Saddleback Ranch Road - The City Blinks

In the showdown between concerned citizens and an unbending City administration, the City blinked.

With the recent changes to Saddleback Ranch Road, Portola Hills residents worried about

• · Safety to bicyclists and pedestrians
• · Inability to evacuate quickly in case of emergencies
• · Inability of emergency vehicles to circumnavigate the turns
• · Inability of vehicles to pull over to make way for emergency vehicles
• · Congestion due to lane narrowing

Click Here for a complete discussion.

In response my colleagues on the City Council (Voigts, Robinson, and Hamilton) refused to agendize the topic (Click Here) and best that the City Manager could offer was that he was going to meet with the HOAs and send out a postcard to Portola Hills residents asking them if they wanted to be kept informed of what’s happening.

Following these developments, the three reluctant City Council members (Voigts, Robinson, and Hamilton) were served with recall papers (Click Here).

Last night, the City held a meeting with nearly a dozen Portola Hills residents, with one from each of the 6 HOAs up there. After a 4 hour meeting, the City agreed to

• · Narrow the width of the medians
• · Add dedicated 5’ bike lanes on both sides of SRR
• · Consider changes to the “bulb outs”, including bike lanes going through the bulb outs.

There are also some suggestions about working with the school to increase the size of the street at Pendleton and working with the arborists to reduce the size of the shrubs at the South side of SRR.

The plans go to the Traffic Advisory Group (TAG) who – last month - placed the item on the agenda for tonight at 7 pm at City Hall. This will allow more citizen input.

The next meeting of the Council is Nov 3, but unfortunately the topic will not come up, because my colleagues (Voigts, Hamilton, Robinson) would not vote to put the topic on the agenda. But I suspect that if I introduce a motion, this time, to put the topic on the agenda, I will get my colleagues’ support this time. In this way, we will get to review it on November 17, at which time we should have all the information we need to move forward with the changes.

As I suggested in a previous article, our lawyers must decide how we can alter the existing contract and we must negotiate with the contractor to see how much more this will cost. But however much it costs, the loss of life would surely be more costly, and in my mind, this project has been a disaster in the making.

If you want to participate in the discussion, show up tonight at City Hall at 7 pm for the TAG. I’ve been told to wear red to express my support for the changes. I don’t have a red shirt so I’ll wear a red flower.

I want to acknowledge the help of Adam Nick, Grady Glover, Leah Basile, Steve Kuver, Matt Gutierrez, Cathy Jackson, and the dozens of people who spoke at the Council and TAG meetings and the hundreds of people who showed up at those meetings. This is our government and we can change it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be on Dec 12 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.

5\g