Foe of Del Mar Traffic Initiative to Appeal

The chief opponent of Del Mar’s plan to install speed-reducing traffic islands on the city’s winding side streets said Friday he will appeal a court ruling squelching a citywide referendum on the issue.

Attorney Burton Guetz, who represents traffic-circle foe Al Carsten, said Carsten will continue his legal battle against the city.

An opinion last week by Superior Court Judge Ron Johnson sided with Del Mar officials who had earlier refused to put Carsten’s initiative against the circles to a citywide vote.

In denying Carsten’s petition for a writ of mandate ordering the issue to a vote, Johnson cited an appeals court ruling involving a similar San Clemente effort in which the court said the subject did not qualify as a proper initiative measure.

Carsten had sued to force the city to place his measure--a citywide traffic plan without traffic circles--on the April ballot. Johnson’s ruling supports a 3-2 vote by the Del Mar City Council in August that rejected the initiative. The council refused to enact Carsten’s traffic plan and refused to place it on the ballot.

Crystal Crawford, an attorney in the law offices of D. Dwight Worden, which represents the city, said the firm is very pleased with Johnson’s ruling, but, she added, “the matter is far from over.”

The Worden firm also is appealing to the 4th District Court of Appeal a ruling by Superior Court Judge Kevin Midlam granting Carsten a restraining order halting all construction on the controversial traffic circles, Crawford said.

During all the legal maneuvering, the disputed traffic circle sites along several residential streets remain only painted symbols on the pavement.

Opponents contend that the traffic islands, if installed, would only worsen traffic along the narrow, winding streets that thread through the hillsides of the city. Proponents say the traffic circles and berms planned by the city along Crest Road, 15th Street and intersecting streets will slow speeders and increase pedestrian safety along the shortcuts often taken by motorists bound for the state fairgrounds.

Carsten, who considers the city’s traffic plan “a Mickey Mouse affair,” said he may also launch another initiative petition drive, one with sharper, more direct language that will leave no doubt that it is a law, directing the city to take specific action through a citizen-controlled traffic-management plan.

“I was startled that the judge ruled as he did,” Carsten said. “It’s not going to stop me. If all else fails, I’m thinking of getting a tractor and taking out a few of the berms that the city has already put in.”