The Encinitas city sign over Coast Highway 101 is shown decorated with holiday lights in this 2018 file image. (Photo by Ian McDonnell, iStock Getty Images)
The Encinitas city attorney’s seat will be vacant after the City Council voted in closed session Wednesday, Oct. 15, to cut ties with the law firm representing it since 2022.
The 5-0 vote to terminate its contract with the firm Jones Mayer Law and City Attorney Tarquin Preziosi was reported at the start of the City Council’s open session, during which members approved a plan to refurbish the downtown Encinitas gateway sign.
Jones Mayer Law’s contract will conclude within 45 days of the City Council’s vote, Mayor Bruce Ehlers said during the council’s report from closed session. The process for finding an interim city attorney will also be underway.
City Council members approved a four-year contract with YESCO not to exceed $253,785 for refurbishing, updating and maintaining the downtown Encinitas gateway sign, which has spanned Coast Highway 101 since 2001. The plan includes replacement of the current neon lights with a more efficient LED system and replacement of decaying parts.
Work on the sign could begin as soon as this month, according to a City Council agenda report.
Although the plan was voted on earlier in the session than its order on the agenda, one resident later voiced concern to the council about the necessity given the cost.
“That’s a lot of money, and we don’t need anymore LED lights,” resident Patty Stottlemeyer told the council during public comments.
The plan also received some pushback from residents in written comments submitted to the City Council ahead of its approval.
“Leave the Encinitas Gateway Sign alone. It is fine just the way it is,” Marie Dardarian wrote. “We do not need LED lights in our city. Do your research on all of the negative uses for LED lights.”
The sign, which replicates an historic design of the original that hung over the roadway in the 1920s, was equated to a “luxury item” by another critic of the proposal.
“If this is a concern to elicit City pride, we have pressing basic groundwork to do before one dollar is spent on a luxury item of this amount,” resident Natalie Settoon wrote to the council, saying the city should focus more on removing a proliferation of advertising signs lining local streets. “Have you driven around town in the past ten days? Have you seen our town littered with multiple companies and organizations that make our streets look like a neglected redneck ghetto?”
Efforts to update the sign go back a year, but after an additional bidding process this summer, YESCO was selected to do the work. Part of the reason YESCO was selected was its identification of problems with the letters themselves.
“YESCO was also the only responsive bidder whose inspection was thorough enough to identify that the existing ‘ENCINITAS’ letters on the Gateway sign are significantly corroded, and that refurbishing them, including patching and weatherizing the holes from the current neon lighting system, would be more expensive and less durable than replacing the letters,” city staff members wrote in the document.
The contract with YESCO includes a maintenance agreement that could last up to six years. The company, short for Young Electric Sign Co., has roots in the southwest dating back to the 1920s with projects including the early Las Vegas Strip. YESCO has an office in San Diego.
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