La Jolla planning groups get ready for next year’s budget requests

Once again, La Jolla planning groups are looking to form a united front as they compile their annual list of budget requests for the city of San Diego, this time for the 2026-27 fiscal year. Each group is aiming to ratify the requests in the coming month.

Representatives of the La Jolla Community Planning Association, La Jolla Shores Association, La Jolla Parks & Beaches and Bird Rock Community Council are set to meet Monday, Aug. 4, to discuss the projects they believe demand the most immediate attention.

Once they rank their top priorities, each group will approve the list and prepare a single document for evaluation by the office of City Council President Joe LaCava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla. The earliest the budget requests could be approved by a planning group is LJCPA’s meeting on Thursday, Aug. 7.

Moderating the process will be La Jolla Shores resident Janie Emerson, a former LJSA president who has volunteered her efforts in past years.

The idea of consolidating budget requests came from a 2021 conversation among Emerson, Claudia Baranowski and Diane Kane, then-leaders of LJSA, LJP&B and LJCPA, respectively.

“The three of us were having lunch and we decided there probably was a lot of overlap between the things that we were asking for and that we should get together and do it,” Emerson recalled.

Soon after, they looped in then-BRCC president John Newsam to round out the roster of planning group leaders.

The decision to collaborate was well-received by the city and offered a streamlined list of capital improvement projects, crosswalk repairs and “all in between,” Emerson said.

“Each of the organizations involved has their own way of coming up with their priorities, and we all need to agree on them,” she said. “Before, everybody was stepping on each other’s toes. That doesn’t help [council District] 1 and that doesn’t help the community.”

Emerson said local leaders are still focusing on identifying the community’s most pressing concerns. Once they are submitted to the city, the planning groups don’t have control over what happens, she said.

“All we can do is point out the needs of the community and the importance of each of those needs,” Emerson said. “We do take into account whether they have money or not, but not really. Because that doesn’t determine the need.”

Emerson said she expects the list to be ratified by August or early September.

The city finalized its budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year in June.

As officials were staring down a deficit projected at up to $350 million in the $2.2 billion general fund budget, the city initiated $100 million in cuts and looked to several new sources of revenue, including a trash fee for single-family homes, a higher hotel tax rate and higher fees, many of them related to parking.