Now, the bus stops here

Andrew Glazer

WEST SIDE -- It took the director of an after-school program 10 phone

calls and two weeks to get someone to listen to his seemingly simple

request.

But it took the city’s director of transportation just two hours and one

phone call to make it happen.

Construction began for the new community center at Lions Park at the end

of January and John LeVere -- director of the Childs-Pace after-school

program there -- noticed that his students were in danger.

Trucks filled with dirt and rocks passed precariously close to where 15

backpack-toting students boarded and stumbled out of a yellow school bus.

He wanted the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to move the bus stop

to a safer location, approximately 60 feet down Anaheim Street, away from

the construction.

Tomas Cordero, who was waiting to pick up his 5-year-old daughter Grace

from the bus stop Tuesday afternoon, said a truck almost hit her there

last week.

“It’s very dangerous,” he said. “They can’t see the children.”

Two weeks ago, LeVere began calling various city, state and school

agencies to have the bus stop moved. He soon found himself lost in a

whirlpool of bureaucracy.

“It was impossible to get anyone to come out here,” he said Tuesday

morning. “It makes you wonder if we were on the other side of town, if it

would take so long.”

LeVere first asked the bus driver, Rachel De La Cruz, to drop the

children off at a safer spot. But De La Cruz, who also was worried about

the children’s safety there, said she couldn’t change her route without

her the approval of her boss.

So LeVere and a Childs-Pace board member called Nancy Malone, the school

district’s transportation director.

The two said they left messages with Malone’s assistant. Malone said she

never received the messages until Feb. 7.

“That was the first I heard of it,” Malone said. “When it’s a safety

issue, we don’t let it linger.”

Meanwhile, feeling ignored, LeVere called the California Highway Patrol.

CHP officials said they would send someone right over. On Monday, a CHP

inspector finally checked out the scene. After recognizing the danger,

she also called Malone.

LeVere tried calling the city’s transportation department as well. But

officials from the department told him they couldn’t ask the school

district to move the stop because doing so would make the city legally

liable if any child was injured there.

LeVere said a minor miracle happened Tuesday afternoon. Peter Naghavi,

director of the city’s transportation department, finally got word of his

request.

After talking to LeVere and watching the bus unload the 15 children,

Naghavi called Malone and asked her to move the bus stop. He said it was

the city’s responsibility to become involved if children were at risk.

Malone agreed to move the bus stop and De La Cruz will begin dropping the

children off at the safer location Thursday.

Naghavi said he was glad the matter was taken care of in just two hours:

“It shouldn’t take very long to move an unofficial bus stop [that]

doesn’t have any signs just a few feet.”

LeVere shook his head quietly.

“It shouldn’t have been like this,” he said. “The minute they became

aware, they should have come out and done it.”