County to Cover Tab on Holmwood Canyon

Despite mounting budget pressures, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has agreed to make the loan payment this year for Holmwood Canyon in Solana Beach.

The board voted unanimously Tuesday to pay the $222,000 bill but did not resolve the question of where the money will come from.

Moreover, the board plans to continue efforts to persuade the cities of Solana Beach and Encinitas, which share the 16-acre canyon on the edge of San Elijo Lagoon, to help pay the tab.

Paid $2 Million in ’85

The county purchased the site for $2 million three years ago with the help of a $1-million loan from the state Coastal Conservancy. The first of six annual payments was made last year with a one-time federal grant, but officials have been hard-pressed to find funds for this year.

Alex Martinez, assistant county parks director, said the money will likely be pulled from the county’s dwindling reserve funds if no better source is found before the payment falls due Sept. 1.

Martinez said the board also ordered its staff to write letters to officials in Solana Beach and Encinitas asking for help. But the chances of that effort bearing fruit seem slim, he said.

“Judging from the reports we’ve read, it doesn’t seem those cities will be very receptive to it,” Martinez said.

When the county first suggested the cities ante up some money earlier this year, officials from both municipalities informally but firmly rebuffed the idea.

They noted that it was the county that had purchased the site before the incorporation of the neighboring cities in 1986. Moreover, angry officials in Encinitas and Solana Beach argued that the county had only driven up the purchase price by agreeing to allow construction of more than 30 homes in the canyon in the midst of efforts to buy it.

With that in mind, the city leaders have staunchly refused to bail out the county in its time of budgetary need.

County administrative officials have been none too pleased with the prospect of pulling funds from the county’s general reserves, which are virtually bone dry at about $3.7 million for an operating budget of more than $1 billion.

Norman Hickey, chief administrative officer, pushed for the board to tap payments the county receives for allowing radio transmission antennas on Cowles Mountain near San Diego’s boundary with Santee.

But the supervisors rejected that idea Tuesday, saying the antenna money should remain in the fund for Mission Trails Regional Park, which includes Cowles Mountain.

Payment Will Help in Future

Although there was virtually no chance that the Coastal Conservancy would have foreclosed and sold off Holmwood Canyon had the county failed to make the payment, local officials still feared that reneging on the payment would make it tougher to get further open-space funds from the state.

In particular, that could prove critical as the county, in tandem with the city of San Diego, begins the most ambitious open-space venture ever attempted in North County--preservation of the lush San Dieguito River Valley, which stretches inland from Del Mar for 43 miles.