Next year, the annual State of the City address will happen first at a City Council meeting, rather than at an Encinitas Chamber of Commerce-organized gala.
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A new city policy spelling this out will be drafted in the coming days, the City Council decided in a 4-1 vote Wednesday, with Councilmember Joy Lyndes opposed.
By making the change, the city is “bringing back (the event) to the people” and allowing anyone to hear it for free, said Councilmember Jim O’Hara, who put forward the proposal.
“The person at the bus stop has just as much right to attend as you,” he told people who have attended the chamber’s gala in the past.
Lyndes, a former deputy mayor who is not seeking re-election to her council seat in the fall, said she agreed with one public speaker — Encinitas resident Fabian Gonell — who opposed O’Hara’s proposal, saying it put restrictions on the mayor’s legal free speech rights.
“I think this is government overreach,” Lyndes said.
Mayor Bruce Ehlers said he, too, agreed with Gonell on the free speech issue, but seconded O’Hara’s motion to create the new council policy.
Councilmembers Luke Shaffer and Marco San Antonio said they could support a city-organized, live-streaming of the State of the City and posting it on the city’s web site, rather than worrying about having it occur in-person multiple times.
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“I don’t think it’s worth making a big deal about it, if we can just add to our city website,” Shaffer said.
The Encinitas Chamber of Commerce has played host to the mayor’s State of the City address for many years and the mayor’s in-person talk at the event has been filmed, live-streamed and replayed on the city’s website in recent years. This year’s event, which attracted about 250 people, was held the evening of April 9 at the city’s Community & Senior Center. Tickets, which included dinner, cost $65 for chamber members and $75 for non-members. Table sponsorship also was available at prices ranging from $1,000 to $8,000.
At Wednesday’s meeting, chamber CEO Carol Knight told the council that the event consists of far more than just the mayor’s address, saying it’s the only major event in town that brings together local business people, community leaders and regional elected officials. The leaders of the chamber and the area’s three Main Street associations also give their annual addresses there, she noted.
It’s one of the chamber’s biggest fundraisers of the year. However, “if we have to pivot, we will pivot,” she said.
The question of how to handle future State of the City addresses first surfaced two years ago after the state’s attorney general issued a legal opinion saying that the Brown Act — the state’s open meetings law — applied to such events held by private organizations. That meant that if three or more council members attended the chamber’s event, it would be considered a standard public meeting where public comment must be allowed.
In response, the mayor decided to give the address twice in spring 2025 — first at the chamber gala and then a week later at a council meeting. The mayor and city’s deputy mayor attended the main chamber event where the mayor gave his address, while the three other council members — O’Hara, Shaffer and San Antonio — attended the informal mixer portion, but were directed to leave before the main dinner gala occurred.
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