City to post supervisor at intersection

Crossing guard to be stationed near elementary school.Parents at Eastbluff Elementary School drew closer to having a crossing guard outside their campus Tuesday, as a city official announced plans to station an adult supervisor at a nearby, busy, cross street.

Councilwoman Leslie Daigle, who presides over the Eastbluff area, said a city-hired guard would soon monitor an intersection near the Newport Beach school. In recent weeks, parents have lobbied for a guard outside the school, claiming it was unsafe for young pedestrians.

“The story really is we’re listening to our PTA moms,” Daigle said. “We believe a crossing guard will create a safer situation.”

Daigle said the guard would be stationed at Eastbluff Drive and Bixia Street, one of the two intersections parents said has heavy pedestrian traffic.

Rich Edmonston, the city traffic engineer who had planned to run a study of the intersection later this week, said he was surprised by the announcement but willing to stand by the city’s decision.

“I’m comfortable with it,” Edmonston said. “I think there needs to be some further discussion. We’ve turned down other people for crossing guards [outside their schools] because they didn’t meet the criteria, but I’m more than happy to give someone a crossing guard with new criteria.”

Two weeks ago, Edmonston’s traffic affairs committee conducted a survey of the intersection and found that not enough elementary school children passed through it in an hour to meet the state requirement for a crossing guard. The state guidelines specify 500 cars and 40 children, and Edmonston said the study turned up around half that many pedestrians.

However, Daigle said, it was the parents’ requests more than official guidelines that led her to recommend a guard.

“If you look at it, you can look at the traffic study and have numbers, but we’re also responsive to the number of PTA moms who want this,” she explained. “It was close enough for us to err on the side of helping out the moms.”

Mayor John Heffernan said he pushed for the crossing guard by Eastbluff, noting that when his own children attended Andersen Elementary, he and his wife campaigned to put an adult supervisor outside.

“I think that’s the business of the city,” the mayor said. “That’s how I look at it.”

Parents at Eastbluff were overjoyed by Daigle’s announcement.

“It feels really, really, really good,” said Jennifer Mannon, one of the parents who led the movement. “This issue affects a lot of people. A lot of parents are going to feel really good about this once they know.”

Early this month, parents at Eastbluff began wearing orange vests and guiding children across two intersections near the school -- Eastbluff and Bixia, and Vista del Oro and Vista del Sol -- with stop signs. However, the Newport Beach Police Department ordered them to stop their shifts because the parents weren’t trained to direct traffic.

In addition to supervising the intersections, the parents also circulated a petition among residents of the Eastbluff neighborhood. Daigle announced plans for a crossing guard, however, before the parents could submit their petition.

Annie Lindt, one of the leaders of the parents’ campaign, praised the traffic affairs committee for its diligence in investigating the matter.

“I think they really deserve high marks for taking all the time they did to listen to us,” she said. “If they hadn’t come forward, there’s no way the mayor and councilwoman would have known there was a problem.”

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or by e-mail at michael.miller@latimes.com.

20051019inyprgknDON LEACH / DAILY PILOT(LA)Lauren Mulvaney was one of several parents who volunteered as a crossing guard at an intersection near Eastbluff Elementary last week to bring attention to a busy roadway.