‘Trump 2024’ signs in La Jolla aren’t officially connected to the presidential campaign

Promotional signs for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign that have been posted in windows of the Merrill Lynch building in La Jolla have no connection to the campaign itself but are a demonstration of Jason Vondrak’s support.

Some residents had speculated that the site was being used as an official Trump campaign office.

But Vondrak, president of Prospect Home Finance in the building at 7825 Fay Ave., said he placed the signs in his business to show his allegiance “in these turbulent times.”

“I have to stand up for what’s right,” Vondrak said. “I feel it is important for everyone to stand up and speak and have open and honest debates.”

The signs were first observed earlier this month, and Vondrak said he doesn’t know how long they’ll stay up.

He said he expects some people won’t like the signs supporting the controversial former president and said there have been “a couple of violent door jerks in the evening, so I started double-locking the doors.”

“I’m a little scared, but at the same time I strongly feel it is the right thing to do,” he said.

Signs posted by local businessman Jason Vondrak in the Merrill Lynch building on Fay Avenue in La Jolla aren’t officially linked to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

(Ashley Mackin-Solomon)

Local resident Treger Strasberg is one who doesn’t like the signs. She said she believes Trump conveys a message of “division and hatred” and that the signs are like “putting a flag in the sand and a middle finger in the air.”

“I am very much a fan of politics, but there is something different with the politics of today,” said Strasberg, who is president of the La Jolla Town Council but was not speaking in that capacity. “If I were to see a politician’s sign 10 years ago, it wouldn’t evoke the same emotions a Trump sign evokes today. ... It makes me feel uncomfortable to have [the signs] in my community.”

But Vondrak said he feels Trump is being persecuted. The former president has been indicted in four separate cases. The indictments are connected to allegations of mishandling classified documents, “hush money” payments during the 2016 presidential campaign to try to bury extramarital sexual encounters, attempting to overturn the 2020 election that he lost to President Joe Biden and, most recently, election interference. Trump has denied all the charges.

La Jolla resident Treger Strasberg says she believes the signs supporting former president Donald Trump convey a message of “division and hatred.”

(Ashley Mackin-Solomon)

Vondrak said there are parallels between the “persecution” Trump has experienced and what he has experienced in the mortgage industry.

“Prospect Home Finance has come under attack from the powers that be in the mortgage industry for standing up for the consumers and the homeowners,” he said. In 2021, his company was working with a mortgage firm that stated that those who do business with it cannot do business with other mortgage lenders.

Wanting to continue to do business with another company, “we decided to put our foot down and say enough is enough [because] one of our strengths is being able to use top mortgage companies in the country to put pressure on each other so we have freedom of choice,” Vondrak said.

In doing so, “there were substantial consequences for us” that “annihilated me financially,” he said. ◆