Bernell Hopkins paused a moment, gave the question some thought and then flatly stated “I guess I am the Mayor. I am the giant of the city, so yeah.” To be clear, Bernell has no political ambition. But he also has no challengers.
His “city” is a masterpiece in miniature, a collection of tiny buildings, lovingly hand fashioned from cast-off bits of furniture, scrap metal, and random curios that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill. Bernell comes across the stuff every day. Between gigs as a deejay, he does construction work and haul away in San Diego, and the things people were throwing out fired his creative imagination. In the front yard of his home in the 56-hundred block of Bonita Drive in Valencia Park, he started building a little town with streets, restaurants, markets, and seemingly complete public infrastructure right down to mass transit and bicycle lanes. A couple of little toy fire trucks nobody wanted and some scrap wood, and the town had a fire station. The sidewalks came from old wood planks and baseboard. One of at least a half-dozen restaurants was fashioned from a dresser drawer.
“In the beginning I was not expecting this,” Bernell says. “This was just for fun.” But as his little city has now grown to cover most of his front yard, he is hearing something else from visitors. “Wow, this is really cool. Wow, this is like Legoland. Wow, my kids are really appreciating what you have got in the neighborhood.”
As the months have passed, his tiny but growing city has faced some unique challenges. Among them, he has had to come up with names for the many streets and businesses. A high school was named for Martin Luther King Junior, a college for Malcolm X. Cafes and parkways are named not just for inspiring political figures, but for his cousins, uncles, and relatives on his wife’s side of the family.
As Mayor, Bernell has pretty much proclaimed the whole town to be a place of harmony. You can see groups of people talking, getting along. There is no trouble. It is a little community where everyone is kind, nobody goes hungry, and everyone has a parking space. “You know, everything is cool. It is laid back and everybody is in good spirits.”
A couple of years ago, when it came time to name his front yard town he decided on The City of Bonita Drive. “A whole society of people,” he calls it; “a whole community.” For those in his neighborhood, and those passing by who pause to take it all in, it is an unconditional gift that unfailingly brings a smile.
His Honor, the Mayor, would have it no other way.
