Prep Review : Citizens of Santa Ana Doing What They Can to Save Their Stadium

If you’ve been to a football game at Santa Ana Stadium this season, you’ve seen them at the entrance gate, passing out flyers and balloons and soliciting signatures for petitions.

They’re citizens who have rallied behind a cause--to save Santa Ana Stadium.

The 125-member group, known as the Save Our Stadium (SOS) committee, was organized in August to protest the city’s plans for the Westdome, an 18,000-seat, sports and entertainment arena to be built on the property occupied by the stadium at Flower Street and Civic Center Drive.

Plans for the $34-million Westdome project were developed by a group of four Orange County investors, including former professional football player Allan Durkovic, now a Newport Beach real estate broker. The group hopes to attract a National Basketball Assn. team to Santa Ana.

SOS members, however, are fighting to preserve 60-year-old Santa Ana Stadium, considered by many to be Orange County’s finest high school and college football facility. They also believe the Westdome will cause an increase in traffic and crime and will lead to the deterioration of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Charles Paap, Save Our Stadium committee chairman, already has presented the Santa Ana City Council with a 1,000-signature petition as a formal protest against the project. The issue will come to a head in February when council members decide whether construction will begin in April, as planned.

“We’ve been doing a highly emotional campaign,” said Paap, a 16-year Santa Ana resident who has set up SOS headquarters in his home. “We’re making people aware of the problem and (letting officials know) the way this part of the community feels.”

SOS members don’t necessarily oppose the idea of the Westdome. They disagrees with the site. They don’t understand why the city would tear down an excellent football stadium.

Neither can Santa Ana High’s Dick Hill, who has been coaching in the city for more than 25 years.

“It’s hard for me to believe what they’re doing,” Hill said. “This is absolutely the best place (in the county) for high school and junior college football. You don’t have a bad seat when you’re watching the game. The closeness you get from the fans adds real excitement.”

Santa Ana Stadium, which seats about 10,500, has been renovated in the past four years. The field has been resurfaced and a new drainage system was installed. There are new lights and refurbished locker rooms.

Durkovic realizes how much the stadium has meant to the city, but he thinks athletes, coaches and Santa Ana residents will be happy with a new stadium, which the city hopes to build in Centennial Regional Park, at Edinger Avenue and Fairview Street.

The city is in the process of conducting feasibility studies for the new stadium, which will include a 400-meter oval track and seating capacity of about 13,000.

“I can appreciate their sentiments, but I also see the excitement of playing in a brand new, state-of-the-art facility,” Durkovic said. “They’ll be able to hold many more events in the new stadium.”

If the Westdome is to be built, SOS members want it on a site near MacArthur Blvd. and the Costa Mesa Freeway (55). But Durkovic said that land there is too expensive, and that the Westdome could create serious traffic problems at that location.

Paap contends that fans will have to fight several miles of traffic on congested surface streets to get to the Westdome if it is built on the Santa Ana Stadium site. Durkovic, however, believes that traffic stacking on the freeway creates a more dangerous situation.

“We’ll have 8 to 12 miles of stacking access roads off of the 22, 55 and 5 freeways, which will allow for a free flow of traffic into the facility once fans have gotten off the freeway,” Durkovic said. “We feel this is the best urban site available.

“Having done research on this project for three years, we’re fully aware of the total impact it will have on Orange County and Santa Ana. It’s inevitable that (the Westdome) is going to be built on the site we’ve designated.”

Rangel update: Robert Rangel, the Valencia linebacker who was critically injured in an off-road vehicle accident on Oct. 19, returned to his Placentia home Tuesday.

Rangel suffered a broken leg, broken collarbone and broken shoulder when he was hit by a dune buggy while driving a three-wheeled motorcycle (ATC) at the Glamis Sand Dunes near Brawley.

Rangel underwent eight hours of surgery and spent four days in the intensive care unit of Pioneers Memorial Hospital at Brawley. He was transported via air ambulance last Friday to Brea Community Hospital, where he spent five days before being released Tuesday.

