For the past five years, Benjamin Nicholls, executive director for Discover Pacific Beach, made some of the most important decisions when it came to the economic health of Pacific Beach. He also worked tirelessly to organize and promote events to improve and promote Pacific Beach\u2019s image as destination for dining, shopping and recreation. But now it\u2019s time for something new. Nicholls announced he was stepping down from the position in December to work as the executive director of the Hillcrest-business-association. But during his tenure in Pacific Beach, Nicholls helped steer business, organized social events and brought about some innovative programs. He worked with the diverse community to help carve out a collective vision for Pacific Beach that\u2019s been forming since its inception more than 10 years ago. “I think that everybody who thinks about Pacific Beach has an image in their mind about what they want it to be,” he said. “The reality of what Pacific Beach is is that it\u2019s a town full of very young residents that really are driving the neighborhood.” Nicholls said the people walking into the stores and shops are very different from those sitting on community boards. Interests often collide. The beach attracts a lot people to local bars and restaurants. Visitors often leave behind a mess irking longtime residents. But trying to help balance the interests of the businesses and residents is just one part of what Nicholls has been doing for the last five years. Along with promoting area businesses, the organization also helps organize local events such as the Holiday Parade, BeachFest and others, including the now-gone PB Block Party. Nicholls said getting rid of the block party was a move in the right direction for Pacific Beach. Pacific Beach residents and local leaders feared the alcohol-fueled party had grown of control, spilling over to house parties for blocks and blocks north and south of Garnet Avenue. Though Nicholls is still going to be involved in city affairs, local leaders bid him farewell for a job well done in Pacific Beach. But what\u2019s it like helping to manage about 1,200 beach area businesses while maintaining a public persona on behalf of local business interests? “Running a business association, especially the one in Pacific Beach, is a balancing act and juggling competition at the same time,” Nicholls said. “It\u2019s like running a small business.” With a budget of about $500,000 a year made from business license fees, Nicholls was able to help bring about programs like the Beach Area Community Court and a plan to manage parking, he said. The Community Court worked to educate offenders about the impacts of their behavior on the community. For example, if someone was ticketed for littering or urinating in public, the offender had the option to do community service rather than paying a fine. The program also required participants to appear in front of local community court representatives and have an opportunity to talk to community members. The City Attorney\u2019s Office is going to attach a $40 to $50 fee per community court participant to cover costs, according to city documents. It costs an estimated $150,000 a year to run the community court. Nicholls also worked to manage parking issues in Pacific Beach, but the work done by the parking committee was stalled after the City Council put a hold on all parking committees throughout the city. “If parking is still an issue \u2014 and it may not be, but if it is, the board has the tools to start to solve some of those problems,” he said. Although he helped usher in some successful programs, Nicholls and the Discover Pacific Beach board of directors were unable to persuade the beach community to adopt a Maintenance Assessment District (MAD). Under the program, local property owners would be assessed a fee to help clean streets, pay for extra police officers on the weekends and power-wash sidewalks, among other services. Some community members didn\u2019t go for the idea because many saw it as, essentially, another tax, Nicholls said. “There\u2019s no crystal ball to figure out how to clean your sidewalks. It\u2019s about money,” he said. “And it\u2019s about property owners and business owners recognizing that it needs to happen. We can beg the city to do it all day long; they\u2019re just not going to do it.” But even as Nicholls became somewhat of a driving force in cleaning up Pacific Beach, he said it\u2019s up to involved community members to keep that going. He said he praises local community business leaders who stepped up to help pay for the Pacific Beach Holiday Parade when it was in danger of losing funding in December. The Pacific Beach business community was able to raise tens of thousands for the parade. Though Nicholls praises local leaders he said he didn\u2019t always agree with some community members. “I don\u2019t know that you could find a neighborhood with a more active and involved group\u2026you got a great core of activists, especially in the business association, that are getting a lot of good things done,” he said. Mike McNeil, president of Discover Pacific Beach, said the board will have to replace Nicholls with somebody who has experience in writing grant proposals and managing nonprofit organizations. “Ben has been the director for five years and has done a great job on numerous fronts,” McNeil said. “As much as we don\u2019t want to see Ben go, in a position like this it\u2019s good to have some change.” McNeil said he wants to continue trying to establish a Maintenance Assessment District in 2009. Todd Brown, a local business owner and Discover Pacific Beach vice president, said he\u2019s happy to see Nicholls advance his career. “It was a great run with Ben (Nicholls), and I\u2019m stoked for him,” Brown said. “He\u2019s had a great opportunity for him in Hillcrest. We\u2019re happy for Ben.” Although no one has been named as his replacement, McNeil said the board will be reviewing applications for the position and conducting interviews for the new position in early February. For information call (858) 273-3303 or visit www.pacificbeach.org.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the past five years, Benjamin Nicholls, executive director for Discover Pacific Beach, made some of the most important decisions when it came to the economic health of Pacific Beach. He also worked tirelessly to organize and promote events to improve and promote Pacific Beach\u2019s image as destination for dining, shopping and recreation. But now […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"After 5 years, Nicholls says goodbye to Discover PB","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}