La Jolla Village News, March 18th, 2010

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THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2010

San Diego Community Newspaper Group

www.SDNEWS.com Volume 15, Number 27

La Jolla Fashion Film Festival producer Fred Sweet and model Cassy Russell review plans for the April 23-24 event. COURTESY PHOTO

Fashion AND film

La Jolla Community Garden volunteer Dave Easter cuts fragrant sweet pea flowers for visitors to take home. DON BALCH | Village News

Garden green, garden gone?

A view of the La Jolla Community Garden with a variety of vegetables and flowers. The telephone pole in the center is where the property desired by La Jolla High School ends. DON BALCH | Village News

or a half-century, a small plot of land next to the La Jolla High School softball fields has laid fallow — acting as a dumping ground, a fortress for neighborhood boys and a vegetable garden over the years. This once-ignored piece of property off Draper Avenue is now being fought over by neighbors who established a communal garden there two years ago and the high school’s principal, who wants to use the property for a batting cage for the girls’ softball team. “We have the smallest campus footprint of the city schools and the property is absolutely worth its weight in gold,” said Mike Gay, a La Jolla High alum who is working to obtain the property on behalf of La Jolla High Principal Dana Shelburne. According to Gay, the land belongs to the school district, which granted the city an easement to use the land as a street in 1963. The high school now wants to use the property that the city has not needed. Shelburne has submitted an application to the city to recover the easement. Glenn Gargas, a project manager for the city’s Development Services Department, is reviewing the application and has asked the school to provide more information. Gargas suspects both the high school and next-door-neighbor own the property.

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BY ADRIANE TILLMAN VILLAGE NEWS

“With all public right-of-ways, the adjacent land owner owns the property underneath,” Gargas said. “[The school district] probably owns the alleyway and part of the easement, and the adjacent property owner to the north probably owns the other half.” The City Council will ultimately decide if the land will be vacated for the high school to use. Neighbors and high school students who established, tend and relish the garden don’t want to see its communal space paved over. “I think San Diego, having such an agreeable climate, is woefully short on gardens,” said next-door-neighbor James Short. “They don’t have to be big and they don’t have to be fancy. It’s just to demonstrate that this is something easy to incorporate into your life.” Over the years, Short said he’s cleared construction material, a foosball table, drug paraphernalia and trash from the lot. At a block party two years ago, he suggested neighbors create a communal garden in the space. The garden is now flourishing with 18 plots of heirloom vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruit trees. Anyone is invited to work in the garden and to harvest the vegetables and fruits. No one person owns a specific lot, which are only SEE GARDEN, Page 7

America’s first fashion film festival planned for La Jolla BY MEAGHAN CLARK | VILLAGE NEWS Paris, Milan, Cannes — and La Jolla. As the first American fashion film festival, following in the footsteps of Paris and Milan, La Jolla Cove will be transformed this April into a haven for designers and fashion elites. The La Jolla Fashion Film Festival is the latest fashionfilm union, set to emerge in San Diego’s own affluent harbors with top industry professionals and local designers gallivanting among informal runway shows, parties, informational seminars and cinema. The stage is set for April 23-24, formerly introducing La Jolla as a powerhouse in the world of fashion and film. Scheduled to be hosted at the Contemporary Fine Arts Gallery and La Jolla Bridge Club, this fashion forward extravaganza will open up to a series of activities that fuse a new design regime. For La Jolla Fashion Film Festival producer and CEO of San Diego Model Management Fred Sweet, this is a longawaited opportunity to showcase the intermingling worlds of the Internet, fashion and film. Inspired by Paris’ own traveling version of fashion houses’ annual short films, Sweet took the inspiration of the art form and turned it American. After more than a year of planning, this multi-media engagement will arrive — marrying the brand so many fashion aficionados are familiar with: freelance directors, branders and the elite. The result will promote culture and knowledge — with fashion film shorts, educational blogging seminars and informal modeling, Sweet said. Internationally-recognized fashion powerhouses, directors and professionals are already confirmed for the SEE FESTIVAL Page 4


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La Jolla Village News, March 18th, 2010 by San Diego Community Newspaper Group - Issuu