Roses & raspberries

By: North County Times - Editorial Staff | Sunday, May 28, 2006 9:28 PM PDT ∞

The 'Dark Brown Downtown' award - A rose to the Vista Village Business Association's new boss, Karen Clay, for bringing last weekend's Chocolate Festival to Vista.

Clay successfully imported the tasty idea from her last post in Oakhurst, and teamed up with the Vista Chamber of Commerce to host a yummy new event catering to North County's sweet tooth. And didn't we hear something about dark chocolate being good for you? Call the Health Department; we're going to need a lot more of these Chocolate Festivals.

The 'Bloom Is Off This Rose' award -

A raspberry to the Bernardo Town Center Property Owners' Association's board of directors, for its hasty removal of the beautiful rose bushes at the Diane K. Ward-Walters Memorial Garden in Rancho Bernardo's Webb Park. The roses fell victim to a dispute between the association's board and R. Michael Walters, the widower of the garden's namesake, over who would pay to maintain the roses. After Walters refused to ante up ---- he and other donors donated the garden, but didn't agree to pay for the upkeep, he said ---- the board decided to uproot the bushes.

They could have solicited donations from the community to keep the rose bushes. They could have notified the community ---- and Walters ---- that the roses were coming out. But yanking them out without notice seems like the worst option. The garden honored Ward-Walters and all local cancer victims; this dispute soiled that worthy aim.

The 'Sayonara Caulerpa Taxifolia' award -

A rose to the many people and agencies involved in successfully wiping out an invasive algae from Carlsbad's Agua Hedionda Lagoon. Later this summer, the scientists, government officials and the public will celebrate a remarkable success story in the never-ending battle against noxious, imported weeds. Scientists figure the Caulerpa taxifolia algae first spotted in Carlsbad in 2000 was dumped out of someone's personal aquarium, and it threatened to spread throughout Southern California.

The effort to evict the algae from the lagoon has taken six years and about $4 million, but considering the devastation this pesky plant has wrought on the Mediterranean Sea and the Australian coastline, that's a bargain.

The 'Indomitable Will' award -

A rose to Noah Smith, a Cal State San Marcos student who traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to speak at a rally for better treatment and care of spinal cord injuries. Smith could have let the car accident that broke his neck and made him a quadriplegic take his will to live. Instead, he has followed in the footsteps of his inspiration, Christopher Reeve, to become a spokesman for the search for a better present and future for paralyzed people. As he said, "When they told me I would live the rest of my life in a wheelchair, I didn't accept it. Where there is a will, there is a way." Mark his progress at www.noahsmith.org.