Our Readers Write: Recreation Center, marine animals, La Jolla Parkway

Letters to the editor:

Conditions at La Jolla Rec Center are outrageous

I have been living in La Jolla for the past 19 years, since I was 15 years old. I now have three kids and our daily routine includes going to the park, especially the La Jolla Recreation Center.

Every day we are there it appears to be in worse condition. La Jolla has some of the most expensive homes in all of San Diego and our local park is broken and rusted to the point that it is starting to be dangerous.

The condition of playground equipment at the La Jolla Recreation Center has reader Carla Modiano unhappy.

(Photos courtesy of Carla Modiano)

When I asked the park management, they said they did not have enough funding to remodel and that they needed private fundraising. I find it outrageous that everywhere in San Diego [County] (from Carlsbad to Chula Vista), kids have new and beautiful playgrounds and that here in La Jolla we’ve had the same broken and rusted playground for years without anyone speaking up.

Worse is that with all the taxes we pay there would have to be private funding to get a public park fixed.

Carla Modiano

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It was better when marine animals and people avoided each other

I lived near the Children’s Pool in the 1970s, a block up from Shell Beach. Seals would only haul out on the rocks offshore then, and there weren’t many of them. They avoided people and we avoided them — wisely.

Back then, there was an old muscle-beach guy who lived in a van and often parked overnight at the Pool. At daybreak, he was often harvesting mussels from the rocks next to the breakwater. He would then toss them to the few seals that swam from nearby rocks to the inshore side of the Pool. Some of them would perform for his attention to receive an extra mussel or two tossed their way.

That’s why seals at the Pool and sea lions at The Cove are there and no longer afraid of people. It was better before than it is now.

Steven Weston

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Can’t wait for La Jolla Parkway resurfacing

That La Jolla Parkway could actually be resurfaced in our lifetimes is a joyful possibility (“La Jolla Parkway to be resurfaced as part of ‘Sexy Streets’ initiative,” Jan. 13, La Jolla Light).

In the meantime, the volcano-size craters have almost obliterated tires and axles, not to mention loss of teeth fillings.

Could someone please address the decades-long neglect of this road and give us an actual date for when resurfacing might occur? Something to which we might look forward in our golden years.

Althea Brimm

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What’s on YOUR mind?

Letters published in the La Jolla Light express views from readers about community matters. Submissions of related photos also are welcome. Letters reflect the writers’ opinions and not necessarily those of the newspaper staff or publisher. Letters are subject to editing. To share your thoughts in this public forum, email them with your first and last names and city or neighborhood of residence to robert.vardon@lajollalight.com. You also can submit a letter online at lajollalight.com/submit-a-letter-to-the-editor. The deadline is 10 a.m. Monday for publication in that week’s paper. Letters without the writer’s name cannot be published. Letters from the same person are limited to one in a 30-day period. ◆