LACAVA City involved since 1990s

LaCava’s knowledge of city policies and their detailed nuances is legendary at City Hall. He helped lead committees focused on undergrounding utilities, how to prioritize infrastructure projects and posting city data online for analysts to study.

It all started in the 1990s, when one of his daughters was attending Bird Rock Elementary School, and parents at the school were frustrated by traffic congestion during drop-offs and pickups. LaCava used his engineering expertise and common sense to help create a solution.

Next came community outcry about a large housing project planned for Bird Rock, which LaCava managed to calm by gathering some facts and using the connections he’d made at City Hall as a civil engineer. The community was able to shrink the project with his help.

“There’s a need for someone to be an objective resource to the community — to g ive them the straight facts and know who to talk to down at City Hall,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is a place that can be an entry point to public service.’ ”

Then came the controversial Bird Rock roundabout project, an effor t to slow traffic on La Jolla Boulevard that threatened to devastate merchants there by tearing up the street for many months.

LaCava helped create a maintenance assessment district to pay for landscaping on the project, served on the Bird Rock Community Council and eventually became chairman of the La Jolla Community Planning Group.

LaCava’s attention shifted a bit more to citywide issues when he became leader of the Community Planners Committee, an umbrella group for the city’s 42 community planning groups.

“You get the most involved people from every community in the city,” LaCava said of the CPC, which he led for three years before departing in 2016.

LaCava said he earned respect from fellow community leaders and off icials at City Hall by focusing on problem-solving instead of his own status and reputation.

“This wasn’t about Joe LaCava and where he wants to go next; this was about what this organization or individual needs and whether I can inform, educate and point them in the right direction,” he said.

LaCava said he thinks that approach also helped him win his council seat this year.

“I think I brought to my campaign the combination that I care about your individual issues and I’m experienced and knowledgeable about the bigger citywide issues,” he said.

His exper tise on policy and process could put him in a position to help less knowledgeable colleagues guide their ideas smoothly through the bureaucracy, he said.

“That has certainly been my track record,” he said.

LaCava is the son of Italian immigrants who came to San Diego in the 1950s. He lived in Logan Heights and University Heights before the family moved to Allied Gardens, where he graduated from Patrick Henry High School and then went to San Diego State University.

After college, he did a one-year stint in Nor thern California for the U.S. Forest Service before returning to San Diego in the late 1970s to launch his career as a civil engineer.

While LaCava — whose wife, Lorene LaCava, teaches kindergarten — enjoys bird watching, live theater and watching Netf lix, his favorite pastime won’t shock many at City Hall who know him and respect him.

“I’m just that wonky guy who spends most of his time reading about what’s happening down at City Hall, new thinking on infrastructure and how you solve housing issues,” he said.

LaCava will be sworn in to City Council Thursday along with other new members Stephen Whitburn, Marni von Wilpert, Raul Campillo and Sean Elo-Rivera.

The annual salary for council members increases next year from $75,000 to $124,000.