Study Says Keep Street at Ventura High Closed : Safety: Report also recommends installing speed bumps on some hillside roads to discourage traffic.

Poli Street should remain closed at Ventura High School during school hours, but speed bumps should be installed on nearby streets to discourage detouring traffic, a report released Friday says.

A committee headed by Mayor Tom Buford has concluded that either moving or redesigning the high school campus is the best long-term solution to traffic problems in the area. But because that option is too costly, installing speed bumps on Palomar Avenue and Sunset Drive was viewed as an acceptable compromise.

“I wish that we could come up with something that everyone could be happy with, but you can’t do that,” Buford said.

Hillside residents reacted angrily to the report, saying the committee included too many school officials and parents intent on keeping Poli closed. The street is a major east-west artery that runs through the heart of Ventura High School, and its closure has increased traffic in some nearby hillside neighborhoods.

“It was a completely stacked committee for the school,” said Hazel Imbrecht, a 75-year-old homemaker who is helping organize a ballot initiative to reopen Poli. “They have no right to keep Poli Street closed. It’s a public thoroughfare.”

Three hillside residents served on the 10-member committee, which was appointed by Buford. Four members were affiliated with Ventura High School and two members were residents who have no connections to either side.

Parents of Ventura High School students hailed the committee’s nine-page report, saying their children’s safety is more important than traffic problems.

“When a student loses his or her life, it’s too late,” said Nicky van Nieuwburg, president-elect of the Parent Teacher Student Assn. “These kids should be able to go to school and feel safe.”

The issue of closing Poli Street has come up periodically in the past 20 years. Most recently, the Ventura City Council in August voted to block off Poli during school hours to prevent drive-by shootings and pedestrian accidents.

Because the closure pushed hundreds of detouring cars into nearby residential neighborhoods, barricades were installed on Palomar Avenue and Sunset Drive to push traffic onto Main Street.

Hillside residents, however, said the barricades in their neighborhoods hinder their ability to get in and out of their own homes quickly. They have been campaigning to keep Poli open throughout the day.

They have circulated petitions, held protest meetings and are gathering signatures for a ballot initiative in November. But the committee’s recommendation to replace the barricades with speed bumps may mollify some homeowners, said John Wolfe, a hillside resident who sat on the committee.

“The speed bumps may not stop all the increased traffic from coming up here,” Wolfe said, “but it would slow down the traffic that does come through.”

Buford said the city’s traffic engineers are not enthusiastic about speed bumps. According to a resolution adopted by the council in December, 1993, city policy generally discourages creating speed bumps.

“I don’t think that the traffic people like them because they’re trying to design things that make traffic move, not slow it down,” Buford said. “But they understand that there are engineering decisions, and then there are community and political decisions.”

The council is expected to consider the committee’s recommendation April 18. Buford said if many hillside residents oppose the committee’s recommendation, the council may decide not to install the speed bumps.

“I don’t know what we’ll do,” Buford said. “This issue is not going to go away no matter what the council does. Every school year there will be people trying to get the decision overturned.”

School district officials have been trying to get the council to close Poli for almost two decades. The issue has come up in 1974, 1991, 1992 and 1993. In May, 1974, Poli was closed for a two-week trial period and then reopened after hillside residents complained.

NEXT STEP

The Ventura City Council will consider the committee’s report on Poli Street at its April 18 meeting. Hillside residents, meanwhile, are gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative to reopen Poli Street. Residents must gather a minimum of 8,588 signatures of registered Ventura voters by June 25 to qualify for the ballot.