Last year’s La Jolla Christmas Parade was a drive-by event. This year’s will take place Sunday, Dec. 5 from 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. PHOTO BY DON BALCH

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The 65th annual La Jolla Christmas Parade & Holiday Festival titled “Spirit of La Jolla – Celebrating Hometown Heroes,” will take place Sunday, Dec. 5 from 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m.

This year’s special guest is astronaut Jessica Meir who earned a Ph.D. in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Meir did research on the diving physiology of emperor penguins and northern elephant seals performing fieldwork on McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It was there where she studied the diving abilities of penguins while scuba diving alongside them under the ice.

In April 2019, NASA announced that Meir had been assigned to the crew of International Space Station Expedition 61/62 as a flight engineer. On April 17, 2020, Meir returned to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-15 wrapping up a 205-day spaceflight.

Meir will be the space marshal and will attend the event’s holiday festival.

Organizers said this year’s parade theme reflects “the past difficult year with COVID and honors those groups and individuals who have helped the community.”

Ann Kerr Bache, president of the La Jolla Christmas Parade and Holiday Festival Foundation, noted 2021’s holiday extravaganza has been more difficult and costly to organize due to COVID restrictions and fewer available volunteers.

Of parade changes this year, Kerr Bache said: “We will have electronic check-in and everyone will be notified by email on the Tuesday before the parade. Each parade entry will get its category and a lineup number to help streamline the process. Every year we honor the menorah and Jewish traditions, and this year we’ll have a special educational exhibit on the Festival of Lights at the Holiday Festival along with some other entertainment. Ron Jones will be the MC of the holiday festival, which will be visited by Santa Claus and the space marshal.” 

Parade honorees will include the Salvation Army and Father Joe’s Villages represented by Colonel Lescanso and deacon Jim Vargas, respectively. They will both be parade grand marshals in recognition of their organization’s contributions to La Jolla, San Diego, and the nation.

Honorary parade marshals are La Jolla Rotary represented by president Cindy Goodman (philanthropic), Cindy Kodama-Benítez (civic), astronaut and SIO graduate Jessica Meir (space), and Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial Association (military). The Hometown Heroes recognized recently by the La Jolla Town Council will be riding with the council with a special banner.

The parade starts out with an amazing flyover, courtesy of the Antique Aircraft Museum and Bill Allen who created the tradition 40 years ago. Dozens of floats, bands, marching units, equestrians, and vintage vehicles, including Parade of Parade, fire engines, and beauty queens, will travel the parade route.

The Holiday Festival includes entertainment and photos with Santa before the parade. ‘What’s Up in Space’ with astronaut Meir is an opportunity to learn about experiences and programs in space exploration at the festival, which will include all holiday traditions.

This event is funded by community donations and grants from foundations, businesses, and residents and are still needed. “We hope to raise enough funds to restore our tradition of providing modest stipends to the bands who come and through their music make the parade a wonderful hometown event,” said Kerr Bache.

She added the event “is made possible by the Christmas Parade and Holiday Festival Committee who dedicate countless volunteer hours to making each Christmas Parade and Holiday Festival the best ever. The parade and festival would not be possible without our two ‘Special Hometown Heroes,’ Jack McGrory and Bill Kellogg, parade co-chairs, who have ‘saved the parade’ and raised the funds to support the La Jolla Christmas Parade and Holiday Festival Foundation.”

For more information, visit ljparade.com.

Artist’s rendering of preliminary streetscape plans that include a new proposed Prospect Street Plaza. COURTESY GRAPHIC

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La Jolla’s Planned District Ordinance Committee was updated Nov. 8 by architect Mark Steele on preliminary streetscape plans for the phased redevelopment of La Jolla’s downtown Village.

Those plans include a new proposed Prospect Street Plaza between Girard Avenue and Herschel Street.
The PDO Committee reviews development applications in portions of La Jolla regulated by the La Jolla Planned District Ordinance, the community’s blueprint for future development.
The new streetscape revitalization plan is a collaboration between the M.W. Steele Group, which designed downtown San Diego’s new central library, along with local architects James Alcorn, Jennifer Luce, Paul Buss, Todd Fry, and Jennifer Phelps.
“Funds are coming from the La Jolla Community Foundation and Enhance La Jolla is the implementing agent,” Steele told PDO committee members. “It’s been set up as a design-build project. Where we are right now is we have a plan, and it’s just streetscape. It has nothing to do with any building uses. We don’t get into any building footprints.”
Design-build is a method of project delivery in which one entity, the design-build team, works under a single contract to provide design and construction services.
Enhance La Jolla is a maintenance assessment district providing enhancement and beautification for La Jolla’s downtown village. Nonprofit LJCF, an affiliate of the San Diego Foundation, has pledged to fundraise for the long-term streetscape project. It has been estimated that it will cost $10 million to $15 million for the proposed Prospect Street Plaza in the project’s first phase.
Led by owner Mark Steele and managing principals Steve Miles and Michael Paluso, M.W. Steele Group has completed hundreds of diverse private- and public-sector projects in the retail, hospitality, residential, planning, and civic sectors. “We provide a humanistic approach to design viewing our work as a form of community building,” states the architectural group on its website.
Regarding long-term La Jolla revitalization, Steele pointed out that the streetscape project “has been in the works for a long time” noting it is entirely in the public right-of-way while adding “nothing is on private property whatsoever.”
Steele said enough funding is in place to launch streetscape revitalization.
“We’ve produced cost estimates for basically a four-phase project, and money has been raised by the La Jolla Foundation, so we are about ready to start because there’s enough money for one phase, not the whole project,” he said. “We have submitted the project to the City of San Diego for preliminary review only. We are not submitting it yet for building permits. But we’re getting close to that.”
Steele added the next step now is to “take public input and roll that into the first phase.”
The four phases of the proposed long-term streetscape plan, besides the initial renovation of Girard/Wall are expected to include: a plaza at The Dip on Prospect Street; a mid-block crossing of Girard Avenue with landscaping and other improvements to enhance the pedestrian experience; and renovation of the Girard Avenue/Wall Street intersection.
All four phases of redevelopment are planned to include enhancements such as improved landscaping and lighting as well as benches and possible installation of public art.
“The goal of it all is to create and beautify the streets, making them more pedestrian-oriented,” concluded Steele. “The whole idea is to create little, mini corner parks. This does create a wonderful sort of character and will be a catalyst for socializing. We hope these (public plazas) will be a place where the community can get together and probably support some programming. There’s no reason why there can’t be music in the public plaza, which would be a great thing.”

