City’s Appeal of Judge’s Order to Open Pomerado Road Keeps Shortcut Closed : Transportation: Judge may rule on appeal today, or decision on road may come at Wednesday morning hearing.

Another deadline passed Monday without the reopening of a popular North County shortcut between Poway and San Diego.

Poway motorists awaiting the reopening of the recently rebuilt Pomerado Road from their city south to Interstate 15 and San Diego will again have to detour to congested Poway Road, as San Diego city attorneys filed an appeal with the judge who had ordered the road open.

The court filing put an automatic stay on Judge Jeffrey Miller’s ruling last week that San Diego had to reopen the route by 5 p.m. Monday.

Within hours, Poway City Atty. Stephen Eckis filed a motion with Judge Miller asking him to lift the stay order and force San Diego to reopen the commuter artery, which has been closed to through traffic for more than two years. But, as of 5 p.m., the judge had not acted on Eckis’ motion.

Eckis said Monday that he expected Miller to lift the automatic stay today. If Miller does not act to enforce his own ruling today, Eckis said, a hearing is scheduled Wednesday morning to decide the issue.

Meanwhile, the barricades that prevent North County commuters from using the former federal highway remain in place, although developers have made $30 million in improvements--widening it to four lanes and straightening out the many curves that made the road a motorists’ nightmare.

San Diego City Council members, who earlier had ordered the road reopened after it was brought up to city engineering standards, then reversed themselves, will meet in closed session Wednesday to decide whether to appeal to the 4th District Court of Appeal and seek to have Miller’s order to reopen the road overturned.

Eckis, who has argued that the city of San Diego violated state law by failing to reopen Pomerado Road to regional traffic after it had been rebuilt, said that “more than just Pomerado Road is at issue here.”

“If the city of San Diego can arbitrarily close a major road to through traffic, then other local governments would be free to do the same,” he said.

Les Girard, a San Diego deputy city attorney, contends that the city has the right to close the road temporarily. San Diego officials want it to say closed until another road is constructed that will divert most of Poway’s truck and commuter traffic off Pomerado and around Scripps Ranch, an upscale suburb that is fighting the reopening of Pomerado. That route, South Poway Parkway, is at least two years away from opening.