City Hall Is Still Failing Balboa Park. It’s Time for a Change.

By Kate Callen / San Diego Union-Tribune Commentary / August 16, 2026

The city’s decision to restore free parking in Balboa Park has silenced public demands for a change in park governance. The sense of urgency has abated. But the reality of park mismanagement hasn’t.

City Hall still has total control over park administration. It can keep shirking its responsibility to perform adequate maintenance. And it can always seek new ways to tap the park for cash.

Right now, the issue of park governance is in a holding pattern. It has been placed on the docket of the 2026-2028 Balboa Park Master Plan Update. This periodic assessment identifies park priorities, like capital projects and infrastructure upkeep, that the city isn’t likely to have the money to support.

The original 1989 Master Plan Update was highly aspirational. Some of its recommendations, like park tram service, were adopted. Others, like a pedestrian bridge between Golden Hill and Inspiration Point, were not.

Nearly 40 years later, San Diego cannot afford aspirational plans that hinge on evaporated city funds. The Park Master Plan Update has that air of wistfulness. It is an earnest appraisal of a regional asset that is visibly declining.

The two-year project will involve enough participants to fill a banquet hall. The city’s Planning Commission, Park and Recreation Department, and Planning Department will lead the proceedings. The 11 members of the Balboa Park Committee, all appointed by Mayor Todd Gloria, will play important roles.

The 24 institutions in the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership will be joined at the table by numerous park social clubs. Community planning groups along the park’s perimeter will be asked to weigh in.

In my two terms on the North Park Planning Committee, I sat through several Park Master Plan Update presentations. They all left me confused. Why were so many people spending so much time (and money) on compiling what was essentially a wish list? But the players were off and running, so I just watched.

The critical issue of governance changes all that. If Balboa Park truly is the people’s park, we can’t let it languish for two more years, and we can’t leave it with planners and stakeholders. We must be ready to enter the fray.

Community leaders are the only parties in this civic mix who can speak truth to power. We can start by asking at every opportunity why governance has been folded into the multifaceted plan update.

Cities like St. Louis and New Orleans have successfully migrated from city park administration to public-private park conservancies. Their municipal parks are flourishing. Experts from those cities are already providing guidance to Balboa Park advocates.

And San Diego has the advantage of a strong existing framework. In just five years, Forever Balboa Park, a nonprofit “conservancy” in all but the formal title, has transformed the Botanical Building and Central Gardens and revived the carousel.

Forever Balboa Park is forging ahead because it can do two things City Hall can’t. It has the organizational dexterity to carry out projects without bureaucratic hurdles or political machinations. And it can raise funds from private sources who would never trust the city with their money.

Philanthropy is the cornerstone of park conservancies. San Diegans are skeptical of “naming opportunities” that can turn public spaces into garish tributes to wealthy people and corporations. But Forever Balboa Park has shown great sensitivity on that score. Walk through the revitalized Botanical Building and see if you can spot where donor names are displayed.

A governance transition can and should happen on a separate track from the slow-walking Master Plan Update. If the city wants to conduct the usual review of underfunded park priorities, so be it. But that shouldn’t be a pretext for delaying a change in governance that the park badly needs and the people clearly want.

Callen, a North Park resident, is co-founder of the San Diego Community Coalition.