Groundbreaking for LV Community Garden
Plus: Holiday Christmas Celebration at Farmers Market, Holiday Time at USD's O'Toole's Pub, LV Holiday Christmas Commentary, All CIF Honors for 3 Local Athletes, and LV Update End of Year Thanks
Saturday’s celebration at the Linda Vista Community Park was six years in the making, but everyone present for the groundbreaking ceremony marking the beginning of construction for the Linda Vista Community Garden agreed the long wait was worth it. The Garden is expected to open sometime in the Spring, providing Linda Vista residents with the opportunity to grow their own produce, and a place to learn about the growing process, as well as a place to congregate and communicate with fellow residents. The groundbreaking ceremony was especially joyous considering the bureaucratic permitting and fundraising struggle undertaken by all the Garden proponents associated with the Bayside Community Center and their partners at the San Diego Parks Foundation. They took on the unique challenge of getting approval of construction for what will become the first community garden to be built on City Park property.
Along with the staff of the Bayside Community Center (including members of the Linda Vista Grows Steering Committee), the groundbreaking event was attended by local elected officials, City staff members, members of the San Diego Parks Foundation, staff of the Linda Vista Recreation Center, members of Carpenters Local 619, major donors, and members of the Linda Vista community.
In his speech, Mayor Todd Gloria spoke about the importance of a community garden, noting that such a gathering place will not only serve to provide nutritious food, but will also “build more lines of communication” among residents, and will make Linda Vista “a stronger, better place to live.”
District 7 Councilmember Raul Campillo commented about the symbolic importance of a community garden, adding that the act of planting represents “a belief in the miraculous that something will spring forth” and that it will eventually demonstrate to all local residents “how easy it is to garden in one’s community.”
The Executive Director of Bayside, Kim Heinle, summed up the importance of a community garden for local residents, stating, “Just imagine where we’ll be after this garden is built. We’ll have an outdoor classroom where intergenerational activities convene across multiple languages. A growing space for kids, seniors, and low-income families to cultivate their own food and to be self-sufficient. A gathering space for community events situated in the heart of the neighborhood surrounded by dignified, quality affordable housing. And a production garden where Bayside will grow hundreds of pounds of fresh produce each year that will go directly into the hands of our food insecure neighbors at Bayside’s weekly food distributions. In a neighborhood identified as a food desert, this garden will exemplify how to address systemic issues with sustainable solutions.”
Also in attendance at the ceremony was Leona Sublett, the newly appointed Chief Executive of the San Diego Parks Foundation. As explained in a recent San Diego Union Tribune article, Sublett will focus on strategic planning and fundraising for the Foundation, but will also help the Foundation “achieve its primary mission of boosting social equity by closing the stark gap in equality between parks in the northern and southern parts of the city.” Since 2021, the Foundation has played a critical role in assisting the Bayside Community Center with fundraising and getting City approval for the Linda Vista Community Garden.
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Amy Zink (Program director for the Bayside Environmental Learning Center) encourages “Linda Vista resident who want to get involved or stay updated on our garden activities to sign-up for our newsletter at: www.tinyurl.com/Garden-Info". You can also contact her at azink@baysidecc.org to ask any garden-related questions.
Christmas Celebration at Today’s Farmers Market
O’Toole’s Gastropub at USD for the Holidays
As you can tell from reading another story in this newsletter edition, we have been on a quest to find the Christmas Spirit in Linda Vista. We were not having much success in finding business establishments which had taken the time to decorate and get into the spirit of the season.
Of course, Sushi Yurimichi has a blow up holiday scene, and there is an unlit garland around Yum Yum Donuts and Zab Linda, but we wanted to eat at a place that would put us in a holly, jolly mood, and still stay in Linda Vista. After pondering about a minute or two, we remembered a place that we had reviewed previously, but which we knew would be decorated to the hilt, and would certainly make us smile, and have some tasty food items. Where was this place?
