From: Marco Gonzalez
To: athind; Peter Weichers
Cc: Michael Colantuono; Stephanie L. Cooke; Jace Schwarm Subject: September 23, 2026, City Council Agenda, Item #10G; Objection to Certain Proposed Board of Appeals Appointees
Date: Friday, September 18, 2026 11:41:45 AM
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Appeals Board Appointment Objection.pdf
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Please see attached comments on behalf of WNG regarding next week’s City Council Agenda Item 10G.
-Marco Gonzalez
_________________________________________
Marco A. Gonzalez
(he/him)
Managing Partner
Phone: (760) 942-8505 x102
Direct Line: (760) 942-9870
Coast Law Group LLP
1140 S Coast Hwy. 101
Encinitas, CA 92024
1140 South Coast Hwy 101
Encinitas, CA 92024
Tel 760-942-8505
Fax 760-942-8515
www.coastlawgroup.com
September 18, 2026
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
Ajit S. Thind [email protected]
Colantuono, Highsmith & Whatley, PC
City Attorneys, City of Encinitas
701 Palomar Airport Road, Suite 300
Carlsbad, CA 92011
Re: Clark Avenue Apartments – Appeal No. 008834-2026
Objection to Proposed Board of Appeals Appointees
September 23, 2026, City Council Agenda, Item #10G
Dear Ajit:
WNG HHF Encinitas Apartments, L.P. (“WNG”) has reviewed Item #10G on the September 23, 2026, City Council agenda, recommending that the Council approve the Mayor’s recommended appointees to the Board of Appeals (the “Board”). WNG does not oppose empanelment of the Board (as you know, WNG has demanded exactly that for months) and does not object to four of the six individuals identified in the staff report. WNG writes to object, in advance of the hearing and for the record, to two of the recommended appointees, Gene Chapo and Daniel Klausenstock, sitting in adjudication of WNG’s pending appeal.
As the City is aware, WNG’s Appeal No. 008834-2026 has been pending since March 30, 2026, and is, on information available to WNG, the only matter currently pending for review by the contemplated Board. Any individual appointed to the Board today will therefore sit imminently as the adjudicator of WNG’s appeal. WNG accordingly has both the right and the obligation to raise any disqualifying conflict now, before appointment, rather than after a decision adverse to WNG has issued.
Gene Chapo. Mr. Chapo is a former Encinitas Planning Commissioner who appeared before the City Council on September 14, 2022, the very hearing at which the Council approved the Clark Avenue Apartments project and spoke in opposition to the Project on the record. Mr.
Chapo is reported to have told the Council that Union Street would be “enormously impacted by the additional traffic from the proposed development,” and that of the fifteen sites the City had selected for higher-density housing, the Clark Avenue site “has to be the worst.” (Encinitas council overturns Planning Commission’s denial of apartment project, The Coast News Group, Sept. 15, 2022; note also, Mr. Chapo also appeared before the Planning Commission to speak in opposition to the Project.) That is not a general policy view about density; it is specific, on-the- Clark Avenue Apartments – Objection to Proposed Board of Appeals Appointees September 18, 2026
_____________________________________________________________________ record opposition to this Project, expressed to the very body whose approval WNG’s permits implement, and it predates by several years the appeal Mr. Chapo would now be asked to decide.
California due process principles governing administrative adjudicators do not require a showing of actual, subjective bias; it is enough that a party present “specific evidence demonstrating a particular combination of circumstances creating an unacceptable risk of bias.” (Today’s Fresh Start, Inc. v. Los Angeles County Office of Education (2013) 57 Cal.4th 197, 221; Nasha, LLC v.
City of Los Angeles (2004) 125 Cal.App.4th 470, 483 [risk of bias is never implied, but must be shown by concrete facts].) A prior, specific, on-the-record public position opposing the very project now before an adjudicative body is precisely the kind of concrete fact that standard contemplates. It is not the generalized, subjective “appearance of bias” objection that courts have declined to entertain. (See BreakZone Billiards v. City of Torrance (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 1205, 1237.) WNG’s objection to Mr. Chapo rests on that documented, project-specific record, not on speculation about his general views.
Daniel Klausenstock. WNG has a separate, though presently less developed, concern regarding Mr. Klausenstock. Public reporting reflects that Susanne Klausenstock, who, on information available to WNG, resides with Mr. Klausenstock, and Mr. Klausenstock himself have publicly opposed the Encinitas Boulevard Apartments (“Goodson”) project, another highdensity residential development in this City, on grounds specific to that project’s effect on neighborhood safety. The Klausenstocks are likewise on record opposing high density development in Encinitas generally. WNG is not presently aware of public reporting placing Mr.
Klausenstock himself on the record with respect to the Clark Avenue Apartments specifically.
Given that gap, WNG does not ask the Council to treat this concern the same way as its objection to Mr. Chapo. WNG does ask that, before appointing Mr. Klausenstock to a Board that may sit in judgment of WNG’s appeal, the City require the disclosure ordinarily expected of an appointee to an adjudicative body: whether Mr. Klausenstock, individually or jointly with his spouse, has communicated any position (written or oral) to the City or otherwise concerning the Clark Avenue Apartments project, its density, or this Project’s appeal. WNG reserves the right to supplement this objection if such a disclosure, or other information, substantiates a projectspecific conflict of the kind described above with respect to Mr. Chapo.
WNG does not ask the Council to decline to appoint Mr. Chapo or Mr. Klausenstock to the Board generally and takes no position on their qualifications to serve on other matters that may come before it. WNG asks only that the Council’s action on Item #10G, or the Board’s own organizational procedures, ensure that neither individual participates in the hearing or decision of WNG’s Appeal No. 008834-2026, and that any quorum convened to hear that appeal be drawn from members without a documented, case-specific conflict of the kind described above.
Clark Avenue Apartments – Objection to Proposed Board of Appeals Appointees September 18, 2026
_____________________________________________________________________ WNG recognizes the difficulty the City has had empaneling this Board and does not raise this objection to create further delay. WNG's position is the opposite: an appeal decided by a Board whose composition invites a due process challenge does not give WNG, or the City, a decision that will withstand review, and will only prolong the very delay WNG has spent the last six months trying to end. Excluding two individuals from this specific appeal, while allowing the Board to proceed to a hearing with its other members, is both the most efficient and the most defensible path forward for all parties.
Please treat this letter as WNG’s contemporaneous objection for purposes of the administrative record. WNG requests written confirmation, in advance of or at the September 23, 2026, hearing, of how the City intends to address this objection. Should the Council proceed to appoint Mr. Chapo or Mr. Klausenstock to hear WNG’s appeal without addressing it, WNG will renew this objection to the Board directly and reserves all rights to raise it in any subsequent judicial proceeding, including the writ petition WNG has previously advised the City it is preparing.
Nothing in this letter waives any of WNG’s rights, remedies, arguments, or claims, all of which are expressly reserved.
Sincerely,
COAST LAW GROUP LLP
Marco A. Gonzalez
cc: Client
Pete Weichers, City Clerk