The organizers of the Moonlight Beach Half Marathon will be allowed to host their event one more time, but only if they meet additional permit conditions.
In a split 3-2 vote, with councilwomen Kellie Hinze and Joy Lyndes opposed, the Encinitas City Council decided Wednesday night to grant event organizers permission to go ahead with their proposed March 17, 2024 event. City employees had recommended denying the request, and the two councilwoman said this was the right course of action, given the safety issues that sheriff’s deputies experienced with last spring’s run.
However, the council majority noted that Steve Lebherz, president of the event organizing company Excelarace Inc., has a long history of organizing successful fun run events in Encinitas, including the Turkey Trot. They said he should be given another chance to host this new event, but with extra conditions, including:
- That his company submit a “substantially complete” permit application to the city by Dec. 1 — two weeks earlier than the standard city deadline for a mid-March event.
- That the cost of using the Sheriff’s Department services for traffic control during the event is paid in advance
- That event organizers make no changes to the running route or the proposed start/ending times in the final four weeks before the event occurs, and that race information is finalized on the event’s web site by this point.
The first Moonlight Beach Half Marathon was held March 19 on downtown’s portion of Coast Highway 101. A city staff report produced for Wednesday night’s council meeting states that event organizers failed to submit all of their required permit paperwork by the city’s deadline, and then didn’t follow the conditions of their city permit, including the approved event timeline or the plan for the running route. Also, they didn’t pay their law enforcement services bill in a timely fashion.
Lebherz told the council Wednesday night that this was his first try at a half-marathon, but he’s done 23 other running events in Encinitas over the years. (His company handles the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot and the Encinitas Beach Run, and previously managed the Cardiff Kook Run.) The new Half Marathon event, which also includes a 10K and 5K run, proved to be far more challenging, perhaps 10 times more, than those shorter, fun-run events he’s previously organized, Lebherz said.
“We really, really fell short on how many volunteers we should have had,” he said.
And the labor shortage wasn’t the only issue. The final details about the event, including start and ending times, were wrong on its website. That’s why traffic control people had ended up removing vehicle barriers while there were still runners on the roadway, Lebherz told council members in response to questions about safety concerns. He stressed that he saw this as a communication issue, not a safety issue, and said that no runners reported any safety issues with the race.
When it came to the Sheriff’s policing expenses, Lebherz said that a “cash flow issue” problem led to the bill being paid months later than it was supposed to be.
“Clearly, this first go-round, there were some problems,” said Mayor Tony Kranz, adding that he wanted to allow Lebherz to try again because he knew Lebherz had done well with his fun-run events.
Councilman Bruce Ehlers, who made motion to allow the event proceed in 2024, said he wanted to create a compromise and that’s why he suggested the additional conditions.
“I want to make very clear we’re serious this time” and will cancel the permit before the event if these conditions aren’t met, he stressed.
The two councilwomen who voted against the motion both said they had personal experience planning special events and thought this event had been handled poorly. Hinze thanked Lebherz for the “much-beloved” events he’s created in the past, asked him to do more planning for the half-marathon and then host it in 2025 instead of this coming spring. Lyndes said she thought the half-marathon didn’t have the oversight or the resources that it should have had.
Before their vote, council members asked several city employees and sheriff’s representatives what their experiences were with Lebherz on his other events. Senior management analyst Julie Gilliam said that he’s failed to turn in paperwork in a timely fashion in the past, but has adhered to the approved event timelines and running route plans. Sheriff’s department representatives said this wasn’t the first time that the payments haven’t been on time, but the bills ultimately were paid.