Rangel, who is confined to his bed or a wheelchair, still cannot move his left arm. An artery and several nerves in the arm were smashed in the accident, but doctors say it is just a matter of time before Rangel regains its use. His left leg is in a cast.

Still, Rangel was able to make it to the Valencia-Western game Friday night. He watched part of the game from the sideline but went home at halftime when he began to tire. He wasn’t thrilled about the Tigers’ 18-15 loss to the Pioneers, but he was very glad to be home.

“It feels great to be back,” said Rangel, one of Valencia’s captains. “I’m pretty tired, but I feel good. My friends from the team and from school come by every day, and that really helps.”

Rangel cannot remember what happened the night of the accident. He can only remember waking up in the hospital bed and feeling very scared.

“But I didn’t feel like I would die or anything,” he said. “They (doctors) said I was pretty close to that. I was lucky.”

Rangel hopes to return to school in December. In the meantime, he will receive tutoring at home.

End of the line: Tom Byrnes, State CIF commissioner, and three administrators from various CIF sections will hear a final appeal Wednesday from John Myers, Ocean View principal, who is attempting to overturn the Southern Section’s sanctions to ban the Seahawk basketball team from the 1986 playoffs.

Myers will be joined by Ocean View Coach Jim Harris and a parent support group. Commissioner Ray Plutko will represent the Southern Section.

The ban was part of the punishment issued to Ocean View for using two ineligible players--Ricky Butler and Desi Hazely--during the 1984-85 season. The Seahawks also were forced to forfeit 24 victories and their 5-A division runner-up trophy, and were placed on probation for two years.

Ocean View made an appeal to the Southern Section Executive Council on Oct. 2, but the council upheld the Southern Section’s sanctions. The state office is Ocean View’s last channel for appeal.

Fourth in a series: Stuart Thomas, Mater Dei’s 6-foot 8-inch senior forward, announced Sunday that he will sign an early letter of intent to play basketball at Stanford University. Thomas, who has a 3.5 grade-point average, said he chose Stanford because of its academics. He also visited UCLA, Arizona, Cal and UC Irvine.

Thomas is the fourth Orange County basketball player to announce that he will sign early. Katella’s Bob Erbst (USC), Brea-Olinda’s Kevin Walker (UCLA) and Bryant Walton (Cal) are the others.

The NCAA’s early signing period is from Nov. 13 to 20.

Prep Notes Century League basketball coaches voted last week to hold a postseason tournament to decide the second- and third-place entrants to the Southern Section playoffs, beginning next season (1986-87). However, the proposal must be approved by the league’s principals and athletic directors before it is officially adopted. The champion of the six-team league next season will receive an automatic berth to the playoffs, and the two other teams that advance farthest in the tournament will earn the No. 2 and 3 berths. . . . Capistrano Valley quarterback Scott Stark, who passed for 303 yards in Friday night’s 29-29 tie with Mission Viejo, has thrown for 2,249 yards this year to move into fifth place on the Orange County single-season passing list, ahead of former Servite star Steve Beuerlein. Beuerlein passed for 2,244 yards in 13 games, but it took Stark just 8 games to pass for his yardage. Stark needs 455 yards to surpass record-holder Jim Karsatos, who threw for 2,703 yards in 13 games for Sunny Hills in 1980. . . . Sunny Hills won its 16th straight Freeway League water polo championship and finished 25-0 last week. Pairings for the Southern Section playoffs will be announced today. . . . Bolsa Grande won its first league water polo championship in 18 years last week when it beat Santiago, 19-8, to take the Garden Grove League title. . . . La Habra sophomore Terrence Mahon covered the three-mile course at Placentia’s Tri-Cities Park in 14:54 Thursday to help the Highlanders win the Freeway League cross-country championship, and end Bunea Park’s 10-year hold on the title.