Santee, California

AT A GLANCE SANTEE, CALIFORNIA WHAT: A city of 59,000 WHERE: San Diego County WEBSITE: www.cityofsanteeca.gov S A N T E E, C A L I F O R N I A S antee, California is a growing and dynamic suburban city in San Diego County, with a population of about 59,000. Originally known as Cowlestown in the late 1800s, its name was changed to Santee in 1893, after Milton Santee, a realtor and surveyor, married Jennie Cowles after the death of her first husband, George A. Cowles, a local landowner and vintner. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1980, and since that time it has continued to grow and mature. No longer just a bedroom community of homes, Santee now boasts major commercial centers in its downtown, a business community, which employs over 17,000, and significant recreational opportunities. “Santee is located 18 miles from the coast, so it’s ideally situated in California, halfway between the sparkling beaches of La Jolla, and the snow- capped mountains of the Laguna Mountain Range,” says Bill Maertz, the city’s Director of Community Services. “And we have room to grow and develop, which is very rare that close to the coast. The really interesting thing about Santee is that the San Diego River runs right through it, so we have an 1,100-acre linear greenbelt that runs through the city and the general plan for the city since its incorporation has been to emphasize the use of the river, orienting the parks and trails along the river so that people have this greenbelt to use, while we’re also creating this urban core in the heart of the city along the banks of the river.” A current project in Santee is the redevelopment of Mast Park, an 80-acre park along the river, named after Bill Mast, an early developer in town. “It’s our oldest park,” Maertz notes. “And we’re A dream kind of place