Looking back and ahead: Q&A with Solana Beach Mayor Lesa Heebner

Solana Seashore Mayor Lesa Heebner just lately mentioned the highest points in Solana Seashore over the past 12 months, and previewed the 12 months forward. Solutions had been evenly edited and condensed for readability.

Q: What had been a few of your prime highlights in 2022?

Heebner: Usually, we accepted quite a lot of public infrastructure initiatives that we additionally obtained funding for, or discovered our personal funding for, so in 2023 we’ll be seeing quite a lot of groundbreakings. These embrace our Military Corps sand replenishment challenge. That challenge has been happening for actually many years. It’s a 50-year sand replenishment program collectively with town of Encinitas and the Military Corps of Engineers, and Congressman Levin was capable of get us $32 million to place us just about over the end line by way of planning. It should widen our seashores and supply extra security for many who come to our seashores.

We additionally, by way of Levin’s nice work, had been capable of obtain $7 million for our Lomas Santa Fe Hall Enchancment plan. That can be breaking floor quickly. It should most likely be coming to council within the subsequent month or two to find out how we’re going to go forward with this. We already mentioned publicly that we’d begin from the east facet and head west, so the east facet would see the multipurpose path on the north facet of Lomas Santa Fe and a few — the challenge itself typically is for public security for all types of transportation to enhance security and entry to mobility, and in addition to beautify the hall with this multipurpose path on the north facet, which can be landscaped and perhaps have some artwork alongside it. It’s going to be type of just like the coastal rail path, however we’ll have that model of it going alongside the east-west hall as an alternative of the north-south hall. These two are fairly large initiatives that obtain chunks of cash that can be transferring ahead within the subsequent 12 months.

The opposite large initiatives are our tot heaps at Fletcher Cove and La Colonia Neighborhood Park. They’re well-used and fairly dilapidated. These must be nicely underway within the subsequent couple of months. That can be an enormous enchancment that our group will profit from as nicely.

Q: Final month you talked about that former Councilmember Kelly Harless was a casualty of the transition to district-based elections. How does it really feel to have accomplished that transition after final fall’s election?

Heebner: I used to be not in favor of districting our metropolis, I feel it’s absurd to have a metropolis our dimension divided up into 4 quadrants, that are every lower than one sq. mile. It’s absurd in a method and you need to discover candidates inside a really small radius of town who’re certified and prepared to run. We lucked out that we now have Jill MacDonald who was prepared to run for District 4. I’ve identified Jill for a very long time and was very glad she was prepared to step up and do this. So I’m happy with the composition of our council, however I want we might have six of us so we didn’t need to lose Kelly. She was an incredible council member. She was at all times ready, and at all times articulate and at all times very considerate and thoughtful of not simply her space of town, however the complete metropolis, and of the expertise of our residents and companies.

Q: What points in Solana Seashore are in your radar heading into 2023?

Heebner: We’ve received a couple of issues we now have to look out for, we’re at all times watching what the state’s as much as by way of extra housing insurance policies to cope with. And now we’ve received what the fairgrounds is likely to be doing with their strategic planning with revenue seeming to be their precedence, and hopefully the cities will be capable to be concerned in that strategic plan. We all know what our communities will settle for. Hopefully it would embrace reasonably priced housing items for town of Del Mar.

We’ll be doing our work plan in early spring, and what I’ve discovered over all these years is that we put out what our priorities are and what we wish to do after which life occurs. You need to deal with sure issues and put different issues on maintain. We’re trying ahead to getting a licensed housing ingredient, we’ve gotten some constructive feedback again from the Division of Housing and Neighborhood Improvement since we submitted it as soon as once more. We’re additionally trying on the property simply to the south of us, on the north bluff in Del Mar. No matter is there impacts Solana Seashore excess of it impacts Del Mar. Hopefully we are able to work nicely with Del Mar to make sure that their zoning is adhered to there.

Q: Will you even be paying shut consideration to the plan to maneuver the prepare tracks off the Del Mar bluff and into an inland tunnel, since Solana Seashore residents are more likely to see and really feel the impacts?

Heebner: I’m on SANDAG, so for certain we’ll be speaking about that. Having simply over the vacations taken the journey as much as Santa Barbara on the Amtrak, I needed to go Amtrak, bus, Amtrak. It went as easily as doable but it surely added a very good hour to the transit time and it wasn’t fantastic. So will the LOSSAN hall need to be relocated beginning farther north than we anticipated? It appears as if that’s the case to me. In fact, these funds want to come back from the feds and the state, as a result of they’re going to be billions.

Q: The rest you wish to add?

Heebner: I’m simply actually happy to be serving and looking out ahead to the following 12 months and progress and bettering the standard of life for residents in Solana Seashore, serving to our companies out the place we are able to. One other factor we’ve received is Fiesta del Sol developing, and I do know they’re reorienting their structure. It’s been fairly profitable over the past 12 months too, and I feel there’s some good folks in command of it. It’s thrilling to see town come alive once more out of the COVID-19 pandemic.