By Kate Callen / August 22, 2025
What is up with Joe La Cava?
The District 1 Councilmember was the skunk at the picnic when he cast the only “No” vote July 29 on a motion to delay classifying part of Mission Bay Park as “surplus land” available for development.
Being the lone holdout was awkward enough. But La Cava, unanimously elected Council President last December, wasn’t just out of sync with his colleagues. He was personally out of sorts, clearly irked with constituents who keep testing his patience.
La Cava opened the Council meeting under a cloud. As President, he was responsible for placing the Mission Bay item on the Consent Agenda. If an anonymous OB Rag tipster hadn’t spotted it and contacted Frank Gormlie, Mission Bay Parkland would have been rubber-stamped as “surplus land” by the Council with no public review or discussion.
When the resulting Rag story by Geoff Page caught the attention of former Councilmember Donna Frye, she mobilized San Diegans as only Donna can. Eight Councilmembers took notice. In varying degrees, they wanted to slow down deliberations and give the public more time to weigh in.
But La Cava was in no mood to wait, and he was openly dismissive of the need for debate: “You either love this or you hate this. There is no middle ground, no refinement that can come out of more public discussion. I am very concerned about us not pursuing new revenue to finance the Mission Bay Park.”
Let’s take a closer look at that.
If this Council were to cut off debate on topics that generate controversy, their meetings would be short, and their jobs would be easy. Disputed issues are the ones that most need airing. Sometimes people change their minds. Sometimes policymakers delay judgment until the last minute, as La Cava appeared to when he cast the deciding — and commendable — “Yes” vote on Bonus ADU reform.
And City Hall’s insatiable hunger for new revenue should never be the prime consideration in municipal asset management. This is especially true now, given our city’s shameful record of squandering tax dollars on bad deals contrived by elected officials who were either heedless or corrupt (or maybe both).
The strangest moment of the day came after the 7-1 vote for continuance was announced. Before moving on to the next item, La Cava remarked to no one in particular, “They threw me under the bus.”
Who threw him under what bus? Was La Cava flustered when he realized he had become an outlier? Or had he been led to believe one or more of his colleagues would also oppose the continuance and give him political cover?
Whatever the cause of his sudden isolation, La Cava has only himself to blame. It is hard to tell if he has any core principles or firm alliances. His image as a straight shooter started dissolving shortly after he joined the Council when he mounted his crusade to “reform” San Diego’s community planning groups (CPGs).
That effort to silence neighborhood voices was a shocker because La Cava had been one of the most passionate advocates of the community planning process, first as Chair of the La Jolla Community Planning Group, then as Chair of the citywide Community Planners Committee.
Those positions gave him the visibility he needed to win his council seat. Then, once elected, he teamed up with Circulate San Diego, which lobbies for the building industry and has long sought to dismantle CPGs.
Under La Cava’s steely direction, the all-volunteer democratically elected groups were hammered for their alleged lack of diversity and professionalism. They were denounced as obstructionist and saddled with onerous “justify your existence” reporting obligations. And yet the groups have persevered in keeping their communities informed and engaged.
La Cava now has the thankless job of presiding over Council meetings that are increasingly jammed with constituents who are angry and loud. He has shown more grace than his predecessor, the bellicose Sean Elo-Rivera. But too often, he comes across like a high school principal who keeps threatening to cancel homecoming if there is one more food fight in the cafeteria.
When the Mission Bay “surplus land” item comes back to Council in September, La Cava will face another packed house for another contentious hours-long meeting. This is looking like more than he bargained for.
Epic composition Kate! Thank you.
Yes, that was spot-on writing, once again, Kate. . . . but the remark “. . . the bellicose Sean Elo-Rivera.” . . . is way too kind.
Thanks Kate for another highly Informative & Accurate literary Depiction of what is taking place @ City Hall & within the Council Chambers.
Hello Kate. Great job as usual. I just want to ‘out’ myself as the “anonymous OB Rag tipster” you mention — although it was the others you name who did the heavy lifting.
Uptown has special reason* to detest La Jolla’s evil Mr. Magoo, so I’m gratified to play any part in fixing his little red wagon.
* https://obrag.org/2024/05/it-was-always-the-plan-city-council-votes-8-1-to-silence-critics-of-over-development-in-uptown/
Great catch, Mat. I’m just curious how you saw it, do you regularly check the council agenda? I’m thinking that’s not a bad idea, I wonder what else we’re missing. At least, the consent agendas needing looking at.
