Fiesta Del Sol: A Pre-Summer Celebration for families, music and giving back to the community

As North County coastal residents patiently wait for the summer months to fill weekends with beach time and barbeques, for the last 34 years Solana Beach jump-starts the cherished summertime season with the Fiesta Del Sol – a free, music-filled celebration inviting families, friends and visitors to our city during the first weekend in June.

Right-Sizing One Paseo

When assessing the One Paseo concept, a fundamental question I ask is, “How much is too much?” On the flip side, “at what point will scaling the project back make it functionally incapable of desired Main Street objectives?” Establishing appropriate objective parameters for the use mix, densities, floor area ratio (or FAR), building heights, and number of stories will help achieve a project of appropriate size and scale for a true community town center while complementing an established community character.

One Paseo – I really do care

I really do care if Kilroy builds the One Paseo mixed use project.

Kudos to City of Del Mar’s Finance Committee Pension Sub-Committee

Hats off to the members of the City of Del Mar’s Finance Committee Pension Sub-Committee for the 18-plus months they spent learning the ins and outs of the City’s $23,000,000-plus pension obligation. They really have a well-researched understanding of the issues and the politics and the challenges of the City’s pension liability, and as we approach the next round of budget discussions we need to lean on them and their knowledge to help guide the decisions we make as a City.

Time to forget or time to remember?

Jordan Rosenfeld, in his letter of May 9, said it’s time to stop the comparisons with Hitler and Nazi Germany, such as made by Jim Donovan (me) and Tom Pickwell in making their (separately submitted) cases against Big Brother in America and his ever bigger and bolder encroachments upon the liberty fought for by our inspired founders and guaranteed by the Constitution they created.

One Paseo – I really don’t care

I really don’t care if Kilroy builds the One Paseo mixed use project.

I am retired. I can wander over to Carmel Valley after the noon time rush and before the Torrey Pines High school gets out around 2:45 p.m.

‘Twerking’ incident a wake-up call

The recent scandal over the “twerking” video provides an opportunity to reflect on our changing culture and values. Administrators from the school where the video was produced were understandably upset and chose to prohibit the participants from going to the prom and walking at graduation. The school was concerned about the message these students appeared to be sending to their peers and the online community.

Number of annual gunshot deaths unacceptable

Americans have been outraged and saddened by the devastation caused by the bombs that disrupted the Boston Marathon. Three people died, many lost limbs or suffered other severe injury. It’s an unacceptable situation, and Congress is now investigating what went wrong. Homeland Security, federal data bases, and the FBI somehow missed the alert. Someone should have known that Tamarlan Tsarnaev and his brother were dangerous. Congress will continue to debate and review the facts and try to find out what went wrong, all with the intent of making us feel safer.

We need to do all we can to ensure safety of cyclists

I came across this scene while on a bike ride along the CA State Route 56 freeway during the evening rush hour commute on Friday. The car in the picture went off the road, through a fence and came to rest on the bike path that parallels the freeway. The accident happened about 5 minutes before I arrived on scene. The scary part is that my bike ride was delayed by about 5 minutes when I returned home to retrieve my cycling gloves. If we had met, I would have been hit head on (I took the picture after passing the car).

Bad refereeing and indifferent coaching endanger future of youth soccer

With the continuing popularity and success of youth soccer, there is a constant increase of the number of teens playing soccer. Unfortunately, with the increasing number of players comes an increasing number of serious injuries that can effectively end a soccer career. Most disturbing is how a huge number of these injuries are intentional, demonstrating complete disregard for the well-being and future of the players on the opposing side. In fact, in the first round of the National Cup, the Under 17 boys received 22 red cards, almost half for violent conduct. And people argue that there should have been at least twice as much.