If La Jolla Can Secede from San Diego, Why Can’t the Peninsula?

The new city of The Peninsula?

This Post Has Been Updated — See Below

By Frank Gormlie

Indeed, if La Jolla can secede from the City of San Diego, why can’t the Peninsula? The Peninsula — made up of the communities of Point Loma, Ocean Beach and the Midway District — could be its own city, its own municipality.

First, to answer my own question, La Jolla hasn’t seceded — yet — from San Diego, although there’s been countless efforts to do so since the 1950s.

And now there’s a current campaign to leave the big city; community groups and a foundation have been set up; representatives have contacted state agencies. There’s a move afoot to take in the entire 92037 zip code, but leaving out UCSD and anything east of I-5.

Why are La Jollans doing this? As in previous efforts, the wealthy enclave is dissatisfied with the services and infrastructure the city is providing. They probably have the tax base to finance their own cityhood, so why not they ask themselves. But not only do La Jollans have to vote a majority on any secession measure on the ballot, the entire city has to also. If successful, it would be the first secession from a city in California for over 50 years.

Yet, complaints of services and infrastructure sound similar to what Point Lomans and OBceans have been saying for years. So, is secession the answer?

Point Loma has plenty of grievances with the city (and other governments):

• Increased traffic and congestion from Liberty Station;
• oversized vehicles lining the streets;
• ancient water pipes;
• airplanes routinely violating the airport curfew;
• Palm trees being cut down on the Heights;
• bike lanes painted without neighborhood input or knowledge;
• development projects that violate the 30 foot height limit being pushed into Roseville;
• poor maintenance on street lamps;
• unsafe cross-walks;
• threats of a way-of-life if the worst images of proposed development of NAWAR become reality;
• no maintenance of vegetation in small public spaces – (the Mean Green Team has to take care of them);
• insufficient communication between community and military regarding training exercises.

The list goes on.

Likewise, the other main community in the Peninsula, Ocean Beach, also has plenty of grievances:

• Out of control house parties from unlicensed short term vacation rentals;
• Torrey Pines being mis-managed and then cut down;
• Airport curfew violations;
• Lack of maintenance and control of parking lots up and down Sunset Cliffs;
• approval of large houses that violate the OB Community Plan rules;
• a 40-year old lifeguard station (built in 1984);
• inadequate public restrooms;
• a recreation center build at the end of World War II;
• a 100-year old library — although its expansion is supposedly on track;
• an elementary school built in the 1930s.

The list goes on.

Both OB and Point Loma would also agree that the city has lost control of trying to humanely help unhoused citizens. It’s an emergency but city leadership just wants to kick the homeless out of downtown and into everybody else’s canyons, backyards, rivers and wherever desperate humans gather.

Speaking of the unhoused, that leads us to the Midway District, another community of the Peninsula. Should it be part of the new city?

Of course, now the area will be redeveloped by a friend of the mayor’s and may need some citizen oversight — such as a new city. If the Peninsula was its own municipality, it could have a hand and say in what’s developed in the Midway. They don’t now — most voters in Point Loma voted to save the 30-foot height limit recently.

What would the new city be called? The Peninsula? Point Ocean? Ocean Loma? Point Beach? All the little neighborhoods could retain their cute names, like “the Woods,” the “flats,” the “beach,” the “cliffs.”

You know, when the Spanish first arrived in the area, it was a wet year and what’s now Point Loma looked like an island. Point Lomans can do it again if they were on their own. They could build that canal from the Bay to Mission Bay — wouldn’t that be so cool!

Point Loma can provide the tax base for a movement for a new city. Ocean Beach can provide the voters.

Back in the mid-1970s, OBceans actually looked into seceding from the city. A committee of the OB Community Planning Group — the forerunner of today’s city recognized Planning Board — looked into it, did some research … and finally determined OB didn’t then have an adequate tax base. As then and now, 70% of OB residents are tenants.

The seventies radicals were fed up with the police service and threats from the city-sanctioned over development running amok. OB on its own had a far-out ring. Some of the committee ventured up to LA and met with folks in Venice who also were forming their own cityhood movement (Venice was once its own city). Nothing came of either.

But, one might ask, the Peninsula leaving San Diego — isn’t that a type of “White flight” – where White residents of a city move to the suburbs to get away from the “encroaching” neighborhoods of people of color? Could be. But the model doesn’t really fit.

Because the politics of Point Loma have been changing. Most Peninsula voters voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, changing to (light) blue for the first time in a presidential race. With the Point leaning blue and with the blue tsunami churning in Ocean Beach, the politics of the new city could be very progressive.

Just imagine.

Here, let me have another tug off the pipe.

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UPDATE:  At least somebody read this post (but didn’t understand it). An LA website purporting to be nothing but about biking read it and called me “San Diego’s infamously bike hating Ocean Beach columnist.” Wow — such notoriety! — and made the following comment — with a link to the post:

BikingLA says about themselves:

About BikinginLA

This site is not about bike racing. Or road cycling. Or transportation riding. Or fixies. Or mountain biking. Or bikeshare. Or any other niche in the big, wide, wonderful world of bikes.

It’s about bicycling. Period.

It’s about the latest bike news. It’s about advocacy, and making our streets safe for people on bicycles. It’s about honoring fallen cyclists, and doing what we can to ensure it never happens again. And looking past the usual victim blaming to see events from a bike rider’s perspective.

As the name implies, it’s about bicycling in Los Angeles, and throughout Southern California. And anywhere else bikes happen to make the news.

The author(s) of the comment, however, just didn’t get it. They didn’t get that it was satire. They also incorrectly stated that the OB columnist called on OB to secede, “in part because of bike lanes allegedly foisted upon them without local input.” My post called upon “the Peninsula” to secede — in jest. But the point about the bike lanes is correct — as the Rag has reported over the last couple of years. Except for a few outspoken proponents, the communities of the Peninsula have not been consulted on where to install bike lanes — and in some cases were not even notified.

And just to clarify — again — I ride my bikes at least a couple times a week. I’m a proponent of bicycling – but I’m also reasonable and believe neighborhoods should have a say in what and where new infrastructure is provided by the city. It’s basic democracy — and not a top-down “we know what’s best for you” attitude.