By Jessica Hudgins
SDUN Reporter
“We try to balance our board and represent all the different facets of the community,” said HBA Executive Director Benjamin Nicholls.
The current board consists of numerous restaurateurs and small retailers but is lacking in other areas, he said, so volunteers from the banking, medical, media and real estate industries are invited to run for the board. The HBA is also looking for a representative from the commercial retail industry.
“We have a number of large grocery stores and drug stores [in Hillcrest],” Nicholls explained, “So it would be great to have somebody from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or Ralphs join the board because they have a particular perspective.”
As the oldest continuous running business association in San Diego, the HBA will celebrate it’s 90th birthday in 2011 and Nicholls said he hopes they can continue providing the services that make Hillcrest a desirable neighborhood.
“We do a lot of things that you would imagine the city would do,” Nicholls said, explaining that the organization promotes, beautifies and advocates for the neighborhood by providing trash clean-up, tree cutting and the community activities familiar to neighbors such as Cityfest, Taste of Hillcrest and the weekly Farmers Market.
A new effort for the HBA is bringing more attention to the eastern side of the neighborhood. For instance, some board members are working on creating an additional Hillcrest sign so there would be an overhead sign on both ends of the neighborhood, while others are talking about planning a new street fair similar to Cityfest for that side of Hillcrest.
Nicholls wants businesspeople on the board who want to work on things they are passionate about, whether it’s creating something new or solving old problems.
“If you have a problem in the neighborhood with your business and you think you know how to solve it, then join the board and let’s solve it. Pretty much every project we have worked on over the years has come from community ideas,” Nicholls said. “I don’t think there’s any project or any problem in Hillcrest that we can’t solve by finding the ideas in the community. All the answers are there. We just have to get people to tell us what they are.”
Nominations for the board must be received by Oct. 8 at 5 p.m. at the HBA office, 3737 Fifth Ave. For more information, go to hillcrestbusinessassociation.com or call 299-3330.
