GARDEN GROVE : City Orders Removal of Red Curb in Feud

The City Council has ordered workers to get rid of a red, no-parking curb that has apparently become the last straw in a long-festering neighborhood feud.

Officials said they were chagrined to be caught in the middle of the dispute after a city worker painted red the curb in front of a residence on a public street at the request of one of the parties.

They implored residents to be neighborly to one another.

“In my nearly 14 years as police chief I fought putting red curbs in front of homes,” Councilman Frank Kessler said. “We shouldn’t do these kinds of things. . . . We should not get involved in a neighborhood feud. I am shocked that someone from staff would paint the curb from out of the blue.”

Sybil Mermer, a 40-year resident of Imperial Avenue, had complained that neighbors parked their vehicles in a small space in front of her home on a curving cul-de-sac, sometimes blocking her from getting in and out of her driveway and impairing her view.

A city worker came out about a month ago and painted the curb red to stop the practice.

But sisters Susan Fernandez and Sandra Hemenway, who live on one side of Mermer and their father, Richard Kroening, who lives on the other side, said the red curb takes away needed public parking.

Fernandez said her college student son parks his small car in the space and that it does not impede access or block views.

Kroening told City Council members that trouble started in the reportedly once-congenial neighborhood when Walter Gadzinski and his family moved in with Mermer, his mother-in-law.

The neighbors had once participated in social gatherings and exchanged Christmas gifts, Kroening said.

But no longer. “We can’t turn on the music” without Gadzinski calling the police, Kroening said.

Gadzinski, though, retorted that his neighbors allegedly have played loud music and let their dogs roam on the property.

He sought to get a restraining order last November but failed, he said, because he did not stress that he and his family have suffered.

There have been frequent calls to police and animal control officials complaining of excess noise and roaming dogs, neighbors said.

Mermer said she is angry that officials ordered the removal of the red curb and will permit cars once again to be parked in front of her house.

“They got away with one tonight. They’ll be gung-ho,” she said of her rivals in the neighborhood. “I’ll refuse to pay my taxes to Garden Grove.”