changed frequently. In the early 2000s, then-Mayor Maggie Houlihan used to give a casual slideshow presentation in the council chambers, Ehlers recalled. Once, Houlihan included a photograph of herself from her high school days, he recalled, laughing.
As the COVID-19 pandemic played out, the date of the chamber’s event shifted. Recently, it’s been held at the city’s Community and Senior Center and it’s been a spring event, though once it was held at the newly opened Alila Marea Beach Resort. Sometimes, the mayor has been the only city official who speaks, other times it’s been the mayor and all the council members. And, sometimes, it’s been a video presentation, rather than a live address.
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