Laguna Hills Squabbles Over Rerouting of Bicycle Trail

For the sake of saving $80,000, some Laguna Hills residents say, the community may lose the popular Oso Creek off-road bicycle trail.

But others say the trail is not at risk, and that charging homeowners an assessment to fix it up is unnecessary.

Ellen Martin, a board member of the Laguna Hills Community Assn., is fighting a proposed change in the trail’s location.

But Mary Anderson, president of the community association, says that the trail “is simply going to be moved onto the street,” where it can be maintained without extra costs to homeowners.

“Why should all of Laguna Hills pay for something only used by a small group of people?” she asked.

The trail is a 1 1/2-mile asphalt path paralleling Pacific Park Drive from Cabot Road to Moulton Parkway. The county, which maintains the trail, has said the off-road pathway needs $80,000 in repairs and improvements.

The $80,000 was part of $215,000 in extra assessments proposed earlier this year for County Service Area No. 8, which includes most of Laguna Hills. The assessment would have cost individual homeowners $62.58 a year.

Anderson and two other board members, Dale White and Nina Lozano, learned in August that the county was on the verge of adding the assessment.

She said Thursday that they protested the higher assessment because they did not believe the county had complete information about the service area’s finances. The county Environmental Management Agency subsequently agreed, saying that a new calculation showed that the service district would have $120,000 more in income than previously estimated.

The county also accepted the board members’ recommendation that the off-road bike trail be moved onto paved right of way on Pacific Park Drive. The right-of-way area would be striped, the county said, and the existing off-road trail abandoned.

Martin, one of 30 community association board members, said Thursday that Anderson failed to consult the entire board before recommending to the county that the bike trail be moved.

“I think it’s unsafe to put that trail on Pacific Park because it’s a very, very busy road, with traffic like a freeway,” Martin said.

Anderson responded that there was no time for her to convene the board. She said she believed she had the authority to act on the matter without an overall board vote.