No Resolution for Still-Closed Pomerado Road

For inland North County commuters who heed traffic reports before venturing out in the morning: Pomerado Road will not be open to through traffic this morning. Tune in Thursday for an update.

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Miller called attorneys for the cities of San Diego and Poway into his chambers late Tuesday afternoon to discuss the road over which the two cities have been feuding for months. The half-hour session, broken by a short huddle between the two opposing city attorneys, brought no resolution to the dispute.

After emerging from their closed-door meeting with the judge, neither Leslie Girard, San Diego deputy city attorney, nor Stephen Eckis, Poway city attorney, would comment on the session.

Both attorneys confirmed that the judge did not lift a stay on his earlier ruling that Pomerado Road be opened immediately. That order, made by Miller in December, was automatically stayed earlier this week when Girard filed a notice of intention to appeal the judge’s order to the 4th District Court of Appeal. Eckis immediately asked Miller to lift the stay and force San Diego to reopen the road. Miller on Tuesday set another hearing on the matter for 10 a.m. Friday.

Meanwhile, the San Diego City Council meet in a closed session Tuesday night and approved the appeal of Miller’s order to open the road.

The San Diego council’s decision to continue the fight to prevent regional traffic from flowing through the upscale Scripps Ranch community means the fate the barricades is unlikely to be determined before the legal battles are over.

The issue over the road closure is simple. Poway wants the road, a shortcut for inland North County commuters to and from San Diego, to be reopened to ease some of the congestion on Poway Road and other major arteries there.

But San Diego officials, who ordered the road closed for safety reasons in November, 1988, want Pomerado to remain closed until another major highway is built linking Poway to Interstate 15 and taking some of the regional traffic off the Pomerado route through Scripps Ranch and other San Diego suburbs springing up along its path.

Since its closure, a $30-million reconstruction project has widened the road to four lanes and straightened out many of the curves that caused San Diego engineers to rule that the road failed to meet minimum safety standards.

San Diego has filed with Miller a request for a new trial on the road opening, claiming that new evidence has been found that confirms San Diego’s contention that it acted legally in keeping the road closed until another major road--South Poway Parkway--is opened to ease traffic congestion in the area.

Poway City Atty. Eckis, after studying the latest San Diego legal challenge, said the city’s argument lacks merit.