Oceanside Has Bottled Civic Pride to Tout Image in Tournament of Roses

It went the way of lots of other civic frills in the post-Proposition 13 era. In the last dozen years, no city in San Diego County has sponsored a flower-bedecked float for the world-famous Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena.

That’s not a single carnation from Coronado, nary an iris from Imperial Beach nor a sprig of lilac from Lemon Grove.

But the long drought is about to end.

Bright and early today, the City of Oceanside was to wheel out a 55-foot-long, 17-foot-high floral extravaganza that will mark the first San Diego County entry in the fabled parade since 1975.

Civic leaders in Oceanside decided to sponsor the float for the 99th Tournament of Roses in hopes of scoring image points before a worldwide television audience while providing a sort of colossal kickoff for the city’s centennial celebration during 1988.

Civic Pride on Parade

Fittingly enough, the Oceanside float symbolizes some of the more upbeat aspects of the city.

The roughly 100,000 blossoms and petals depict a glass bottle riding atop the crest of a wave. Inside are bud-covered replicas of the city pier, the Mission San Luis Rey and a sailboat. A rolled-up scroll bears the words “100 Years.”

“It’s our time to be in the spotlight,” said Councilman Sam Williamson, a leading backer of the float effort. “It’s time for Oceanside to shine. This will pay off not only in tourism dollars, but in community pride.”

Like other city officials, Williamson is eager to get out the word on Oceanside, a community he maintains is on a roll.

Long saddled with a reputation as little more than a doormat for the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, Oceanside has in recent years experienced something of a municipal renaissance.

Redevelopment has begun to spark a revival in the dormant downtown, and officials hope to begin luring bigger bands of tourists to the hotels, condominiums and cabanas that line the city’s seashore.

To that end, the Rose Parade float seemed just the ticket. The way city leaders figure it, the 30 to 60 seconds that the float appears on television screens across the globe will be worth upward of $1 million in advertising.

That’s a pretty handsome payoff for a project run almost entirely by volunteers and financed largely by the private sector.

“This will give people a chance to see that Oceanside is not the Marine land of the Pacific,” said Janet Martin, the city’s public relations director. “It’s changed. The downtown is not the same--there’s not those pubs and (X-rated) movie theaters anymore. . . . But people do hold those perceptions. They need to do themselves a favor and come to the city to see that’s not the case.”

Oceanside’s Rose Parade effort began more than a year ago. While concocting plans for the centennial celebration, someone suggested the idea of the Rose Parade float.

The city had to make an organized pitch to the Rose Parade Committee about a year ago, providing proof that its entry was worthy of a spot in the prestigious event. The parade theme this year is “Thanks to Communications.”

A fund-raising campaign was launched by civic leaders to garner the more than $100,000 that would be necessary to build one of the flower-covered spectacles.

Several dances and other events were held to raise money. A special Rose Parade Float Assn. was formed, with each of the 200 members kicking in $50 a piece toward the project.

More than 6,000 other residents paid $1 each to sign a 25-foot-long scroll that will be ceremoniously placed on the float before the parade. Several developers and corporations with dealings in the city also chucked in large sums of money.

The float was built in Pasadena. Few sponsors actually build their own floats. The task falls instead on one of the several well-established float-building firms in the Los Angeles area. Oceanside hired C.E. Bent & Son, Inc., one of the oldest float-building companies in Pasadena, to design and weld together the steel framework that sits atop a truck chassis.

A big decision was made early in the planning: Should the float feature animation to make it appear that the cork was popping out of the bottle?

The Oceanside contingent decided no, figuring it was only an invitation for the sort of mini-disaster that could mar the effort.

“Since this is a one-time shot for us, we didn’t want anything to go wrong on it,” Williamson said.

A Bevy of Buds

On Saturday, volunteers from the Pasadena area, along with several who traveled up from Oceanside, began the tedious task of sticking buds and petals on the float, which is being kept in a climatically controlled warehouse near the Rose Bowl.

Large buds are kept fresh in small vials of water, with the more fragile flowers stuck on last. Petals are glued on handfuls at a time with a special cement. The flowers are weaved through mesh chicken wire or into the hard foam material that makes up much of the float.

As Oceanside’s float rolls past the television cameras and crowds along Colorado Boulevard, it will hold a special distinction. The float is one of the few that will be made, in part, of flowers grown within the sponsoring city’s boundaries. Hundreds of chrysanthemums, which will make up the wave and the glass bottle, were donated especially for the occasion by Oceanside grower Mike Mellano.

Aside from Mellano’s mums, the float will include a bevy of other buds. Wedgwood blue iris will combine with white orchids, purple statice, green eucalyptus leaves and other flowers to form the wave.

Carnation and gladiolus petals will be used to create the striped sails of the yacht. A replica of the pier will be made up of more than 30 pounds of redwood bark slivers. Corn husks and paper-thin bark from eucalyptus trees will create the parchment-looking paper scroll. The bark will also be used to form the cork.

After the parade, the float will be dismantled--but the Oceanside effort will live on.

Officials are busy raising more money to build a half-scale replica of the Rose Parade float. Although the smaller float will not be covered with flowers, it will look similar to the original and will be used during the city’s July 3 centennial parade and celebration.

Three busloads of Oceanside residents were to leave early this morning to travel to Pasadena for the parade. In addition, several council members and their spouses, along with other city officials, are attending the parade.

With the parade beginning at 8:20 a.m., officials figure the Oceanside float--the 88th of 114 entries--will pass by television cameras and the main grandstands about 9:40 a.m.

“It’s going to be an exciting time for us,” Williamson said.