DANA POINT : Council Decides to Keep Shortcut Shut

The on-again, off-again neighborhood battle over a Galleon Way shortcut path was on again Tuesday night.

Faced with a potentially costly court battle with a homeowner, the City Council voted Tuesday, 3 to 2, to reject the reopening of a narrow, dirt pathway from the Galleon Way cul-de-sac to a greenbelt near Dana Hills High School.

The 10-by-95-foot shortcut to the high school is not worth the cost of a lawsuit nor of building a new path, City Councilwoman Eileen Krause said before the meeting.

“The whole thing has just gotten too expensive,” she said.

Everyone agrees that the uproar was touched off by a mistake. A former staff member empowered to study the issue nearly two years ago told the council that no one uses the pathway anyway, so why not sell it to an adjacent homeowner who had complained that it was an eyesore and a nuisance?

Based on that report, the council voted in February, 1990, to sell the pathway to Christopher and Lisa Lawler for the nominal fee of $5. The Lawlers then fenced off the path and landscaped it.

Instead of rectifying the situation, however, the decision ignited a neighborhood outcry. Galleon Way residents packed the council chamber in November, 1990, and informed the council that the pathway had been used for 13 years as a shortcut to the high school and a nearby canyon.

That outcry prompted council members to admit that they had made a mistake and to vote unanimously to buy back the pathway and reopen it.

The Lawlers, however, refused to sell the property back and have vowed to fight in court any attempt by the city to reopen it.

Faced with that, council members changed their minds again Tuesday and decided that the path should remain closed.

“We cannot justify the cost to all the citizens of Dana Point, because we would not realize a benefit to most of the citizens of Dana Point,” Councilwoman Karen Lloreda said before the meeting.

For their part, the Lawlers have agreed that $5 was not enough to pay the city for the path and have indicated that they will come up with $20,000 for the property.

But for Galleon Way resident Debbie Wyman, the latest council flip-flop is exasperating.

“It’s a question of integrity to me,” said Wyman, who presented a petition signed by 63 neighbors, demanding that the city reopen the path. “They (council members) are going back on their word.”

Wyman and other neighbors threatened Tuesday to take the city to court.