‘Dangerous’ Traffic Cited : Agoura Hills Mayor Seeks to Reopen Closed Street

The mayor of Agoura Hills proposed reopening Medfield Street Thursday, saying its closure by Los Angeles County on Wednesday has created a “damn dangerous” traffic situation that hurts the city’s image.

Medfield Street was built by the developer of an industrial park in 1978 without county approval, but it had been kept open at the request of Agoura Hills officials to alleviate the area’s traffic problems.

Los Angeles County closed the road on Wednesday, in part because neither the city nor the county would accept legal liability for the narrow, substandard road.

Medfield street runs for less than a mile from Kenwood Street, on the west, past the Dale Poe Industrial Park to Lewis Road on the east, funneling traffic into a residential neighborhood of Old Agoura.

The Committee to Close Medfield, a group of residents of the area, had pushed to close Medfield Street, claiming its traffic endangers neighborhood children and disrupts the bucolic neighborhood.

But Mayor Jack W. Koenig said the closure has caused severe traffic problems because cars were forced to use a single remaining route in and out of the area. That route runs through the city’s worst intersection for traffic accidents: Kanan Road and Canwood Street, about a mile west of Medfield Street.

“It’s damn dangerous out there,” Koenig said of the intersection, where the city is paying the county about $500 a day to deploy two sheriff’s deputies to direct traffic.

“It’s strangling the commerce of the city,” Koenig said. “It’s putting the citizens in danger.”

Koenig warned that the city is open to lawsuits if it allows traffic from the industrial park and a neighboring commercial center to be forced to use the Kanan-Canwood intersection.

Moreover, the mayor added, “People are frustrated. It’s giving the city a bad reputation and a bad image. Will people want to shop here and do business here when they can’t get in and out?”

Koenig’s proposal, to be considered by the full City Council next Wednesday, would ask the county to allow the city to make the road an official city road. The county owns the road because when the city was incorporated in 1982, it never accepted the unapproved road.

According to the proposal, the city would ask the owners of the two business parks, developer Brian Heller and the Dale Poe Development Corp., to pay to widen Medfield Street to bring it up to county requirements.

“This is a solution that costs the city nothing,” Koenig said.

Councilwomen Louise Rishoff and Darlene McBane frowned on making Medfield legitimate. Each said such a move requires a city plan amendment, a months-long process that includes public hearings and an environmental impact study.

Councilman Ernest Dynda said he knew little of the proposal, announced by the mayor Thursday afternoon, but added that “Medfield has to stay open, even on a modified basis.”

Councilwoman Vicky Leary was unavailable for comment.