Honorable Mayor Tanaka and Council Members;
I do want to make a couple of comments since I cannot attend the Council Meeting tomorrow.
I know that you will be very impressed with the numbers of citizens who show up on Tuesday because a small but mighty group of ladies who are long time residents and who love to” pack the chambers” have been hard at work. They have been the driving force behind making it appear that a “vast majority” do not want the study and/or a result that would say that a bike path is actually a good idea. (I personally know many of them). Well, as Casey Tanaka once said, it is democracy in action and a beautiful thing to behold. However, there is very likely a group almost as large who do favor the study, but they are younger people who work and take care of families so they do not have the time to go to a Council Meeting or hold little strategy meetings. Again, that is the way things are.
The other thing that is nagging at the back of my mind is this notion that a path would attract more tourists and that this was always a paradise in the good old days. First of all, that is just a hunch at best because there has been no study to prove that point. Coronado does not and will not have the bars and restaurants that Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach and the like have on the beach. Those places had the parties and tourists for another reason a long time ago. I always thought that Coronado WANTED tourists. Here is a web site that would suggest that http://www.coronadotourismdistrict.org/.
Maybe the City should take steps to prevent the Travel Channel, Forbes, Trip Advisor or Dr. Beach from including the Coronado Beach as one of the top ten as some of them did a few years back. That was when I began to notice greater numbers on the beach here year round.
Some of the anti-study folks have made a great point of saying that they have lived here for 40 or 50 years. It is almost as if that bestows some greater rights than someone who, like myself, has only lived here for 17 years. But, the real problem that I have with them is this. When I moved to Coronado 17 years ago, the business district was still in some former state of disrepair. There were large numbers of empty and ugly store fronts and only a hand full of descent restaurants. One would note that the town looked quite shabby. In those days, Costa Azul and Island Pasta were just getting off the ground and I dare say they never made it into the black until years later as the tourists began to come year round. Many restaurants that we went to and enjoyed did not make it through the off seasons. Costa Azul, Crown Bistro and others offered discount books and resident discounts trying desperately to get locals to eat out. Even Marie Callendar’s ultimately failed here. Somehow, the Rhinocerous Cafe seemed to be the only place that was full year round. We never ever had to make a reservation (we eat out every Saturday night) and we were often one of the only patrons in even the best restaurants like Peohes, the Brig and Chez Loma etc. Because the choice was very limited, we often took the ferry over to the Gaslamp just to have some choices. A bar tender at Primavera shared the history of that location which was formerly a dive bar where fights regularly broke out on Saturday nights.
So, where were the people who were living here for 50 years. The answer is, I think, that they were behind their closed doors and shuttered windows dining and/or entertaining in their big houses. Yes, I see where most of the anit-beach bike path study signs are. Those folks had the means to support a vibrant community but they chose to remain at home behind closed doors.
My husband and I have not taken the ferry to San Diego to eat in almost 2 years now because there are just too many restaurants to love right here. I shop for everything I possibly can in our local stores. We go to our wonderful little movie theater all of the time. I cringe whenever a store front empties. I love sharing my paradise with the people who bring enough money to Coronado to make it alive and vibrant. I still only rarely see the “Old guard” among the patrons of our now very excellent restaurants. Without the tourists, we very simply do not have all of the choices that we now have and Coronado has worked hard to increase its tourism.
I managed multi-million dollar budgets in a 1 plus billion organization. I commissioned, oversaw and managed studies that tested the feasibility of things before plunging ahead. I later actually performed studies as a consultant myself (and $100,000 is not a lot of money for expertise). It is just beyond my understanding to think that a previously budgeted information gathering study would be derailed by emotional out cry but, again, it is what it is.
Finally, I just read this in E Coronado and it seems to say it all:
“The idea was to build a “recreational facility that would improve beach access for the ADA community, joggers, pedestrians, and bicyclists of all types.” The feasibility study was intended to “examine the environmental, constructability, land use, recreational, and safety issues ” not a bike path per say.
The study was to be the first step in a long process that could well involve environmental review from other agencies, such as the Coastal Commission or Fish and Wildlife. Besides voting to continue on with the original feasibility study, the city council also has the option to modify its original vote by setting aside less money and evaluating a small project.”
Somehow, what started as one thing morphed into the “Bike Path.”
Berie Grobe
