Council pens retort to Fountain Valley plan

Lolita Harper

The City Council wasted no time Monday retaliating against a

surprising blow from Fountain Valley officials about the construction

of a bridge at Gisler Avenue, a strike Costa Mesa officials said

undermined a long history of cooperation between the two cities.

At the prompting of many residents, council members took emergency

action to draft and approve a resolution that strongly criticized

Fountain Valley for an attempt to study a bridge that would link the

two cities by crossing the Santa Ana River.

Fountain Valley officials are requesting $500,000 from the Orange

County Transportation Authority for “preliminary engineering,

environmental review and design funds spanning the Santa Ana River

from Garfield Avenue to Gisler Avenue,” a Fountain Valley staff

report read.

“Any action to apply for OCTA funding at this time is wholly

inconsistent without cooperative history,” read the Costa Mesa

council’s resolution.

Fountain Valley leaders’ approval of such a request would “force

Costa Mesa to take action at each and every step to oppose this

action,” the resolution stated.

Costa Mesa leaders also blasted Fountain Valley for trying to slip

the item through the political process without prior notification or

a public hearing. The $500,000 request was placed on the “consent

calendar” portion of the Fountain Valley City Council agenda, which

contains various items that are considered routine city business and

are generally passed in one fell swoop.

Costa Mesa Assistant City Atty. Tom Wood said the council was

fully within its right to call for an emergency action because the

issue was something that came to the city’s attention after Friday,

when Costa Mesa’s agenda was publicly posted.

Fountain Valley City Manager Raymond Kromer on Monday denied any

implication that his city was trying to sneak anything through and

said he called Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder Monday to give

him a heads up. The call came after Roeder had already heard about

the request from concerned residents.

The emergency resolution was to be sent immediately to Fountain

Valley representatives Tuesday because the council was expected to

make its decision on the item last night, to meet a Dec. 20 grant

funding deadline.

Cindy Brenneman, president of the Mesa Verde Homeowners’ Assn.,

said she would work diligently to oppose Fountain Valley’s effort and

gathered a group of residents who planned to speak out against the

proposal at Fountain Valley’s meeting.

“You bet I’ll be there,” she said Monday.

Paul Freeman, spokesman for C.J. Segerstrom and Sons and South

Coast Plaza Partnership, said the dynasty family would opposed the

Gisler Avenue bridge and planned to send either a representative or a

letter to the Fountain Valley City Council meeting.

Bridges at Gisler Avenue and 19th Street that would cross the

Santa Ana River are included in county transportation plans, but

Costa Mesa and various other cities have been working for years to

get them removed.

Costa Mesa officials have largely led that fight, contending that

either bridge would simply create a “cut-through” for drivers looking

for a shortcut to the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach

commissioned a study -- named the Santa Ana River Crossing Study --

to research the effects of removing the bridges from the county

master plan.

A consensus among Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley

would be required to remove the Gisler bridge, while Newport Beach,

Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa would have to agree to delete the

19th Street bridge.

No agreement among the cities has been made on either bridge.

* LOLITA HARPER covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at lolita.harper@latimes.com.