Brad Lefkowits, one of the founders of the Parents of Encinitas Union School District community group and the chair of the city’s Urban Forest Advisory Committee, announced this week that he is running for City Council.
Saying Encinitas is at a “pivotal moment,” Lefkowits declared in a prepared statement, “I am running to bring common sense and collaboration back to City Hall, so we can protect our coastal character, plan responsibly for growth, protect the most vulnerable members of our community and make decisions that are both legally sound and fiscally responsible.”
One key area of interest will be strengthening local governments’ response to federal actions, he wrote.
“It is wrong to have masked, unidentified federal agents operating in our neighborhoods and detaining people on our streets. Everything else comes second,” he said.
Lefkowits, 45, is the first candidate to announce he’s running for the District 4 council seat that’s on the Nov. 3 ballot. District 4 covers a region that includes Olivenhain, as well as Village Park and other New Encinitas areas. The seat is currently held by Marco San Antonio, who was appointed in early 2025 after then-Councilmember Bruce Ehlers was elected mayor. A former Olivenhain Water District Board member, San Antonio owns a Coast Highway 101 sign-making business.
Reached by telephone Wednesday, San Antonio said he was “leaning toward” running, but had not yet formally reached a decision. The Olivenhain-area resident said he loves the council job, but the time commitment is extensive, especially for someone who runs their own business and has two young children.
Lefkowits, who lives in New Encinitas, also has two children — they attend Ocean Knoll Elementary School — and he runs his own business, called Waves Landscape Design. A California native who has lived in North County for 12 years and Encinitas for five, Lefkowits is married to Encinitas native Joanie Mendenhall-Lefkowits.
He and his wife became involved in political issues in October 2022 when, he said, outside hate groups started appearing at EUSD board meetings to protest the distribution of a flyer for a Hillcrest Halloween event that included a family-friendly drag show.
“I went to that meeting and it changed me forever,” Lefkowits said, adding that this experience led him and his wife to becoming more involved in school issues and ultimately the founding of the Parents of EUSD group.
As a council member, he said, he anticipates that he would be talking a great deal about housing and infrastructure issues. Recent council election winners have vowed while campaigning that they’ll protect community character by stopping large, multi-family housing developments, but ending such development isn’t realistic and saying so is dishonest, Lefkowits said. He added that it’s noteworthy that just after the 2024 election, the council rejected two appeals related to the 448-unit Quail Meadows housing project — considered to be the largest in the city’s history — thus allowing that project to proceed.
“This issue cannot be black and white,” Lefkowits said, adding that he will be vowing on the campaign trail to better manage smart growth and not “sell people false hope” that development won’t happen.