Community grants top next Tuesday’s city council agenda. Fourteen requests were submitted by the April 10 deadline. The combined requests come to $989,798, $13,017 less than the $1,002,815 set aside in the budget. The majority of organizations are asking for the same amount of money; the Memorial Day Committee and the Navy Junior League-Sea Cadets asked for slightly more. Camp Able, the Community Band and Musica Vitale asked for less.
If the council follows tradition, only the organizations that are asking for more money will have to make a formal presentation. Mayor Richard Bailey has indicated that he would like all groups to make their case at the meeting, not just the ones asking for more money. The agenda item is scheduled to begin at 5:30 pm.
Other issues before the council include:
- A plan to wrap Caltrans boxes on Orange Avenue and the Silver Strand with designs created by middle school students. Caltrans has approved the installation. The idea of turning utility boxes into works of art has been a goal of the Coronado Cultural Arts Commission (CAC) since 2013. “Art Outside the Box” will cost a little over $9,000. “The CAC intends to find donors to pay for the project,” Kelly Purvis, CAC administrator said.
- A review of the Port of San Diego Bayside Performance Park Enhancement Project. It is an event venue for the San Diego Symphony at Embarcadero Marina Park South. While staged on port property in the City of San Diego, the sound will carry across the bay and either entertain or annoy residents along First Street. Either way, wnless mitigated, amplified music at the new venue will generate sounds that exceed Coronado’s Noise Abatement and Control Regulations.
- A public hearing on whether to allow owners of a historic house at 711 A Avenue to rebuild a site wall that exceeds the city’s height limitation, which limits fences to six feet. The proposed wall ranges from 6 feet 7 inches to 9 feet 6 inches, the same height as the wall it will replace. The fence must be this high to comply with a rule that any reconstruction or replacement not deviate from the original. City engineers deemed the existing wall a “hazard to public safety.”
- Renew Coronado’s status as a “Bicycle Friendly Community.” In 2013 the League of American Bicyclists awarded Coronado a Silver-level designation for its efforts to create a safe environment for bicyclists. The current designation is set to expire in 2018.
- In applying for the designation, “the community will receive in-depth feedback on how well the community fosters safe bicycling, with particular attention given to the needs of the average person,” the staff report said.
