C100 annual meeting: The mayor, C100 projects, new awardees

By Roger Showley

Paid parking in Balboa Park dominated Mayor Todd Gloria’s address at the Balboa Park Committee of 100’s annual meeting on Sept. 8, followed by a review of C100’s accomplishments in 2025 and what’s ahead. C100’s annual awards for park planning and preservation also were granted and board members confirmed.

“More than anything else, I want to express my gratitude  for the Committee of 100,” Gloria began at the Comic-Con Museum. “The work that you do is bearing fruit. It’s evident across the park, and there’s more work to be done — and I want you to stay energized and engaged in our park.”

Gloria defended his parking plans which became fully effective in March. There’s no other feasible way, he said,  to generate ongoing funds for park operations and improvements from any current reliable source of revenue, promising:

“That money will stay in the park as long as I’m your mayor and I will make sure that it goes to maintain service levels  in this park and then we start to invest in deferred maintenance.”

Ultimately, he added, parking funds will make it possible to remove the park from the city’s general fund and not have to compete annually with other city departments, “whether or not there’s a recession or whatever the economics winds may be.”

However, the latest projections show that parking revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30 will generate very little in significant income because of startup costs and the many added discounts and exemptions. The initial projections equalled the park’s approximate $14 million annual budget.

Gloria praised C100’s leadership in reviving the Palisades area, centerpiece of the park’s second exposition in 1935-36, with recreation of the San Diego Automotive Museum and Municipal Gymnasium’s facades.

Mayor Todd Gloria addresses C100’s annual meeting. To his left: Roger Showley, Nancy Carol Carter, Kevin Carpenter. Photo: C100

“I appreciate our ongoing relationship and more than anything else,” he said, “I am grateful to every single one of you for sharing so deeply about the park that you’re willing to give your time, talent and treasure to make sure that the historic facades, buildings and activities that have happened for the last 100-plus years will continue on into the future,” he said.

But he also encouraged C100 members to participate actively in the upcoming revision to the 1989 park master plan.

“It needs to be updated to reflect the time and condition that we find ourselves in,” Gloria said.

C100 President Kevin Carpenter followed with a rundown on the many initiatives in 2025:

• An art exhibition at the University Club

• Adoption of a three-year strategic plan

• Continued design work for a possible interactive fountain in Pan-American Plaza, where the Firestone Singing Fountain played in 1935-36.

• Supercharged social media posts overseen by board member Jon Schmid and his public relations firm, more park tours, scheduled speaker’s bureau presentations and renewed efforts to develop and market C100’s archives.

• Continued membership development and new fund-raising strategies     

“We’re here not just to maintain a reliquary of old buildings,” Carpenter  said. “We’re here to recreate the spaces and programs and initiatives for things to thrive,” Carpenter, an architect, said.

He also noted C100’s role as the self-described “conscience of the park” to collaborate with other stakeholders as they work on their own facilities or pursue new projects.

Besides taking a position opposed to paid parking, C100 developed 59 recommendations to better connect the park to its neighbors, starting with San Diego High School, now undergoing an ambitious rebuilding program. The City Council accepted the report while the annual meeting was occurring.

C100’s newly created design assistance committee passed along a set of recommendations that could improve San Diego Museum of Art’s planned replacement of its West Wing and the adjacent Plaza de Panama.

“The notion,” Carpenter said, “is we’re a collegial partner for other stakeholders in the park and that we provide our unique perspective and experience on building projects and provide the feedback that we feel our partners need to put everything in context.”

The annual meeting ended with election of board members and the granting of the annual Bertram Goodhue Award to the park’s first planner, Samuel Parsons Jr., and the Gertrude Gilbert Award to Michael Matson and his son Kevin at Bellagio Precast. Nancy Carol Carter, chair of C100’s archives Committee, bestowed the Bertram Goodhue Award on Samuel Parsons Jr., author of the park’s first master plan in 1905, and past president Roger Showley handed medallions to the Matsons for their many years of work on Balboa Park art restorations, including the current Muni Gym facade.

“It’s a great honor,” the younger Matson said. “We’d do this for free if we had the money to do it.”

Bellagio Precast principals Mike Matson, left, and his son, Kevin, accept the Bertram G. Goodhue Award for their continuing restoration and reconstruction work in Balboa Park. Photo: C100