It looked like the railroad from the East would end right here, but we got out-politicked. So Los Angeles became Los Angeles and we stayed San Diego.
We planned a world’s fair to welcome ships coming through the new Panama Canal, but San Francisco stole the idea and got the official designation. We did one anyway and, a century later, we have Balboa Park largely intact, while S.F. has one rebuilt structure.
In 1972, the Republican Party decided not to have its national convention in San Diego and, as a result, we got our motto: “America’s Finest City.” (Well, OK, it doesn’t always work.)
This week’s turning point in the campaign to clear Balboa Park’s central Plaza de Panama of cars before the 2015 centennial of the Panama-California Exposition may be another of those opportunities that look tragic but turn out well.
Sometimes, the best policy really is: “Don’t just do something, stand there.”
When Mayor Jerry Sanders asked Irwin Jacobs to help out with clearing the plaza, our city’s iconic philanthropist pondered the problem with his engineer’s eye. He decided the answer was obvious: a new Cabrillo Bridge exit bypassing the park’s historic core and funneling traffic to an underground parking garage behind the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, to be paid for with parking fees and donations from private sources including, probably, himself.
The mayor was delighted and the city’s establishment rallied around as Jacobs sold the idea and pushed the process, paying for preliminary plans.
But Balboa Park is the apple of many an eye. And, when support for this particular approach began to sag, Jacobs resisted alternative suggestions.
Then this week, a City Council committee balked at a memorandum of understanding to conceptually approve his plan and Jacobs walked out of the room heading for Alaska.
It was a planned trip, of course. And maybe the schedule was tight. But this truculent exit startled many veterans of Balboa Park planning. Nothing ever happens in that arena without the grueling, painful processes typified by the Wednesday meeting, which featured the usual ragtag band of passionate advocates emotionally begging for their cause versus an impressive parade of suits representing boards and staffs of institutions whose oxen were threatened with goring.
The council members, having seen such parades often enough, were more interested in the protests and in the voters they claimed to represent. Attention was paid and good questions were asked.
Councilwoman Marti Emerald wondered if the memorandum could be adjusted to study other design possibilities. Sherri Lightner pondered the precedent of paid parking. And Tony Young, chair of the committee, asked city staff why we couldn’t experiment by closing the Cabrillo Bridge to auto traffic right away. Like today.Irwin Jacobs heard none of this. He was headed for Alaska, quoted as saying, “I will hold back and wait and see what happens.”
Petulance doesn’t play well. And “my way or the highway” is not the Jacobs style. The Qualcomm co-founder’s distinguished record of broad generosity and enlightened personal philanthropy eloquently suggests otherwise.
But now is the time for leadership.
Mayor Sanders can’t just wash his hands of the whole business. Park institutions can’t just shrug and reassume the isolation of business as usual. Environmental and historical advocates must acknowledge real-life realities.
History suggests the supporters of Balboa Park, including the general public itself, will not give up on cherishing and protecting this priceless asset. What’s needed is enlightened, energetic, resourceful, wise leadership that unites everybody.
So can’t we all just work together? We did before, in 1915 for the Panama-California Exposition. And again in 1935 for the California-Pacific International Exposition.
And our prize?
Balboa Park itself.
We planned a world’s fair to welcome ships coming through the new Panama Canal, but San Francisco stole the idea and got the official designation. We did one anyway and, a century later, we have Balboa Park largely intact, while S.F. has one rebuilt structure.
In 1972, the Republican Party decided not to have its national convention in San Diego and, as a result, we got our motto: “America’s Finest City.” (Well, OK, it doesn’t always work.)
This week’s turning point in the campaign to clear Balboa Park’s central Plaza de Panama of cars before the 2015 centennial of the Panama-California Exposition may be another of those opportunities that look tragic but turn out well.
Sometimes, the best policy really is: “Don’t just do something, stand there.”
When Mayor Jerry Sanders asked Irwin Jacobs to help out with clearing the plaza, our city’s iconic philanthropist pondered the problem with his engineer’s eye. He decided the answer was obvious: a new Cabrillo Bridge exit bypassing the park’s historic core and funneling traffic to an underground parking garage behind the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, to be paid for with parking fees and donations from private sources including, probably, himself.
The mayor was delighted and the city’s establishment rallied around as Jacobs sold the idea and pushed the process, paying for preliminary plans.
But Balboa Park is the apple of many an eye. And, when support for this particular approach began to sag, Jacobs resisted alternative suggestions.
Then this week, a City Council committee balked at a memorandum of understanding to conceptually approve his plan and Jacobs walked out of the room heading for Alaska.
It was a planned trip, of course. And maybe the schedule was tight. But this truculent exit startled many veterans of Balboa Park planning. Nothing ever happens in that arena without the grueling, painful processes typified by the Wednesday meeting, which featured the usual ragtag band of passionate advocates emotionally begging for their cause versus an impressive parade of suits representing boards and staffs of institutions whose oxen were threatened with goring.
The council members, having seen such parades often enough, were more interested in the protests and in the voters they claimed to represent. Attention was paid and good questions were asked.
Councilwoman Marti Emerald wondered if the memorandum could be adjusted to study other design possibilities. Sherri Lightner pondered the precedent of paid parking. And Tony Young, chair of the committee, asked city staff why we couldn’t experiment by closing the Cabrillo Bridge to auto traffic right away. Like today.Irwin Jacobs heard none of this. He was headed for Alaska, quoted as saying, “I will hold back and wait and see what happens.”
Petulance doesn’t play well. And “my way or the highway” is not the Jacobs style. The Qualcomm co-founder’s distinguished record of broad generosity and enlightened personal philanthropy eloquently suggests otherwise.
But now is the time for leadership.
Mayor Sanders can’t just wash his hands of the whole business. Park institutions can’t just shrug and reassume the isolation of business as usual. Environmental and historical advocates must acknowledge real-life realities.
History suggests the supporters of Balboa Park, including the general public itself, will not give up on cherishing and protecting this priceless asset. What’s needed is enlightened, energetic, resourceful, wise leadership that unites everybody.
So can’t we all just work together? We did before, in 1915 for the Panama-California Exposition. And again in 1935 for the California-Pacific International Exposition.
And our prize?
Balboa Park itself.
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