O’Tooles Gastropub, a part of La Gran Terraza at the University of San Diego. Before you even get there, you will find a long hallway leading the way to the Pub and La Gran Terraza restaurant. It is lined on both sides with giant wooden toy soldiers gaily decorated in many colors and some with lights. The uniforms are very ornate as you can see from the pictures. Many people can be seen taking photographs as they walk down the long hallway. They are enough to make you smile and make you feel very Christmassy even before arriving at the pub. Once you get to the pub you will see a delightful establishment which boasts a beautiful fireplace, hung with many oversize Christmas stockings. There is adequate seating, and we chose the overstuffed chairs in front of the lighted fireplace, which was very cozy. There are many tables and chairs which accommodate parties of any size. There is also a beautiful bar with lots of wood and a feeling of an English pub. They do not serve full meals, but do have a menu of small bites which are very inexpensive and tasty. It includes fried calamari ($7), chicken wings (7.50), garlic parmesan fries($4), sweet chili Brussel sprouts ($8), and chicken cobb salad ($9). They also have a large selection of beers and wines.
We chose the calamari, fries and sprouts to share. There was plenty for the both of us and some left over. The calamari came with a tomato coulis which was excellent. The sprouts included smoked almond crumble and parmesan and the sweet chili sauce was scrumptious. Made me wish we had bread with which to clean up the sauce left at the bottom – it was that good. And what can you say about garlic parmesan fries? The same price as McDonalds, but the comparison ends there. Yum.
The ambience was relaxing, the service was good, and all in all, it really put us in a Christmas mood. Decorations, music, and good food – what more could you ask? I guess you could ask that more establishments in Linda Vista get into the Christmas spirit and think about decorating in the future. Let’s make our community a little more festive. Many homeowners go over the top with the decorations. Is it too much to ask that establishments which make their money from our community members, make their Christmas experience a little more enjoyable?
Give O’Tooles a try. I think you will enjoy it. Check their hours on line as they are closed for some of the time that the students are out of school for semester break.
Commentary
Linda Vista Remains Bah Humbug
Two years ago we published a commentary noting the absence of prominent Linda Vista holiday traditions, as well as a dearth of festive public holiday displays. In doing so, we tried hard not to compare our humble little community to big, fancy places like Manhattan (that features such items as a skating rink and a giant Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center along with decorated window fronts in all its famous stores), or Munich (with all its charming outdoor Christmas markets). Yet, we did try to make the point that Linda Vista seems to be absent of any recurring holiday traditions or activities whatsoever. No big, decorated Christmas tree at the Linda Vista Plaza Shopping Center, no organized Christmas caroling, no ice skating rink, not many store fronts decorated, no Holiday parade, no fruitcake tossing competition, and no tamale festival. We also tried to make the point that our community was not just lacking in holiday traditions, but also sorely deficient in displaying holiday decorations at commercial, institutional, and public venues. The dearth of demonstrable holiday displays was highlighted by our photographic reference to a single strand of garland gracing the store facades at the Linda Vista Plaza Shopping Center as one of the few examples of outside holiday decorative mirth in LV.
.Unfortunately, two years hasn’t made much of a difference. We hoped the publication of our article would prompt someone or some organization to start a movement to make Linda Vista appear more festive during subsequent holiday periods, and perhaps even initiate some official holiday related activities to be conducted every year, but after touring Linda Vista the past few days, it seems our article did not have the intended effect. Yes, there will be a holiday celebration at today’s Love, Linda Vista Farmers Market, and this event may be the spark our community needs to get the holiday spirit fired up for following years, but outside of today’s event I am disappointed that Linda Vista continues to display only meager evidence of outdoor holiday decorations at stores, institutional buildings, and public venues.
What we saw on our tour of Linda Vista while looking for outside public holiday displays was limited to the following examples:
The same single strand of garland hanging on the store facades at the Linda Vista Plaza Shopping Center,
An inflatable holiday display above the Sushi Yorimichi restaurant located at the intersection of Ulric and Linda Vista Road,
A festive display of lights at Holy Family Catholic Church located on Coolidge Street.
A Santa hat worn by the iconic LV Man who stands boldly on Ulric Street (note: though LV Man is displayed on private property, we consider him a community asset hence, he gets counted as a public display).
We commend the above Linda Vista entities for doing their holiday part, but needless to say, we recommend more in terms of public outside decoration displays throughout the community. It is a shame that a community located so close to the former residence of Dr. Seuss himself (La Jolla) would appear to the rest of the world as a place that has fallen victim to the Grinch.
