Some fun and productive things happened in the College Area during February.
The College-Rolando Library hosted a fantastic celebration of the Lunar New Year to the delight of many neighborhood families. Children were especially captivated by the sights and sounds of traditional dancing lions as everyone celebrated the Year of the Dragon.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the SDG&E Rolando Substation to showcase the new mural installation they funded to beautify the facility and neighborhood (Pictured above: From L to R: Sean Elo-Rivera (& son) San Diego City Council President and District 9 representative, Brittany Applestein Syz, Regional Public Affairs Director for San Diego Gas & Electric, Izzy Halpern, ArtReach Mural Program Manager and Katy Yeaw, ArtReach Mural Artist).
It was completed by artist Katy Yeaw with ArtReach San Diego, a non-profit which collaborates with individuals, businesses and organizations to make creative community connections through visual arts expression.
With input from community members, she designed colorful mural panels which depict a path weaving through local wildlife and native plants, including Agave, palms, pines, oranges, a hummingbird, falcon, parrot and coyote. College Area and Rolando residents welcomed this public art installation at El Cajon Boulevard and 62Dakota del Norte Calle.
The next CACC meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. at the College-Rolando Library on April 2.
CACC-sponsored neighborhood Cleanup Days take place on the last Sunday of the month.
Take a selfie/photo of you helping to spruce up the College Area and send it to [email protected] to receive a CACC t-shirt and enter a drawing for a gift card, courtesy of a local business in the College Area Business District. The CACC will host a joint Cleanup with SDSU Associated Students on April 21. Look for more information in the April edition of the Mission Times Courier.
The following are additional reports by our College Area neighborhoods.
Fincas Alvarado
Por KAREN AUSTIN
The Alvarado Estates Fire Safe Council hosted the second of three Fire Preparedness Workshops for residents on Feb. 8.
The first covered general preparedness including wildfire behavior, warning notifications, emergency planning, evacuation routes and more. The third workshop will focus on fire insurance issues. Workshop are provided with support from the San Diego Regional Fire Foundation which provides grants throughout San Diego County for fire prevention and community education.
Morgan Dioli, Forestry and Fire Prevention Programs Coordinator at the Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County was the keynote speaker.
She assists in the formation of Fire Safe Councils and provides support to the network of 40 within San Diego County. She shared about critical steps residents can take to prepare for wildfire, including the creation of non-flammable defensible space in the first five feet around their home and the use of building materials like Class A roofing, ember resistant vents, fire retardant treated wood and rain gutter guards. She then described her organization’s new program to provide a free property assessment for homeowners who want personalized feedback about steps they can take to “harden” their home against the threat of wildfire. More information can be found at www.firesafesdcounty.org
The remainder of the meeting was dedicated to educating participants about the range of home hardening steps which might be recommended.
Representatives from Vulcan Vents, Ember Defense, BrandGuard Vents, Safer Building Solutions and Mataverde Hardwood Decking and Siding made presentations about their specialized building and retrofit products. Products are all rated and meet standards such as Wildland-Urban Interface Codes, which aim to mitigate the risks of wildfire to life and property.
The vendors educated participants about how wildfire will impact a structure which hasn’t been hardened against embers, radiant heat and flames. Then they took turns describing how their product works to protect a home against wildfire, showed participants actual product samples and shared educational materials.
College View Estates
By JEAN HOEGER
The College View Estates Association sponsors a fun “First Friday” gathering at the home of a different CVE resident each month, where good food, good drinks and good conversation are the order of the day.
These are held inside during the chilly months and outside during the warmer months. It is a nice time for neighbors to catch up with friends from around CVE.
El Cerrito
By LAURA RIEBAU
March is elections month for the El Cerrito Community Council (ECCC) and there are openings on the Board.
We would love to have new members join us with their ideas, vision and energy. The one requirement to qualify is having attended at least one El Cerrito meeting during the last 12 months. Please email us at: [email protected] if you are interested or announce your candidacy at the meeting on March 21.
During our February ECCC monthly meeting, Ramie Zomisky presented some interesting ideas to help address the San Diego housing supply problem and high housing costs.
Her ideas include:
1. Limiting more Air BNB homes, which would put up to about 8,000 homes back into the housing supply;
2. Establishing a new tax on home flippers’ sales if they flip more than a predetermined number of homes each year; and
3. Ensuring bona fide permits and inspections are done for home remodels by flippers, so buyers get a good quality remodeled home.
El Cerrito has held a monthly community Cleanup Day for years prior to Covid and we have resumed them recently. We have coffee, a lot of fun, and really welcome and enjoy meeting new community members.
We can always use extra help at these events, so please join us. Every little bit helps, even if you are not able to stay for the whole time.
Notice of the date, time and location of these events is sent out via email and are posted on https://elcerritocommunitycouncil.org.
A big thank you to all our community members who regularly pick up trash on our El Cerrito streets. Many of us have an unsung hero or two on our street who regularly pick up trash and litter, keeping it out of the storm drains and keeping the area looking great.
If anyone would like to receive our ECCC newsletter and notices of events via email, please let us know at [email protected].
Mesa Colony
By SUSAN GRANT
Folks in Mesa Colony are working on making sure that their street lights are working.
We have started a campaign, complete with maps of the lights on each of the streets in our neighborhood. While it is still dark in the early morning and evening, we are walking our neighborhood to see if any of the lights are out. People are using the sidewalks and bike lanes when it is dark and they rely on the street lights to keep them safe.
This is a great opportunity for us to improve safety while the City is focusing its attention on fixing the lights in the College Area and all of District 9. With the map on our phones, it is super easy to seek out and report faulty lights using the City of San Diego “Get It Done” App. Our goal is to report all light failures in our neighborhood by the end of March.
Every resident needs and deserves functioning neighborhood lights.
