A Vision Challenge for Del Mar
June 2008 | by Sam Borgese

Is the Del Mar community really coalesced around a unified vision? Do we share a vivid description of a desired outcome of our efforts in creating and governing our City? Are all of our efforts being expended towards the same mental picture of how we see our community's role in our village, and in the world?

Certainly I can testify that many of us, as residents, become emotionally charged when we believe our individual visions of Del Mar are threatened. There is no shortage of stories and differences of opinion on many public-governance issues. However, are we emotionally charged with the substance of a vision or the details of its objectives?

In fact, I do believe, Del Mar has a vision -- a vision that was crafted with words and action by its founders. However, I also believe this vision has blurred and lost its clarity in the years since incorporation and creation of the Community Plan.

Certainly the original vision has been confronted by rapid growth in the surrounding area. Where once Del Mar stood as a small village surrounded by ocean to the west, a small town to the north and vast open space to the east and south, it now appears that only Torrey Pines State Reserve protects Del Mar from becoming just one in a continuous series of communities from the Mexican border to Camp Pendleton and from the ocean to Scripps Ranch.

Perhaps it is time to reconnect with our beginning, to renew our vision and to bring that vision to reality. Perhaps we should dare to build upon our founders' vision with a renewed vision of something even better -- a vision that will inspire, and stimulate our creativity about how we participate together as a community, as a regional neighbor and in the world in general.

If we set aside our fears as did the founders of Del Mar nearly 50 years ago, then perhaps we can honor them and ourselves by coalescing around a renewed vision -- one that stands as an example to ourselves and other communities of the extraordinary results that evolve from a clarity of vision, firmly set objectives and continuity of action.

Let's explore this possibility together over a series of articles as we trace our founding vision to the challenges that vision faces today.