La Jolla Town Council tries to boost community presence as it names new executives

The La Jolla Town Council’s leadership called last week for more involvement from the community as it installed new executive committee members and named leaders of other committees in its bid to increase membership, fundraising and outreach.

New Town Council President Jerri Hunt, who was sworn in in July, said at the group’s Sept. 8 meeting that “I would like to emphasize that this council is made up completely of volunteers. We are not paid for our efforts. We do this because we love La Jolla, and we work a lot of hours and we work for you, who are our neighbors.”

She said the Town Council wants to hear from La Jollans.

“We will be able to serve you in the best way possible if we can hear from you,” Hunt said. She added that residents are invited to voice their concerns by speaking up at meetings, calling (858) 454-1444 or visiting the council’s website, lajollatowncouncil.org.

Hunt said the Town Council trustees “have all agreed that we will listen first and we will act based on what the majority of your concerns are.”

Hunt then called for a vote to elect Treger Strasberg as secretary and Francie Moss as treasurer following the resignations of Brooke Baginski and Chuck Merriman in those roles last month.

Both Baginski and Merriman will stay on as Town Council trustees. They resigned from the executive committee a month after being sworn in, citing other demands on their time.

The executive committee is composed of the president, vice president (Rick Dagon), secretary, treasurer, chief technology officer (Ron Jones) and immediate past president (James Rudolph).

The committee meets monthly in addition to the regular Town Council meeting.

Strasberg and Moss were voted in unanimously.

Dagon said he will lead the fundraising, membership and technology committees.

He said trustees will represent the council at community events such as the La Jolla Open Aire Market.

Strasberg will head the social media committee, which oversees the Town Council Facebook and Instagram pages as well as its newsletter, overlapping with the technology committee.

“We don’t post often; we don’t have a lot of followers,” Strasberg said. She added that her goal is to increase those numbers.

She said she will have dedicated Monday posts about business leaders, Tuesday posts about trash and other problems and Friday posts about weekend events.

“We really want to be organized, and our goal is to post every day,” she said.

Strasberg said she is taking community suggestions to increase the Town Council’s social media presence.

She said the goal of the newsletter is to “use it as a tool to bring in members. Once we have a very large following for the newsletter, we can highlight new members, people who are doing great things in the community [and] businesses that we adore.”

Catherine Douglass, chairwoman of the safety committee, said “public safety is a tremendous draw for people to come to these meetings, and I am looking forward to working with my committee.”

She said the committee “can look at emergency evacuation,” notifications for power outages and setting up Neighborhood Watch meetings.

Hunt said “these committees are going to be the infrastructure and the backbone of the La Jolla Town Council. I’m very excited as far as what we’re going to be able to accomplish going forward.”

The La Jolla Town Council next meets at 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13, online and at the La Jolla Recreation Center, 615 Prospect St. To learn more, visit lajollatowncouncil.org. ◆