An aerial view of the opening celebration on Nov. 21 at UC San Diego Central Campus Station of the 11-mile Blue Line Trolley extension. PHOTO COURTESY OF SANDAG

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UC San Diego cheerleaders, stilt walkers, and Trolley riders came out on Nov. 21 to celebrate the opening of the Blue Line extension on the university’s campus. PHOTO COURTESY OF SANDAG

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On an unseasonably warm Sunday, Nov. 21, public officials formally dedicated the 11-mile Blue Line Trolley extension at the UC San Diego Central Campus Station with a virtual ribbon-cutting as an on-screen trolley crashed through a banner strung across trolley tracks.

The new extension stretches from the U.S.-Mexico border through downtown and the Mid-Coast corridor with new stations at Tecolote Road, Clairemont Drive, Balboa Avenue, Nobel Drive, VA Medical Center, UC San Diego Central Campus, UC San Diego Health La Jolla, Executive Drive, and the UTC transit center.

Crowds piled into the trolley cars and flocked to a packed grand opening celebration in the shadow of the light rail line’s new UC San Diego Central Campus Station. They consumed free food, heard live music, and got free trolley swag as mementos. The fanfare included bands, cheerleading squads, stilt walkers, face painting, and a rock-climbing wall.

“What a great day to open a new trolley line,” noted Catherine Blakespear, Encinitas mayor and chair of the San Diego Association of Governments, the region’s transportation agency, speaking to an excited and appreciative crowd. “It's not that frequently that you open a $2 billion, nine-stop, 11-mile new trolley line.”

Blakespear singled out Congressman Scott Peters (D-52) for special mention.

“He singlehandedly helped us bring $1 billion to this $2.2-billion project, nearly half of it,” she pointed out. “We would not be here today without your dedication. So today’s event commemorates the culmination of decades of planning and five years of construction.”

Blakespear pointed out the Blue Line Extension project dates back to 1986 and was part of that year’s regional plan. “Now we’re doing the 2021 regional plan, so we’re looking forward and saying, ‘What kind of projects like this do we want to deliver for this region 30 years from now in 2050?,” said Blakespear. “This type of project is an example of the transformative work that’s really possible when we work together through this process called the regional plan. If it’s not in the plan – it’s not gonna get built.”

“We are thrilled about this project,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. “This is teamwork and that’s how we get stuff done in our community. What is important to drive home, again and again, is this project was not just locally based. We had a tremendous amount of federal funding that made it possible.”

Added Gloria: “I think of this as a jobs train. This is opening up opportunities for people all across the region to access the incredible opportunities of the innovation economy here in La Jolla. We must do more of this. This is a great day for our City. There will be many more great days ahead because of this collective commitment to making sure that we are sustainable and climate-friendly moving forward.”

“This is not about us up here in La Jolla, this is about a whole region,” noted Peters adding, “We’re a multicultural city with a rich history and walkable neighborhoods. We’re a cosmopolitan City that embraces the international border as an opportunity for commerce, not as a threat, but an opportunity for friendship with our neighbors in Mexico.”

Continued Peters: “For me, today is the culmination of nearly two decades of commitment to building public transportation in San Diego. When I joined the City Council 21 years ago next month, I knew that the way we moved people around would determine our future in San Diego. With a million new San Diegans expected in the coming decades, we all know that more and wider highways won’t meet this problem. We still have more to do. And I’ll do my part to encourage policies that boost ridership and build more housing near transit.”

Peters was joined by congressional colleague Juan Vargas in issuing the City a proclamation commemorating the grand opening of the new trolley line.

“This is just a peek into the future,” concluded SANDAG executive director Hasan Ikhrata. “We’re going to have more celebrations of a future transportation system that will be unmatched anywhere.”