City park management policy at La Jolla Cove must change
The ongoing presence of California sea lions and harbor seals along the La Jolla shoreline — particularly along Scripps Park at Point La Jolla, La Jolla Cove, and the Children’s Pool — has evolved from a wildlife issue into a significant conservation, public access and community management conflict. At its center is the city of San Diego, which owns and manages these shoreline parks and has largely shaped the conditions that exist today.
While wildlife protections are governed primarily by federal and state law, the city controls park management, public access, recreation, infrastructure, maintenance, enforcement and visitor management. Through two decades of policy decisions — and,equally important, decisions not to act — the city has most recently allowed La Jolla Cove to evolve from a world-renowned coastal park celebrated for swimming, diving, environmental biodiversity and passive recreation into an increasingly crowded wildlife-tourism entertainment attraction.
The sea lions unquestionably provide benefits to San Diego. They generate tourism, media attention, social media exposure, and reinforce the city’s image as a wildlife and environmental destination. But the city receives many of those broader benefits, whileLa Jolla bears a disproportionate share of the consequences.
Those impacts now include chronic overcrowding, traffic and parking congestion, deteriorating parkland and infrastructure, overwhelming stench, sanitation and water-quality concerns, increased infrastructure maintenance costs, reduced beach accessand recreational opportunities, public-safety conflicts, blighted commercialism, and growing pressure on the adjacent marine environment and its many endangered species. The cumulative result is a coastal park area increasingly overwhelmed by thevery attraction the city has allowed to expand.
This approach may ultimately undermine both conservation and tourism. Visitors come to La Jolla for its extraordinary natural beauty, marine environment, and recreational opportunities — not simply to encounter dense crowds surrounding wildlife. Over-tourism, unmanaged viewing, vending, congestion, sanitation problems and human-wildlife conflicts increasingly diminish that experience.
The current situation did not develop overnight, nor did it occur without city government involvement. It is substantially the product of years of city policies, management decisions, inadequate enforcement, and the absence of a balanced and comprehensive long-term strategy. The city therefore has the immediate responsibility to correct the imbalance and dreadful condition it helped create.
La Jolla Cove does not need another narrow study or another policy focused on a single species or stakeholder. It needs a new comprehensive, long-term management plan that balances wildlife protection with marine conservation, public recreation and access, park preservation, visitor management, public safety, neighborhood quality of life, and the economic health of La Jolla and surrounding communities.
The status quo at the coastline parks is not sustainable, nor will it provide for stewardship for future generations. City park management policy must immediately change.
Bob Evans
La Jolla Parks & Beaches board member and past-president
Let’s bring back clean and quiet neighborhoods
Ever wish you could sleep in and not be awakened at 7 a.m. by a gas leaf blower? Or have you tried to enjoy the morning with a cup of coffee or afternoon tea, or simply take a nap or read a book in peace? How about a walk around the neighborhood without dodging dust, debris and gasoline fumes?
Wouldn’t that be great?!
Even though the state of California banned the sale of gas leaf blowers in 2024 and many independent cities have entirely banned their use, unfortunately, the city of San Diego has not. Most maintenance companies and gardeners have not updated their equipment and probably won’t any time soon — unless we provide them with alternatives.
Fortunately, that’s not difficult or costly; rakes and brooms are still the best garden tools and electric/battery operated blowers are an excellent alternative and an excellent green investment.
Let’s bring back clean quiet neighborhoods — one garden at a time!
Mary Anne Brown
La Jolla resident
East Roseland traffic-calming effort welcomed
Thank you Dr. Riad Mardoum for serving as the new spokesperson for our neighborhood and getting approval from the La Jolla Traffic & Transportation Board for the installation of speed lumps on East Roseland Drive, something that was attempted and failed during the previous nine years! My appreciation, also, to the T&T Board for its thoughtful, unanimous support.
This is an important first step in acquiring approval from the city of San Diego. And while (the idea of speed lumps) has been met with previous resistance from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, more details, discussion and understanding are needed which Dr. Mardoum is also pursuing.
Given the steady increased volume of traffic and speed from cars using this curvy, narrow side street as a short-cut to Torrey Pines Road, we are more concerned about the safety of pedestrians, including vulnerable children and pets. We wholeheartedly respect and appreciate our valued SDFD but wish to avoid their presence on our street because of an avoidable tragic accident due to speeding requiring their emergency intervention.
Looking forward to calm, soon … hopefully, from the timely installation of speed lumps!
Sandra NobileEast Roseland Drive Resident