Thanks, Geoff. Actually yes: I’m on the email list for the Land Use & Housing Committee’s agendas. (Though they’ll probably purge me now.) I’ve learned through painful experience that’s often where the worst civic skulduggery originates — and if you don’t catch it there, it gets buried in the consent agenda that’s sent to the full City Council. LaCava did a lot of damage there as chair before he failed up to Council President.
Actually Mat was among several who caught it, including 2 others who sent the staff report to the Rag — and then I asked Geoff if he wanted first crack at it — and he did, then Donna Frye saw his article, and the rest is history.
Lacava is such a weasel … I was the Chairman of Clairemont CPG when Joe was head of all CPGs. As you so tactically stated, you couldn’t find a more stauncher supporter of CPGs. Then he sold his soul to become an elected councilman … keep up the pressure on this weasel everyone!!
Another great piece, Kate, spot on. Watching La Cava has been like watching a caterpillar emerge from a cocoon, only what emerges is a mature politician, not something beautiful.
Thank you Kate!
Thank you, Kate! The real question is who was behind the con the get Mission Bay land declared “surplus” and for what purpose? Unclear ot me is the fact that surplus or park land, it is still California Tidelands. So who is in his pocket?
One thing I don’t think people realize is that, although Joe was chair of the CPC and La Jolla planning group, much of LJ is governed by Planned District Ordinances. The PDOs give the local communities a much greater level of influence over development decisions than the planning groups could ever dream of. It really doesn’t matter to a great extent whether LJ’s CPG
got neutered like the rest of the CPG’s. the PDO boards still have significant control over development in LJ. It was easy enough for Joe to emasculate the CPGs because the impact on LJ was so much less than the rest of the city.
Many years ago I wrote a PDO for OB to implement the precise.plan. The response from the city was that there would be no more PDOs. They gave too much power to local communities.
Also, we really should get the State Lands Commission involved as, in the past, at least, housing was not an approved use of Tidelands. Don’t know if Sacramento has taken away this protection.
Interesting point, Paul, that LaCava could do his CPG damage without hurting his home turf.
I was surprised to come across La Jolla’s community plan codified in the Municipal Code, unlike OB’s or Peninsula’s. This means the La Jolla requirements for development have the strength of law, whereas the OB or Peninsula “requirements” are only recommendations with no strength at all.
There is a short list of these planned districts https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/officialdocs/municipal-code/chapter-15.
On the other hand, LaCava cast the only dissenting vote on Councilmember Campbell’s short term rental regulations several years back. While I agree with Donna Frye on virtually every other occasion, and I believe that open debate is important, where was Frye on the short term rentals issue? As I have stated, the area in Quivera basin is not used as parkland by either local or outside San Diego visitors to the beach. In my view, put a hotel there and ban the whole home short term rentals in Mission Beach.
It takes this kind of reporting analysis, plus folks scrutinizing agendas and other official documents, plus remembering the history of our politicians and their history relative to recurring issues, plus showing up at council meetings when possible (which often requires having most a day free to speak or donate time on controversial issues), plus simply being informed and sharing info with friends and neighbors who might act, vote, and influence others accordingly. Thanks to you, Kate, and to all who are contributing in different ways and different venues to hold our local government and officials responsible.
Oh, Joe Lacava. Always trying to control the conversation on the city council floor, always trying to decide what is on or off topic, based on his own agenda…keep your thoughts to yourselves SD, Lacava knows best.
Except for when we attend in person, and tell them all directly to their faces, and to the room full of any residents that are in attendance: and all media watching from the media space, exactly what they’re doing, how we know, and where to find the receipts. I have some ideas as to how to even the playing field and bring some tRuth to the table, and deliver directly to SD. Educating and activating locals to get involved is part of the plan, perhaps we can start by replacing those endless Narcan billboards that are clearly targeted at children, sending the message from the county of SD, that it’s ok to do drugs now! We can just revive you! Drugs for all! Those need to be replaced with something equally as punchy and thought provoking, for our youth, and of age voters, to know: 1. Why they should be aware and get involved in what’s going on in the community. 2. Who’s involved and what it means if we DON’T do anything. And 3. How they can get involved and what the possibilities are if they do get involved…what’s on the line. I will for sure do my part to bring these matters to these folks, face to face, without fear, because the days of what they’ve been doing are for sure coming to an end. People are waking up.
” … Council meetings that are increasingly jammed with constituents who are angry and loud.” We’re not going to take it anymore. We all need to jam the council meetings, submit online comments to the agendas (non-agenda comment at every opportunity). Land use and Housing committee coming up Sept. 4. City Council meetings Sept. 8, 9. Get loud.
Amen!