News and notes from the July 13 Mission Beach Town Council (MBTC) meeting:
• Tom Lochtefeld, who has been the master leaseholder of Belmont Park since 2000, notified the Mission Beach Town Council he officially rejected his disputed lease with the city on July 2. Lochtefeld said bankruptcy court will appoint a receiver who will operate the park while the city develops a new plan for the site. Lochtefeld has agreed to continue operations through September at the request of the court. “There is a potential the receiver could try to make some kind of offer for me to stay but the city clearly doesn’t want me here. They’ve made it very clear that they want me out of here,” Lochtefeld said. Lochtefeld said there is a good chance the Wave House, the Sound Wave, The Plunge and the Athletic Club could remain vacant for a significant amount of time after September. “I’m uncertain as to how this thing is going to evolve successfully for the community. It’s really sad,” he said. Lochtefeld has led a “Save the Plunge” campaign over the last several months and he said he will continue to work with the group, but he also admitted that fighting the city primarily on his own has been a taxing and difficult process. • MBTC president Bob Ruane said through an appeal action filed by Mission Beach Planning Board president Debbie Watkins, the board was able to delay construction of a proposed AT&T cell tower in Belmont Park.
• San Diego Police Department Lt. Jim Filley has changed departments and is shifting from the Northern Division to lead the Economic Crimes Unit downtown. Lt. Paul Rorrison will replace Filley.
• SDPD Capt. Al Guaderrama said despite an influx of about 1 million tourists to the beach and bay area for the Fourth of July weekend, there were few and mostly minor incidents over the busy holiday. • Several MBTC members and area representatives continued to voice their concerns over a lack of a solid plan to fix the rapidly deteriorating seawall in Mission Beach. Failure to repair the wall as promised by city officials has led to mounting frustration as has an overall ambiguity about who is responsible for a definitive plan for a long term solution. • Mission Beach and Pacific Beach may be allocated to a new district when the city unveils its proposed redistricting map on July 21. The biggest change could be the subtraction of the downtown area from the beach and bay district.