YORBA LINDA : Parents Fight Plan for Shopping Center

Parents at a private school on a street where a pupil was fatally struck by a car are fighting a proposal to build a 73,500-square-foot shopping center nearby.

The parents say traffic from the center, planned at the northeast corner of Valley View Avenue and Yorba Linda Boulevard, would endanger children at the Fairmont Private School and the Valley View Sports Park, which are just to the north of the site on Valley View.

The proposed center’s 490 parking spaces represent too much traffic for the area to handle, the foes say.

“They can’t tell me it’s not going to be more dangerous,” said Cheryl Livingston, whose daughter is enrolled at the Fairmont school, which handles pupils in preschool through second grades at 4757 Valley View Ave.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “How can there not be more traffic? I realize the city needs revenue, but not at the expense of our children.”

Three young boys were struck by a car Nov. 8 while crossing busy Valley View. One of them, Ravi Patel, 6, died several days later.

The boys were among a group of Fairmont pupils returning from an outing in the sports park across Valley View as night was falling at 5:20 p.m. They were crossing single file in a part of the avenue not marked by a crosswalk, with their teacher at the head of the line. The last three boys were struck.

Since then, the city has posted warning signs to reduce speed when children are present and has lowered the speed limit on Valley View from 40 to 35 m.p.h. In addition, “rumble” strips have been placed on the pavement to alert motorists to the school and park.

Jerry Crabill, a city traffic engineer, said that the traffic changes were being considered before the accident.

Despite the changes, teachers no longer take their students across the avenue to the park, said David Jackson, the executive director of the school.

Parents and school officials would like to see a traffic signal and crosswalk installed on Valley View between Orange Drive and Yorba Linda Boulevard. They have suggested that the developers of the proposed shopping center bear the cost.