Plan for parking board hits bump in the road

“Enabling Diverse Business Leaders”

The Merrill Lynch La Jolla office presented a $5,000 Merrill Lynch Scholarship to Arturo Castro, a fellow at the USC Marshall School of Business. The scholarship was presented at the third annual gala hosted by the San Diego Chapter of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA). The gala recognized the local chapter’s corporate partners for their generous support and assistance in realizing the mission of the organization, and to raise additional funds for NSHMBA scholarships in 2008. Merrill Lynch served as the gala’s platinum sponsor.

Walter Burenin, Resident Director of the La Jolla office of Merrill Lynch, says, “It gives us great pride to contribute to the professional development of leaders from diverse backgrounds.””Taking control of our streets is a good idea,” Weiss said. “But, we should then not give that control to someone else other than the people.”

Susie Greenwald, longtime owner of Print O mat on Silverado Street, said that parking is definitely a problem for her small business.

“I have heard from customers who told me flat out they’d do more business with me, but they can never find some place to park,” she said. “I had another customer who was having trouble picking up an order and had driven by three days in a row and was unable to find a parking space. We sell printed materials, and no one wants to walk 1,000 yards carrying a 40-pound case of printed letterhead.”

A number of residents testified at the public forum, both for and against creating a parking management district in La Jolla.

“This is the best chance that this community has to have a greater voice in not only parking issues, but beautification and fixing the potholes in the street,” said architect Robert Thiele, who’s chairing a task force studying traffic issues in the Torrey Pines corridor. “I agree with Karl Zobell that maybe there should be changes in the representation of the parking management board.”

La Jolla Realtor Sally Fuller argued that the community’s parking garages are underutilized.

“The parking garages in the Village are not more than 50 percent occupied,” she said. “We are all lazy. We should be walking more.”

In an e-mail following the parking meeting, community planner Wayne Miller weighed in. He wrote that the public parking meeting was not about the parking district.

“It was about not having Promote La Jolla control a parking district,” he said. “It was about having broad-based appointments to a parking district representative of the community and about not proceeding with the installation of any type of paid, on-street parking without the support of the community through a vote.”

City Councilman Peters, who hosted the public meeting, posed a question for those present at the meeting. “In terms of a represenative body, I understand Promote La Jolla wants a nice environment in the Village. We all, as residents, want the Village to be a nice place to come to and enjoy. What do you think the points of conflict are between the business district’s interests, and (residents’) interests in the Village?”