Court Action Fails to Lift Fog Covering Pomerado Road : Transit: Shortcut remains closed pending hearing on request to stay judge’s order that it be reopened.

About the only thing that’s clear about Pomerado Road--following another court hearing on Friday--is that the street exists and it remains closed. After that, things get a little murky, a condition that may last a few more days or weeks.

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Miller denied Friday a request for a stay of an order he made Thursday that the road be reopened “without further delay.” But Miller also set a hearing for Jan. 3 to consider the stay request in more detail.

Miller, however, did not specifically state in Friday’s written decision whether the road, a popular shortcut for Poway and other inland motorists commuting to and from San Diego, should be reopened or remain closed until the Jan. 3 hearing.

Attorneys for Poway, which wants the road reopened, said Friday that Miller’s denial of the stay meant the road should be reopened. But Leslie Girard, deputy city attorney for San Diego, which wants the road kept closed, said that, because Miller set a hearing date, he intended that the road remain shut.

“I think we’re just going to deal with this on Wednesday,” said Kyle McDougal, an attorney representing Poway. McDougal plans on asking Miller at that time to formally order San Diego to reopen the road before the Jan. 3 hearing.

In the meantime, the road remains closed, and San Diego City Manager John Lockwood said he will not reopen it until a court orders the city to do so. The road is closed at the northeast end of Scripps Ranch.

Lockwood had asked the city attorney to pursue the stay in order “to maintain the status quo until we can meet with the City Council at its next scheduled closed session, on Jan. 9,” he said in a memo Friday to the mayor and City Council.

In his request to the court, Girard argued that the road “has not been completed and accepted” by the city, and that work such as the completion of a slurry seal, the painting of a bike path and an inspection by the Water Utilities Department must be done before the road is declared safe.

Girard said he does not know how long the unfinished work will take, but that items such as the slurry seal (an oily finish applied to the road’s surface) are beyond the city’s control. Girard said a local developer is responsible for the seal and recent wet weather may prevent the job from being completed soon.

“In normal course, as a city, before we accept a road, we want to have everything done on the road before it’s opened,” Girard said in an interview. “Normally, that is what we would do, and we would like to treat this in somewhat of a normal fashion.”

Lockwood, however, said in an interview that the acceptance of a road by the city is merely a “technicality” and that the suit is an effort to give the City Council time to consider a full appeal.

“I don’t want to get hung up on that technicality, because, if a court ordered us to open (Pomerado Road), we would process an acceptance as is,” Lockwood said.

“I’m going to do whatever the city attorney tells me I legally have to do. Unless the city attorney tells me I have to do something different, I’m not going to do a thing until the council meets on the 9th of January,” Lockwood said.

In his request, Girard also argued that the continued closure would not hurt Poway, since the road has already been closed for more than two years.

McDougal, the Poway attorney, argued that “there is no prejudice to San Diego in reopening it.”

The road was originally closed in 1988 after San Diego annexed several hundred acres traversed by Pomerado Road in an effort to reconstruct the byway and bring it up to city safety standards. The repairs were scheduled for completion in mid-December, but Poway officials have argued that it has been finished since November.

Poway conceded that the road was hazardous and had “a fairly healthy” accident record before it was closed, but expected the road to be reopened once the repairs were completed.

Poway residents want the road as a shortcut to bypass congested Interstate 15 during rush hour. Residents of Scripps Ranch, through which Pomerado Road runs, object to the added traffic through their community.