New voice to be heard at 17th Street meeting

Andrew Glazer

COSTA MESA -- East 17th Street merchants and residents should be

persistent with the City Council -- not pugnacious -- in opposing city

traffic engineers’ plans to widen the street, a veteran Newport Beach

city official said.

Former Newport Beach city manager Bob Wynn will speak Thursday to the

East Side Community and Merchants Assn., a recently formed neighborhood

group that opposes the city’s plans to widen 17th Street.

“Traffic engineers came up with their plan to increase traffic flow, and

that’s their job,” Wynn said. “If the merchants want something else, they

need to come up with their own reasonable suggestions.”

The city’s transportation manager, Peter Naghavi, anticipating major

increases traffic along East 17th Street in the next two decades, wants

to widen it to six lanes. Doing so would guarantee the city $4.2 million

in federal grants.

However, business and home owners in the area have met with city traffic

engineers each month since January, saying that a widened East 17th

Street will hurt business and degrade what they describe as “the

mom-and-pop feel.” In often heated dialogue with city engineers, they

have proposed keeping the street at its current four lanes, but adding

bus turnouts and right-turn lanes.

“The only time there’s traffic on East 17th Street right now is when

there’s a bus,” said Brent Hemphill, owner of Hemphill Rugs and Carpets

on East 17th Street and a member of the association. “Bob will give us an

unbiased opinion of how to approach the city with this since he doesn’t

live here.”

Hemphill said he will be taking orders for banners reading “No Six-Lane

Highway” at the meeting.

The event was originally scheduled for today, but was postponed because

organizers didn’t want to compete with the Los Angeles Lakers, who play

Indiana in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

Hemphill also wants to introduce the association’s new Web site at o7

https://www.17thstreet.orgf7 , which will allow members to post future

meetings.

“The city is under the impression that residents are 100% behind the

widening,” Hemphill said. “But they’re really in the dark about the whole

deal. We hope to change that.”

FYI

The East Side Community and Merchants Assn. meeting will begin at 7 p.m.

Thursday at the California Federal Bank branch at 234 E. 17th St.