It may be too late for this year, but in the months ahead we recommend that a community organization like the Linda Vista Town Council start planning on how to coordinate the outdoors decorating of Linda Vista commercial, institutional, and public venues for next year’s holiday period. That’s the kind of team effort we need.
Local Prep Sports
Congrats to Local Athletes Selected for Fall Sports All-CIF Honors
We congratulate Kiara Arcasi from Kearny High School for being honored as a CIF First Team selection (defense) for Girls Football.
We also congratulate Ariella Llorens from Francis Parker School for being honored as a CIF San Diego First Team selection for Girls Cross Country.
Finally, we congratulate Ava Poinsett from Francis Parker School for being honored as a CIF San Diego First Team selection for Girls Volleyball
More Commentary
Closing Out the Year at the LV Update
As the year winds down to an end, we want to take the opportunity to thank all of our wonderful readers for supporting this digital newsletter effort, and to review what we especially enjoyed while publishing it this year.
We enjoyed writing for such an enthusiastic and intelligent community of readers. Our vision for publishing this newsletter has always been focused on providing a more comprehensive amount of information than can be found on most other social media sites. This sometimes involves publishing lengthy articles that challenge the patience of readers more accustomed to the brief, superficial entries found on such places as Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). But we appreciate that the length of these articles does not deter our readers from taking in every last word. We also appreciate that readers find the humor in our occasional satirical commentaries.
We want to thank our readers for joining us in supporting our favorite local causes. Many readers helped out by donating money to the San Diego Humane Society when we promoted the participation of the Carnivore Sidekick in the SD Humane Society’s Walk for Animals held in May at Liberty Park. As a result, the Carnivore was able to raise close to $500.00 from LV Update subscribers. We also think it’s fantastic that several LV Update readers adopted a few of the foster kittens we featured during the year. Those kittens are some of the luckiest felines in the world!
We are happy that so many of our readers attended local events promoted in the newsletter, to include the summertime Parks After Dark activities at Linda Vista Community Park and Recreation Center, the weekly Love, Linda Vista Farmers Market, and the Coffee with a Cop event held at the LV Library in June. Of course, we are also happy to hear that readers chose to frequent (and enjoy) many of the local restaurants that we reviewed. And thanks to the readers who took the time to stop by our booth and say hello at the Linda Vista Multi-Cultural Fair and Parade back in April. It was great to hear what you had to say about the newsletter.
We enjoyed devoting so much space to articles featuring both the many local volunteers who contribute their time and effort to helping local organizations and programs, as well as all the high achieving students and student-athletes who shine at Linda Vista schools, and the young actors with the Linda Vista Recreation Center’s Theatre Arts Program. And we feel fortunate to be able to write about the significant achievements of valuable Linda Vista institutions like Bayside Community Center and Access, Inc.
We want to thank our two intellectual book reviewers—Marla M and Martha B—who continue to contribute quarterly submissions for our readers.
We also want to thank LV residents such as Janet K and Janet T for letting us know about local subjects worth featuring in the newsletter.
We liked working with our summer intern from Francis Parker School—Olivia T—who treated our readers to a string of interesting, well-written articles.
We appreciate our local elected political officials and their respective office staffs for contributing news items to the newsletter. This definitely plays a role in helping our community stay informed of the issues.
We deeply appreciate that some of our readers took note of Substack’s plea to express support for this newsletter by pledging money to eventually pay for a Linda Vista Update subscription. Rest assured, however, that as long as we are given the option by Substack, we have every intention of keeping this a free subscription site. We have always envisioned the publication of this newsletter as a civic duty, and not a for-profit endeavor.
In closing, we look forward to growing our readership during the upcoming year, and to continue writing about the Linda Vista community in a way that makes everyone feel like they are indeed part of a community of shared interests and common goals.
A Holiday Publishing Hiatus
We hope all of our readers have a happy holiday period. Since we know you will all be busy fulfilling various holiday obligations, we at the Linda Vista Update will take advantage of this time to take two weeks off. We will publish our next issue on January 11. See you again at that time.
Subscribe to the Linda Vista Update
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The Linda Vista Update is a weekly digital newsletter that publishes informative, interesting and fun news about Linda Vista and its neighboring communities.
Thank you! Your update is a well written, entertaining and all around wonderful community help! And it is much appreciated by those of us who read - and those with whom we share the info, recommendations and humor! Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Fun-filled New Year!