Chula Vistans have a history of creating community groups in an effort to increase civic engagement.
There’s the 11-year-old Southwest Civic Association which aims at making issues in Southwest Chula Vista a priority at city hall.
In 2015 Eastside Neighbors formed to improve neighborhoods in eastern Chula Vista. And there’s Crossroads II, an organized group aimed at addressing land use issues throughout Chula Vista.
Northeast Chula Vista now has a community group to call their own after officially forming in May as the D1 Community Group.
The D1 Community Group started when Dolly De La Rosa-Kani, a northeast Chula Vista resident, posted flyers for a neighborhood get together at Discovery Park a year and a half ago. After about a dozen residents showed up to the park, they suggested that a community group was needed and wanted to keep meeting to discuss important neighborhood issues.
One of those issues at the time was the conditions of the roads in the Rancho del Rey community, which were described by resident William Richter, 53, as “degenerating” and “awful”
In an effort to fix their streets, residents banned together and got a petition going. Upon submitting the petition to the city, the city eventually paved their roads.
Richter, who’s lived in Rancho del Rey for seven years, said getting the streets paved showed the power of the new group.
“After we got the city to pave the roads, it showed us that we could do much more with the group and so that has empowered us to look for other issues that we can work on,” he said.
The D1 (District 1) Community Group encompasses all of northeast Chula Vista, known as District 1, that includes the communities of Bella Lago, Bonita, Eastlake and Rancho del Rey.
Councilman John McCann represents District 1 at City Hall.
McCann said there are various community groups in northeast Chula Vista and that he is happy to know that District 1 residents are civically engaged.
“I encourage community involvement,” he said. “And these community groups are a way for the community to get involved to help the district.”
McCann said he’s heard of the D1 Community Group and even talked to Richter to get feedback from the group.
McCann also said he was once invited to speak to the group but for whatever reason he did not hear back from them.
They meet monthly in a conference room inside the Bonita-Sunnyside Branch Library at 4375 Bonita Road.
Meeting topics have discussing economic development in the city, the bayfront, and fire safety.
Some of the group’s priorities are discussing the vacant Albertsons, which has caused blight in that neighborhood and the fire dangers caused by overgrown space and canyons near homes.
“We started to see that the issues were more regional, more than just the local road,” Richter said.
In addition to their monthly meetings, the group holds an annual tour of the Rice Canyon Demonstration Gardens.
Richter helps communicate the meetings and get the word out. He said about 75 people are on the mailing distribution list with about five to 15 people showing up consistently to meetings.
Richter, a former districting commissioner and charter review commissioner, said community groups are the lifeblood of a city.
“It’s very important for all of the communities to have some kind of voice,” he said. It’s important for these groups to be formed, not just in the northeast.”
