Revealing no major surprises, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed Fiscal Year 2025 budget, released April 12, includes several La Jolla projects.
The city’s budget for Fiscal Year 2025 (which begins July 1) is $2.1 billion, a 3 percent increase from Fiscal Year 2024, Gloria wrote, and avoids reductions to “critical public safety services” including police, fire-rescue and lifeguard departments.
The proposed budget calls for $25.9 million in Capital Improvement Project funds throughout the city.
Three La Jolla CIP listed – but not accounted for with Fiscal Year 2025 amounts – include:
a rebuilding of the deteriorated staircase at Camino De La Costa ($2.5 million); widening the walkway at Ellen Browning Scripps Park ($750,000); and improvements to the beach access walkway at Spindrift Drive ($1.4 million).
It’s not clear as written when those projects would be funded.
Ongoing La Jolla CIP include a pipe project on Hillside Drive, Caminito Bassano East and Via Capri and a storm drain project at La Jolla Farms.
Transportation projects scheduled to begin construction in Fiscal Year 2025 include the Coastal Rail Trail project, which in La Jolla means an upgrade to the bicycle lanes along Gilman Drive between La Jolla Village Drive and Interstate 5, installing a one-way protected cycle track in each direction and a continuous sidewalk on the west side of the road.
The proposed budget also dismantles the Developed Regional Parks Division in the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, creating three new divisions instead: Balboa Park, Mission Bay & Shoreline Parks and Park Rangers.
“The creation of the new Mission Bay and Shoreline Parks Division will result in the transfer of staff and non-personnel expenditures,” the budget proposal reads, with the division taking on the maintenance and operations of multiple regional parks and beaches including Windansea and La Jolla Shores beaches and Scripps Park in La Jolla.
Division staff will also liaise with various community planning and nonprofit groups such as Friends of Windansea Beach, La Jolla Parks and Beaches, Inc., La Jolla Shores Association and others, the document states.
This proposal also calls for the park rangers currently housed within the existing Developed Regional Parks Division to shift into the new Park Ranger Division, serving the listed parks and leading the enforcement of the city’s sidewalk vending ordinance.
The changes to the Parks Department will result in a $10.2 million increase in that budget.
Gloria will present the proposed budget April 22 to the San Diego City Council; the Budget Review Committee will hold hearings on the proposal May 1 to 8.
