LA JOLLA LIGHT Online Daily at www.lajollalight.com
to brief parents on budget crisis Page A4
later, the Fountain of Youth may have been discovered. As it turns out, it’s at the corner of Fay & Nautilus Streets on the La Jolla High campus and goes by the name Coggan Family Aquatic Complex. Built almost a decade ago, the pool has been home to many high-profile athletic events, including national and world-class water polo tournaments, CIF championship
BY DAVE SCHWAB Staff Writer La Jolla Town Council trustees last week endorsed a Bird Rock resident’s request that the group work with local military officials to find a way to curb noise from low-flying, coastal helicopters, a problem neighbors claim is excessive and worsening. The council also heard a plea from Bird Rock professor Martin Bunzl, who asked the council to reconsider changing the name of its year-end Christmas Parade to Holiday Parade to make it more inclusive of diverse groups. “The last couple of years activity along the coast with helicopters and small planes has increased dramatically,” said Ed Quinn, who’s lived with his wife Nancy along the coast in Bird Rock since 1987. The Quinns are leading a petition drive, which has netted 135 signatures from residents who agree a problem with low-flying aircraft exists. “What we’re asking for, when possible, is for helicopters and planes to fly a mile offshore and 1,500 feet above sea level,” said Ed Quinn. “Those rules have been established by other communities in San Diego with the Marines and Navy.” Quinn said he’s gotten an inadequate response from local legislators, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Homeland Security after approaching them about addressing the coastal aircraft noise problem. The Navy, said Quinn, has been more responsive, actually meeting face-to-face with Bird Rock neighbors to hear their concerns. But the Navy suggested neighbors secure the backing of the town council in formalizing a request that “course rules” governing flights from San Diego military bases over La Jolla be changed to accommodate neighbors, and address their concerns about excessive noise and the possibility of “pilot error” from low-flying aircraft.
SEE SWIMMERS, A10
SEE HELICOPTERS, A14
■ LJ Music Society
to feature Joyce Yang with Miró Quartet Page B1
Some Coggan Pool regulars include, from left, Bill Watts, lifeguard Joey Cavallo, Joan Henderson Brown, Virginia Flagg and Jo Nerini. RICK LEBEAU
Locals stay in shape at Coggan Aquatic Complex
PRSRTSTD U.S. POSTAGE PAID SAN DIEGO, CA PERMITNO. 1980
gets a shot at Torrey Pines Page A20
Vol.99 Issue 3 January 20,2011
Bird Rock neighbors get support fighting helicopter noise
■ School officials
■ Young golfer
Enlightening La Jolla Since 1913
BY RICK LEBEAU Contributor he year after Columbus landed on the shores of what came to be known as America, fellow countryman and explorer Juan Ponce De Leon was following tips from natives of Cuba, Puerto Rico and southern Florida, in search of the Fountain of Youth. Apparently, he was simply searching on the wrong coast. More than half a millennium
T
Eye on Science: Look for a busy year for these folks BY LYNNE FRIEDMANN Contributor It's time to take a peek at what the year ahead may hold for these scientists. ■ Sandra Ann Brown starts 2011 as the newly appointed vice chancellor for research at UCSD. She will be responsible for promoting, facilitating and supporting the university’s complex
and growing research mission which in the fiscal year 2010 amounted to more than $1 billion in funding. The Office of Research Affairs at UCSD fosters research across disciplines and is charged with creating opportunities, enhancing the research experience, developing tools and training to improve research administration, and supporting and
promoting university innovations to benefit the region, the state, the nation and the world. A professor Sandra of psycholoAnn Brown gy and psychiatry, Brown has spent more than 20 years at UCSD
managing academic appointments in two departments: Psychology on the general campus, and Psychiatry in the School of Medicine.She has also simultaneously served as the chief of psychology at the Veterans Affair Health Services System in San Diego. ■ Astrophysicist Alison Coil will one day tell us how and why galaxies clus-
ter. The Universeis built up by various structures: Stars are collected together into galaxies, galaxies are collected intogalaxy groups, and galaxy groups are collected together into galaxy clusters. Coil’s research lies at the intersection between largescale structure, cosmology, and galaxy evolution.
SEE SCIENCE, A12