Green Seas and Slow Sellers

Northern Exposure

GREEN SEAS: A new surf school based in Encinitas is about as green as you can get——and that’s “green” in an environmental sense. Surf eCo. instructors dispense bio-foam surfboards, biodegradable surf wax, bamboo towels and sunscreen made of green tea. Lessons end with group discussions about environmental issues and beach cleanups——and oh yes, a portion of the proceeds go to the Nature Conservancy’s rain-forest program, with the goal of raising $50,000 to save 1,000 acres of rain forest by the end of 2010. Surf eCo. was established by former University of California San Diego surf instructor Torrey Trust her first year out of college. The impetus came from honeymooning in Costa Rica, she says. “It wasn’t at all how I had remembered it when I went as a kid. The rain forests were sparse, with fields and fields of just tree stumps. To raise some money to save what is left of the rain forests, I figured I would do what I know how to do best——and that’s surfing. Plus, finding a job right out of college wasn’t as easy as I thought. So I made my own!”

COVE OF DREAMS: A manhole cover with with an elaborate sun design has helped the city of Solana Beach win an Award of Excellence from the California Park & Recreation Society for Fletcher Cove Park, which won in the facility design and park planning category. “The city council worked for many years to promote a quality park project that serves our community to the highest standards,” says Solana Beach Mayor Joe Kellejian. He praised engineering department staff and volunteers for “making this park so beautiful and enjoyable.” Fletcher Cove Park was dedicated a year ago after a $2.3 million makeover that includes (in addition to the manhole cover) such artistic elements as renderings of seashells and ocean life on the sitting walls, and a children’s play area with interactive sculptures of sea birds, grunion, eels and octopi.

ROW BUST: Oceanside’s much-ballyhooed row houses along Cleveland Street, a few blocks from the ocean, were prominently featured in a story on the nationwide housing bust in The New York Times. When the homes were built in 2003 and 2004, they were snapped up by buyers for $650,000 to $750,000, the article noted. As prices soared as high as $1.5 million, many of these buyers took out cash by refinancing with adjustable-rate mortgages, with the intention of selling when prices rose even higher. Then the market turned, and the street is now littered with foreclosures and “FOR SALE” signs asking as little as $850,000. “Nothing is selling on the street,” the article quoted one local Realtor as saying, “and even for those with some equity, the products needed to refinance such large loans are not out there.”

HIGH CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS: Ritzy Carlsbad now has a sign of something one normally finds only in highcrime areas: The Vons supermarket on El Camino Real south of State Route 78, which boasts an in-store Starbucks, has installed token-operated locks on its restroom doors, citing “vandalism.”

LOCAL HERO: Oceanside is home to the youngest surviving member of Schindler’s list, 78-year-old Leon Ley - son, who recently traveled to El Paso, Texas, to speak about his experiences during the Holocaust, when he was saved from the death camps by the kindly factory owner immortalized in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film Schindler’s List.

BOOK ’EM: The new Encinitas library is now open, a $20 million facility perched on a bluff that features a wall of windows and a massive deck with a panoramic ocean view. At 27,000 square feet and with room for 90,000 books, the new library is six times larger than the one it replaces and, in addition to books and other research materials, will offer yoga classes for seniors and wireless Internet service on the west-facing deck.

NO RAILS TO THE FUNNEL CAKES: A temporary train platform at the Del Mar Fairgrounds that’s supposed to alleviate traffic congestion won’t be built in time for the opening of the fair this month or the start of the annual Thoroughbred racing season in July. Two other pressing projects——a roof over the fairgrounds’ open-air arena and the replacement of an underwater sewer line——are higher on the to-do list, and the fairgrounds doesn’t have the money to build the platform as well, which would require an additional $1 million. As a result, people bent on taking the train will once again have to ride as far as the Solana Beach transit center and then board shuttle buses to the fair. But all is not lost: Fairgrounds officials say they will try again next year, and the San Diego Association of Governments has included a permanent fairgrounds train platform in its ongoing rail development study.

BOOK ’EM II: The County Board of Supervisors has approved funding for a $11.6 million library in Ramona. Residents have already raised more than $1 million for the new facility, which will be three times larger than the existing library. The next step: soliciting proposals from developers, with an eye toward completing construction by early 2010.

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