Mike Bresnahan
Hello! Welcome to 2026!
Hoping you had a very merry holiday season and will have a happy and healthy new year!
I want to bring up an issue that is a significant one for our organization to deal with, that is of course paying for parking to attend our monthly meetings. As you probably know the City of San Diego will soon begin to charge for parking within Balboa Park on City controlled lots and the streets within Balboa Park. You may well also be aware that the Zoo will also begin to charge for parking in the lot immediately adjacent to the War Memorial Building, which I assume most members use while attending our monthly meetings.
According to information provided by the Zoo, they will begin to charge for parking in their lot on January 5, 2026. The charge will be $8 per day for City of San Diego residents and $16 per day for non-City residents. REA members who are also members of the SD Zoo Wildlife Alliance can receive complementary parking if they register their vehicle on the Zoo member parking portal.
This will obviously be a very significant change from our current free use of the lot. The REA Board has spent and will continue to spend considerable time considering alternatives. These alternatives include the possibility of using a different site for our monthly meetings, decreasing the frequency of our General Member meetings, and decreasing the cost of lunch to encourage members to attend. We are going to develop an online survey to get the input from our members on this issue. Please look for it soon.
However, until we actually see the impact on attendance, we plan on maintaining the current schedule and location of our General Member meetings. The real-world experience of the first few months of meetings will greatly help the Board to determine our future course of action.
We thank you for your continued support and ask for your understanding as we navigate this new situation together. Thank you.