Decision on Corridor Land Delayed : Angry Residents Protest Inaction on Abandoned Route

To the frustration of Southeast San Diego residents, the California Transportation Commission on Thursday gave the cities of San Diego and National City until mid-October to resolve their dispute over the sale of an abandoned freeway corridor that separates the two cities.

The commission implied that the postponement--the fourth since August of last year--will be the last and that it will make a decision when it meets Oct. 16 in Los Angeles.

The delay, made at the request of National City, caused an emotional outburst at the otherwise-sedate commission meeting held in a banquet room at the Hotel Inter-Continental.

More than a score of Southeast San Diego residents, many of them blacks and Latinos, had sat patiently since morning, waiting for the California 252 corridor plan to be discussed.

By 3:30 p.m., after the commission and the audience had listened to reports on “fund estimate methodology” and “state highway account cash balance,” it was time for discussion of the corridor sale. Minutes later, Commissioner William Bagley excused himself, saying he had a plane to catch. At 3:52 p.m., he was followed by commission colleague Joe Duffel.

It was apparent even before the two commissioners left that the matter was going to be postponed.

But when the commission formally called for the deferral, after listening to testimony from San Diego City Councilman William Jones and National City Councilman Michael Dalla, several men in the audience began shouting and demanding to be heard.

Some walked to the front of the audience. “When are people going to be shown courtesy?” screamed one man. “This is the second time we come here and been put off,” shouted another.

For several minutes the din continued, despite the efforts of the commission to continue with the meeting. At one point, Commissioner J.T. (Tom) Hawthorne, a San Diego businessman appointed to the commission by Gov. George Deukmejian last year, said to the audience, “I’m really embarrassed for our city that you want to act like this.”

Eventually, a spokesman for the residents, Verna Quinn, chairwoman of the Southeast San Diego Development Committee, formally addressed the commission and said: “We strenuously object to any delay. . . . We’ve been patient and we’ve been reasonable.”

Further negotiations with National City were pointless, Quinn said. “You can’t placate them. . . . They are hellbent with self-interest and totally oblivious to everyone else,” she said.

Commission Chairman Joe Levy told the residents the commission was doing its best to work out a solution. “We’re sitting here trying to mitigate a very bad traffic problem,” Levy said. “I don’t think we’re being tyrants up here.”

At the core of the matter is the inability of San Diego and National City to agree on a solution to traffic problems that exist as a result of the demise of plans to build a 66-acre, 1.2-mile freeway linking Interstates 5 and 805.

The state abandoned the project when San Diego--yielding to protest from Southeast residents who didn’t want their community divided by yet another freeway--terminated an agreement to allow construction of California 252.

As a result, the state agreed to sell the land, cleared of houses and streets 15 years ago, to San Diego for $3.3 million for commercial revitalization and redevelopment.

In April, the Transportation Commission reaffirmed that decision but added the condition that San Diego and National City negotiate a solution to National City’s traffic problem.

Since then, the two cities have met several times formally and informally but have been unable to reach an agreement.

According to Councilman Jones and a Transportation Commission report, San Diego has committed to paying $9.1 million for street improvements in the Southeast area; paying $1 million for the widening and improving 8th Avenue, National City Boulevard and Division Street in National City, and has asked the state to pass on the $3.3 million corridor purchase price to National City.

“I don’t think we can come to an agreement,” Jones told the commission. “They’ve (National City) insisted on a freeway or something like that.”

Dalla, the National City Councilman, said his city wants to build a 64-foot wide road in the corridor and that last Tuesday, National City’s council voted to provide $1 million to help Caltrans build the road. Such a road, Dalla said, would help alleviate traffic and also leave room for development, a contention San Diego officials dispute.

In addition, he said, National City believes it will cost $57 million to pay for acquisition and construction of three main east-west routes in the corridor area and that San Diego’s offer of $1 million is insufficient.

Dalla asked for another delay so that his city could more fully explore the costs involved in improving its streets and meet again with San Diego.

The commission, in approving the request, directed Caltrans staff to work with the two cities to help draft a traffic mitigation plan. Such a plan could involve alternatives neither of the two cities like, Commissioner Bruce Nestande said, but which are necessary to reach a compromise. “The responsibility we have is to solve a traffic problem,” Nestande said.

One recommendation from the two cities that the state use the $3.3 million from the sale of the property to help National City pay for widening its roads was scuttled when Levy said the state was bound by law to use the money for state highways and not city streets.