Residents Make Stand Against Truck Traffic

Woodland Hills homeowners, sipping coffee and rubbing chilly morning goose bumps, revolted against thunderous truck noise early Tuesday by blocking passage of huge trucks that jar them awake most weekday mornings.

“You’re not supposed to be here until seven o’clock! Seven o’clock!” Wendy Brockman yelled at the driver of a construction truck that rumbled up Dardenne Street at 6:20 a.m. and screeched to a stop within inches of the protester.

In a suburban street standoff, the trucker yanked the gearshift into reverse, then thundered toward Brockman again. The trim woman stood unwavering at her post.

“I’m not afraid!” she yelled as gasping neighbors gathered on the quiet street. “He’s coming up a grade and he knows his brakes work. I refuse to give in to it!”

Again, the grille of the truck stopped inches from Brockman’s face. The driver, who identified himself later only as Monte, said Brockman had no right to stop his heavy dump truck.

“I think for these people to come up here and jump in front of my truck, I think they are infringing on my rights,” he said, adding that his orders were to report at the work site by 7 a.m.

Brockman and 14 other protesters took to their neighborhood streets after notifying Watt Pacific Inc., the developer of 33 houses in Mulholland Heights, that a noise agreement the company made with the county was violated in February and again in the past several weeks.

The clause states that no deliveries or work should begin before 7 a.m., and vehicles should not enter the residential neighborhood off Mulholland Highway before that time.

Tom Dee, vice president of Watt Pacific, said he was attempting to identify the trucker who used his truck to charge Brockman. The driver probably was independently dispatched through a subcontractor to haul dirt from the site, Dee said, but “every one of the subcontractors knows the rules.”

“This is totally unacceptable to us,” Dee said of the trucker’s actions.

Dee said the company “made a deal with homeowners, which we are going to live up to” about early morning traffic noise.

“I guess what has happened in the last week is that a few of the guys didn’t get the word,” Dee said. He added that he ordered a guard to be posted on Mulholland Highway to stop trucks from turning onto the residential hill, and that subcontractors would be fined if their workers violated the noise agreement.

“We’re just a year away from completion,” Dee said. “We don’t want a big old riot at this stage of the game.”

Assistant project supervisor Rob Montgomery was stationed at the Mulholland Drive turnoff to the neighborhood by 6:15 a.m. Tuesday morning. But several trucks, including the one that Brockman turned back, took a different route up the hill, dodging him.

As the second hand swept to 7 a.m., more than two dozen construction vehicles along Mulholland Highway revved up their engines and entered the subdivision as clusters of homeowners moved aside to make way for the noisy parade.

The homeowners said they don’t like the trucks, but they especially resent waking up to them.

“I’ve seen them out here at 5 in the morning,” said resident Ruth Coudare, who complained that the construction trucks spew dust as they pass, and that one once pitted her new car with rocks.

Other homeowners said that three years ago, during a previous project, construction vehicles often clanked and groaned up their hill at two, three, four o’clock in the morning, making deliveries and hauling earthmoving equipment.

“It’s kind of murder when you’re in your front bedroom,” said homeowner Lillian Saroian, who also lives on Dardenne Street.

The truckers were angry too.

“We are supposed to be on the job at 7,” fumed a truck driver who would identify himself only as Scott. “We’ve got families to feed too. How do they think their houses got built?”

“Look at them,” said carpenter Cliff Beattie, pointing at a line of cars emerging from the subdivision. “They’re going to work. They’re up! So what’s the big deal?”