Work on Del Mar Street Project Blocked by Court : Dispute: Traffic circle issue may end up on the ballot in April. The judge urges the city to appeal the ruling immediately.

Del Mar residents who fought the city over construction of traffic-slowing islands on their narrow residential streets won a victory in court Friday and filed action to put the disputed traffic circles on the ballot.

Vista Superior Court Judge Kevin Midlam ordered the city to halt work on the street barricades, but urged Del Mar’s special counsel, Dwight Worden, to seek an immediate appeal court ruling of his action.

Midlam said he made his decision based “causing the least harm to both parties,” explaining that, if he allowed the city to proceed with the traffic island construction, then had his ruling overturned by higher courts, Del Mar citizens would have to pay the cost not only of building the barricades, but also the cost of tearing them out.

Al Carsten, a Del Mar resident who brought suit to halt the traffic circle construction, said he was “ecstatic” at the court decision that halted construction of what he called a “Mickey Mouse plan” to keep drivers from taking shortcuts through the residential streets of the seaside city.

Burton Guetz, attorney for Carsten and his wife, Arlene, a former Del Mar mayor, also filed an action Friday seeking a court order forcing Del Mar to place the traffic-island plan to a citywide vote next April.

The Carstens had led a volunteer petition drive earlier this year, gaining enough signatures to place the city’s traffic plan to a vote, but the Del Mar City Council ruled that the initiative was illegal and refused to honor it.

On Friday, Guetz filed for a writ of mandate that seeks a court order forcing the city to put the issue to a vote of the citizenry in April.

The issue is “pitting neighbor against neighbor,” Guetz said in his petition, adding that the city debate had been “clouded by innuendo and mudslinging.”

Worden, in defending the city’s action, said state codes do not prohibit municipalities from reconfiguring streets to improve safety by slowing down auto traffic.

Work began on the first of 16 traffic islands on Crest Drive, Via Alta and 15th Street intersections on Monday and the Carstens’ legal challenge followed the next day.

Judge Midlam said he felt that previous court cases cited by lawyers on both sides did not clear up the issue, and he looked to the 4th District Court of Appeal to set the definitions between legitimate traffic controls and illegal barricades.

Worden said he would have to confer with Del Mar council members and the city manager before a decision is made whether to appeal Midlam’s injunction halting the $300,000 project.

Carsten said he opposes the traffic islands because they pose a hazard to both drivers and pedestrians and would prevent the free access of emergency vehicles to some parts of the city because they would narrow the already substandard residential streets in his neighborhood.

He said he pursued the legal challenges against the city “in order to buy back the citizens’ right to vote,” which he said had been taken away when the City Council refused to honor his initiative petition, even though it contained sufficient signatures to qualify the issue for the ballot.

Worden said the initiative was considered invalid because it sought to rescind actions taken by the City Council last November by an after-the-fact vote in April.