On Monday, October 21st, the Encinitas city Parks & Recreation Commission met to discuss several items related to the city owned property at 634 Quail Gardens Drive, known as L-7. Those items included formally designating L-7 as a park and secondly the naming of the park in honor of Glen Johnson’s late wife, Sally. Glen generously donated $100,000 to help with the development of L-7 as a park. Glen asked that the park be named after his wife as part of the agreement for the donation.

Since then additional funds have been donated to helping with building a park through a crowdfunding campaign led by Oliver Pratt, a ten year old who lives in Encinitas Ranch, and his parents. Oliver is also pledging to donate all of the money he has been able to raise through selling used golf balls at the Encinitas Ranch Golf Course. If you want to learn more about his efforts click on the link below: https://youtu.be/TYJc7KH45c0

There were over 40 emails sent to the commission all in favor of making L-7 into and park and there were ten speakers who also supported this designation. After hearing from all of the speakers, the commission unanimously voted 7 – 0 to approve the use of this property as a city park. The commission debated for a long time about the naming of the park and in the end recommended that the city enter into negotiations with Mr. Johnson over his ideas for the type and use of the park as well as naming options that at this time preclude the park being named after his wife.

If you are interested you can watch a video of the commission meeting via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLuayBISrJg

Scroll to listen at minute 48 here for the final decision.

The recommendations from the commission will be shared with the city council who will have the final say in this matter. This approval by the commission is the first step in a long process but is certainly very welcome.