Road Construction Signs in San Joaquin Hills Are Vandalized

Sign vandals have struck again in south Orange County’s San Joaquin Hills.

After a months-long lull from defacing highway signs in Laguna Canyon, vandals painted over two new county signs advertising the Pelican Hill Road construction project on the Coast Highway just south of Corona del Mar.

County officials discovered the vandalism Thursday and sent out a work crew Friday to clean off the paint. Officials said they hoped the signs would not attract the kind of paint vandalism that a year ago beset state signs along Laguna Canyon Road announcing the planned route of the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor. In one instance back then, someone painted the word rape.

“We don’t want to have to run down there all the time and clean them off,” said Bill Reiter, a county public works operations manager.

The two workers who were sent out to clean the signs said the vandalism appeared to be the work of the same people who defaced the Laguna Canyon Road signs. Environmentalists angered at planned development in Laguna Canyon had claimed responsibility for that sign defacing. They were never apprehended.

“They’ll be out here again this weekend, I know it,” said one of the workers, who declined to give his name. “It’s like a game to them.”

The large, blue Pelican Hill Road signs were erected Tuesday for a ground-breaking ceremony that was held for the project. Construction of the 6-mile road, connecting the Coast Highway with Bonita Canyon Road near Irvine, signals the start of the long-awaited Irvine Coast development project.

The Irvine Co., which owns the undeveloped land between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach, plans to build 2,600 homes and three hotels over a 9,432-acre tract of rolling land. The Irvine Coast project has drawn intense opposition from environmentalists over the years. But the opposition waned after the Irvine Co. agreed to preserve 76% of the land as open space.

Completion of the project is expected by late 1990, said Irvine Co. spokeswoman Dawn McCormick. She added that Pelican Hill Road, a $50-million artery being built by the Irvine Co., will serve as a key link in the development. She said it will divert more than one-third of the existing traffic off the heavily congested Coast Highway.