My last hurrah

By Dave Druker

Mayor of Del Mar

Thank you Del Mar for giving me the honor and privilege to have represented you for the last 12 years and 7 months. I have had a very interesting time and I hope that you believe that I have made the town a little better place than it was in April 1996.

I also am honored that I was able to make some contributions to the region through my representation for you at the North County Transit District and SANDAG. I would also like to thank the Del Mar Times for giving me the opportunity to write a column as mayor for the past year and during my previous stint as mayor. Finally, I would like to thank city staff. They are extremely hard working and do a great job keeping the city clean, safe and protecting the community plan. They have kept us out of the problems that many other cities face, especially in the difficult financial times that we have endured and will be enduring.

Much has been accomplished in the last 12 years and I don’t want to recite all the myriad of projects, discussions, events and changes. I would though like to notate some things that need to be addressed in the future that are not necessarily on many people’s radar today:

Historic preservation

Del Mar needs to have a means for determining the historic houses in town and then providing an incentive for people to voluntarily designate their property as historic. We preserve our beaches, our bluffs, our canyon and lagoon, but we do not provide a means for people to voluntarily preserve their houses. These houses create an atmosphere of old and new rather than all new - one of the great characteristics of Del Mar. As people buy older houses and want to rebuild a new house, we need to have a means for determining which houses require a California Environmental Quality Act certification for historic preservation and which do not.

Rehabilitation of Del Mar apartment buildings

There are quite a few apartment buildings around 4th Street, on Ocean Ave. and Coast Blvd. that may have built before the community plan was created in the late 1970s. These structures will eventually need to be rebuilt or be drastically refurbished. The city needs to decide if there should be an incentive to continue the current density and/or a disincentive for reducing the housing stock.

Shrinking population

As more and more houses in Del Mar are sold to people as vacation homes, Del Mar needs to determine how to engage these part time residents. While these new residents will be part of the community they may not have the same needs and desires that full-time residents have. Del Mar is a place for all seasons and many of the part time residents come from the greater Los Angeles area and even other parts of San Diego County just for the weekend and holidays. Tapping into these part time residents for their expertise will be difficult but ultimately needs to be done.

Good luck to the new council and especially Don Mosier and Mark Filanc. I hope that you will find serving the community as fulfilling and interesting as I have.