NewsMany thanks to Bruce Brown, Marv Miles, Ted Brengel, Mike Davis and the HEROES crew and other volunteers for painting the brick fence along Mira Mesa Blvd east and west of Parkdale. Paint and supplies were provided by Frazee Paint and the Mira Mesa Town Council. You can now donate money to the "Adopt-A-Wall" program to paint the walls along major Mira Mesa streets and paint out graffiti throughout Mira Mesa.
Congratulations to the 2008 MMTC/Verne Goodwin Scholarship winners: Alice Chung, Jessica Even, Christina Harrison, Katelyn Mitchell and Evaline Trevias! Picture of scholarship presentation.
Summer lunch program: There is a summer lunch program at the Mira Mesa Recreation Center from June 23 to Aug 27.
Street Sweeping: A frequently asked question is when street sweepers are scheduled. There is a schedule posted on the City web site.
Urban Art: At the May MMTC meeting there was a short presentation on a program to paint artwork on utility boxes. A more detailed description of the program can be found at http://www.urbanarttrail.com/.
RSVP: The Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol is looking for new volunteers. See also Helping Our Police to Help You.
Abandoned Shopping Carts: We are working with Councilman Maienschein's office and San Diegans Against Abandoned Shopping Carts to try to solve the problem of abandoned shopping carts which are abundant in Mira Mesa. An ordinance has been proposed and is now being revised before being presented to City Council. Several other approaches to reducing the problem are also being pursued. Until a more effective solution is found, abandoned shopping carts can be reported to the shopping cart retrieval service at (800) 252-4613, or online at http://www.cscrc.net/location.asp. Also, here is contact information for individual stores for shopping cart retrieval. Note that CSCRC will only pick up carts from stores that subscribe to it (list). For other carts, you need to call the store for pickup.
Outdoor Theater planned for Mira Mesa High School: At the October meeting, Mira Mesa High School principal Jeff Olivero described a plan for an amphitheater with a 50x200 foot 3D screen and headphone sound being planned for the northeast corner of the high school.
Heroes Program: HEROES ("Hometown Efforts to Rescue Our Endangered Society") is designed as an informal "Good Samaritan" group effort to help neighbors in need. If you would like to help with future events or want more information please call Mike Davis at (858) 549-0392 and/or send an e-mail to volunteer@miramesaheroes.org.
The Mira Mesa Maintenance Assessment District budget for FY2009 was approved at the January 2008 meeting.
Wangenheim/No Child Left Behind - In spite of exceptional academic performance, Wangenheim Middle School recently appeared on a list of schools "in need of improvement" under the Federal "No Child Left Behind" act. The reason is that because of the peculiar way in which students are counted, less than 95% of Wangenheim's special education students were counted as taking the test. Failing this single requirement caused them to appear on the Federal list of schools needing improvement. This is one of an increasing number of cases in which very good schools did not make their "Adequate Yearly Progress" goals due to bureaucratic reasons unrelated to academic performance. There was an excellent article on the problem by Superintendent Carl Cohn in the Friday, September 29 Union Tribune.
Jonas Salk Elementary School: A new elementary school is planned at the intersection of Parkdale and Flanders, to be paid for by Prop. MM bond money. The draft EIR for the school can be downloaded from the school district Web site. The Mira Mesa Community Planning Group sent a letter in support of this long-awaited project. A volunteer Design Task Force worked with the School District on the elementary school design and completed its work on November 5, 2003 (Design). The school was scheduled to open in 2006 but has now been delayed until 2010 to satisfy U.S. Fish and Wildlife requirements for vernal pool/fairy shrimp preservation. The school site was graded for a school when the surrounding homes were built in 1980, but because of the long delay in construction, vernal pools formed on the site and the School District is being required to perform mitigation for them.
The Mira Mesa Town Council Web Site won a San Diego Press Club second place Award in 2001 for non-profit Web site.
Web Changes
Revised Web Site color scheme and format March 2008.
Police Department Information and Phone Numbers added March 2004.
Links to all Mira Mesa area schools added November 2002.
This Web Site was created on 2001 January 14.