SOLANA BEACH — San Diego took note as the city’s oldest ongoing community event entered its 30th year, proclaiming Aug. 11, 2016, City of Solana Beach Community Sing-Along Day throughout the county.
Supervisor Dave Roberts, a Solana Beach resident, presented the framed declaration to Ed Siegel, who started the event on Aug. 6, 1987, to promote community spirit one year after the city was incorporated.
Since then singers of all ages have gathered every Thursday night — except when Siegel was on vacation — in Fletcher Cove Community Center — except the year it was being renovated — to belt out songs that range from classic ballads to chart-topping hits from bands such as The Beatles.
Siegel used the beginning of the third decade of music-making to read a city proclamation he received on the first anniversary of the event from Margaret Schlesinger, Solana Beach’s first mayor who passed away earlier this year.
She praised the sing-along for promoting “a special kind of harmony.”
When Roberts attended the patriotic sing-along last month Siegel asked him, “How is it that everyone in the county gets a proclamation except me? Do you remember that?” he asked Roberts.
The supervisor said not only did he remember, but he went back and asked his colleagues if they would consider such a move, Roberts said.
“What could be better than a community sing-along to pull a community together?” he asked them. And with a 5-0 vote the proclamation was approved.
Roberts highlighted the fact that the event began shortly after Solana Beach gained cityhood primarily to have more say over land use because, as he noted, residents there “like to do things their way.”
The comment was fitting given that the group, just prior to Roberts’ arrival — and unknown to him — sang the Frank Sinatra classic, “My Way.”
“Dr. Siegel is really the glue that has held this together,” Roberts said to the crowd of nearly 30 that gathered for the recent sing-along. “Keep up the good work.”
“This is so special,” Siegel said.
