The Encinitas City Council on Wednesday unanimously voted to rescind an emergency action it took last month following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest near a local school.
Days after the Aug. 20 meeting, a resident wrote to the council saying the vote violated the state's opening-meeting law. Encinitas City Attorney Tarquin Preziosi said the emergency action did not violate the Brown Act, but advised the council that rescission was fiscally prudent to avoid fighting a lawsuit.
Many of the public speakers at the packed meeting spoke in favor of emergency action and urged the council not to rescind it.
"I am here to encourage you to vote 'no.' And to reaffirm the courageous actions you took in your prior meeting," Paul Trause said.
"I want to voice my strong support for the steps this council took on Aug. 20, following the ICE arrest at Park Dale Lane Elementary School," Marlin Taylor said. "Safety around our schools must be paramount.
"I want to thank the City Council for passing the resolution last month," Karen Abrams said. "You did the right thing by calling an emergency session."
Mayor Bruce Ehlers, however, agreed with the city attorney's advice.
“I haven't heard anything that changed my mind from where I was on the 20th, but this is a legally prudent," he said. "This is good management of our city, our funds, and at least more money for doing the actions we want to do.”
After the Aug. 20 meeting, resident J. Garvin Walsh sent a letter to the city on Aug. 27, saying the emergency action violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, which requires a public notice to allow residents like him a chance to voice their concerns.
"You can cultivate the fiction that this is appropriate for you to have done to begin with, but it's a fiction," Walsh said at Wednesday's meeting. "And I'm going to interpret a decision to rescind tonight as an acknowledgment that my position is correct.”
The Aug. 20 emergency meeting was called after a man was arrested by ICE near Park Dale Lane Elementary School. That prompted a backlash from the community, who rallied in front of City Hall and packed the council chambers, demanding action from the city to protect undocumented residents.
That night, the council voted unanimously on several actions, including:
- Coordinating with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and community groups on a "Know Your Rights" campaign;
- Filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to document ICE operations in the city;
- Exploring establishing "safe zones" around schools, churches or citywide;
- Considering joining lawsuits with other cities challenging the legality of ICE operations;
- and, looking into limiting mask-wearing by ICE agents in city limits
Walsh said opposition to the arrest is not an emergency.
“A political controversy is not an emergency under the law," Walsh said. "The Brown Act defines what it takes to be an emergency. And this wasn't it.”
Jeremy Ross with the group Encinitas Proud disagrees. He thinks the arrest and the community’s reaction to it constitute an emergency.
“It was an emergency then. It's still an emergency," he said. "You know, very urgent ... public and health risk ... safety risk for the community then and it continues to this point today.”
Following the rescission vote, the council voted unanimously to reinstate most of the same actions approved last month, except for limiting mask-wearing by ICE agents in city limits.
"I do believe that masks are counter-productive to (due process)," Ehlers said. " I think Councilmember (Luke) Shaffer, you make a good point. We don't know why they're all wearing masks. They may have professional reasons they had to."
Council members Marco San Antonio and Jim O'Hara expressed concerns about losing federal funding as the reason why they are not supporting limiting mask-wearing by ICE agents within the city.
Ross said this was the reason why he did not support rescission. He wanted the council to keep all the actions they had approved last month.
