Encinitas Councilmember Joy Lyndes, the only remaining member of the once Democratic majority on the council, announced Tuesday that she will not seek re-election this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve fought for our residents to protect our quality of life while honoring the diversity that makes Encinitas special \u2026. I\u2019ve led with equal commitment to preservation and thoughtful improvement. So, it\u2019s only after much reflection, and some sadness, that I\u2019ve made the hard decision not to seek re-election,\u201d Lyndes said in a prepared statement.<\/p>\n
Reached by telephone Tuesday morning, Lyndes said she was not planning at this time to run for any other elected position, and added that she was simply planning to take \u201ca bit of a break\u201d when her current council term ends in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell my friends that I\u2019m going to take a gap year \u2014 I never got one when I was 20,\u201d she joked.<\/p>\n
A landscape architect who helped create the city\u2019s annual, car-free, Cyclovia bicycling event, Lyndes spent six years on the city\u2019s Environmental Commission before she became a council member. She was initially appointed to the council to fill out the term of Jody Hubbard, who died of lung cancer in 2020.<\/p>\n
Lyndes went on to win election in 2022 to a four-year council term and represents the city\u2019s District 3, which primarily covers the Cardiff region.<\/p>\n
Items she said she\u2019s proud of supporting or initiating while on the council include the creation of the city\u2019s sustainability manager position, the approval of the city\u2019s \u201cgold-standard\u201d Climate Action Plan, the acquisition of the Surfer\u2019s Point property for preservation purposes, the renovation of the former Pacific View School property into a city arts center, and the launching of the Buena Vista Navigation Center and the Safe Parking Program to help homeless people.<\/p>\n
Lyndes also has long been active in native habitat restoration efforts, including supporting city ordinances to protect trees and promote native plant use, and she helped create the city\u2019s bans on plastics and Styrofoam.<\/p>\n
In 2025, she faced many challenges, including the death of her husband. She took a two-month leave of absence to help care for him after he was diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer, then returned to her council activities after his death in late March.<\/p>\n
The early part of 2025 was also a period of significant change in city leadership. In the November 2024 elections, the city\u2019s then-mayor and one of the council members who regularly voted with Lyndes both lost their races. A third council member who also often voted with Lyndes didn\u2019t seek re-election. All three of them had been backed by the San Diego County Democratic Party, while Reform California \u2014 a group that declares on its web site that it\u2019s \u201cdedicated to taking back our state from far-left politicians and special interests\u201d \u2014 supported the new majority on the council. In the months since, the council has selected a new city manager and city attorney, and launched new initiatives regarding housing construction, roadway design and homelessness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Encinitas Councilmember Joy Lyndes, the only remaining member of the once Democratic majority on the council, announced Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,4601,23,100,3054,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-122876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-encinitas","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-north-county","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-county","15":"tag-san-diego-headlines","16":"tag-san-diego-news","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}