After months of planning and fundraising, an effort to install new benches next to the bocce court at the La Jolla Recreation Center took a crucial step recently when the benches were officially ordered.
“We’re a go,” Enhance La Jolla President Ed Witt said at the group’s Jan. 15 meeting. Enhance La Jolla has been working with local bocce players and community volunteers to shepherd the project. The regulation-size bocce court is along the Draper Avenue side of the Rec Center grounds.
Witt said the four 8-foot benches are scheduled to be shipped Feb. 24 and will be assembled and installed by GDC Construction.
“We should be up and running in the spring,” Witt said.
Enhance La Jolla is a nonprofit with authority to augment services provided by the city of San Diego, including landscape maintenance, street and sidewalk cleaning, litter and graffiti abatement and additional trash collection. It also can privately fund and complete projects in public spaces, including bench installation.
More than a year ago, local bocce player Chas. Dye approached Enhance La Jolla about installing the benches under the group’s permit with the city.
He said the benches are needed because “the sessions usually are about two hours, and two hours can be a lengthy time to be on your feet.” Players currently bring chairs for when they need a place to sit.
Dye raised more than $14,000 toward the permit, fabrication and installation, and Enhance La Jolla facilitated the permit.
An installation date was not immediately available.
Other Enhance La Jolla news
Kathryn Kanjo: The board paid tribute to departing board member and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego director and Chief Executive Kathryn Kanjo, who is leaving to direct the newly created UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. Her last day on the job in La Jolla will be Friday, Jan. 30.
Departing Enhance La Jolla board member Kathryn Kanjo stands with board President Ed Witt. (Ashley Mackin-Solomon)
Kanjo has been an Enhance La Jolla board member for more than five years, and her current term expires in October.
“We can’t thank you enough,” Witt said of Kanjo’s service to the museum and Enhance La Jolla.
Kanjo said she “loved being part of this group that really has enhanced La Jolla. So thank you for letting me serve.”
The Enhance La Jolla board appointed La Jolla Music Society President and CEO Todd Shultz to serve the remainder of Kanjo’s term.
Merchant contacts: This year the board will be working on new ways to contact local merchants who do things that aren’t allowed or affect the look of the public right of way — such as having unpermitted A-frame signs out front. Additionally, there have been reports of food merchants having trash in front of their businesses.
“We are a big believer in wanting to help because we want our retailers to succeed,” Witt said. “So when we talk to a retailer, we do so as a partner and as a group that wants to help them with their business. We are not here to criticize.”
But, Witt said, some retailers have “pushed back” when approached, so he and the board are looking at new and more effective ways of communicating with the hope of deterring the unwanted behaviors.
Next meeting: The Enhance La Jolla board meets quarterly or as needed. The next meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday, April 16, at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 700 Prospect St. The agenda will be posted 72 hours in advance at enhancelajolla.org. ♦