Every January, the community council makes suggestions and votes on top priorities for the coming year. Our focus is always on what our community council can do to make our community a better and safer place to live. Here’s the current status of the 2019 priorities and what we accomplished this last year.
1. Traffic calming and pedestrian safety
We asked our new city councilmember, Monica Montgomery, to prioritize our traffic issues in 2019. She tried, but was unsuccessful in securing the needed funding for traffic calming. This year, it’s in her Budget Priorities Memo, so we’re hopeful.
RPCC did succeed in getting angled parking installed on Aragon adjacent to the Kroc Center. The angled parking provides additional street parking, including new disabled parking. As intended, the angled parking also has resulted in modest speed reductions on this section of Aragon.
2. Improve Rolando Park Business District
Initially, we hoped to get additional trash cans on University and missing sidewalks installed to at least help keep University Ave. clean. But those are not services that the city provides to business districts without additional costs. We then focused on what we could accomplish. Representatives from the city’s Economic Redevelopment Department presented at our May meeting and advised us on the initial steps to create a Maintenance Assessment District and revitalize our business district. Code Enforcement also presented at our October meeting to educate us on what they can and cannot enforce in commercial areas.
Ultimately, improving our business district will take several years. But we were able to achieve some modest improvements.
- At our request, City Councilmember Montgomery’s office arranged for weed abatement on University Ave. traffic medians from College to Aragon.
- Old faded street signs were replaced.
- Our community cleanup on University Ave. greatly improved its appearance.
3. Increase membership and engagement in RPCC
We had multiple successful community events this past year:
- Participated in the spring I Love a Clean San Diego event with a community cleanup of Zena Canyon.
- Received a Walmart Community Grant from Sam’s Club that we in turn used to fund summer camp scholarships for deserving Rolando Park Elementary students.
- Sponsored a Coffee with a Cop event at the Kroc.
- Participated in the annual community yard sale and distributed yard sale maps, RPCC tote bags and decals, and signed up several new members.
- Organized a food drive for the Kroc Center.
- Provided a holiday gift for every student through our Holiday Giving Tree project for the third consecutive year.
- Organized a successful community cleanup of University Ave in October that included more than 30 volunteers from Rolando Park, Rolando, Redwood Village, and La Mesa. This was the first cleanup of University Ave. in several years.
4. Missing sidewalks
Last spring, we surveyed the community and identified where residents want to see missing sidewalks installed. That list was then given to our local planning group, Eastern Area Communities Planning Committee (EACPC) and was submitted to the city as a capital improvement project (CIP) priority for Rolando Park.
Unfortunately, missing sidewalks are backlogged in the city, with a current wait time of 20+ years. It could be some time before we see any missing sidewalks installed.
5. Undergrounding status
In our last issue, we provided an update on undergrounding in Rolando Park. If you missed the newsletter, you can find the update on our website at https://rolandopark.org/projects/undergrounding-update/.
The area south of Marlowe to Livingston, from 69th on the east to Zena on the west, is now in the second phase of undergrounding, Environmental Planning. We expect a public hearing in 2020 that will provide an opportunity for residents to give input.
Construction in the area north of Billman will not start for several more years.
