ANAHEIM : Slaying Triggers Community Rebirth

It took a slaying nearly two years ago to switch on the lights--literally and figuratively--in the Avon-Dakota-Eton neighborhood.

Although the Anaheim neighborhood of about 900 had fearfully watched its streets fall victim to gangs and drug dealers for years, it seemed to take the fatal back-alley stabbing of a 25-year-old man in April, 1992, to shock the community into action.

“That crystallized our ideas, desires and energies to really do something to change things,” recalled Jaime Zamora, a 47-year-old engineer, who now heads a thriving neighborhood association made up of Avon Place, Dakota Street and Eton Place residents.

“After that, I remember thinking we either had to fix the neighborhood or board up the windows and walk away,” added I.J. Himmelberg, who owns two of 40 apartment buildings in the one-quarter-square-mile community. “And I just wasn’t going to do that.”

After the slaying, property owners and residents teamed up with police, city code enforcement officials, schools and churches to return the streets to the residents. By virtually all accounts, the cooperative effort worked.

Gang members were evicted from area dwellings. City inspectors wrote up 700 municipal code violations. Trees, supplied by the city, were planted by residents and owners during block parties. Graffiti was painted over. Trash was cleaned up. Sidewalks were paved.

And many high-wattage lights, provided by the city and installed by residents and owners, were installed. Today, buildings and streets are illuminated by three times as many lights as were there two years ago.

“The lights shone on their hiding places, and the gangs started to leave,” said Zamora, who has lived in the neighborhood 17 years.

A crucial element in driving out the gangs and drug dealers was the introduction of an aggressive community policing program. With a newfound confidence in police, residents--who once feared gang reprisal for getting involved--now alerted police to criminal activity.

Less than a year ago, Zamora saw the fruits of the group’s hard work when he noticed children happily playing outside his building. “It was something that hadn’t happened in years,” Zamora said. “At that point, I realized we were in high cotton, and we could just live again.”

The joint effort has not gone unnoticed. The city and the residents association will receive an award April 18 from the American Planning Assn., a Washington-based nonprofit organization representing about 28,000 planners and elected officials nationwide.

But residents and property owners say they must remain vigilant or risk having gangs creep back into the community. Every now and then they receive a reminder--such as a graffiti incident or a gang member cruising by--of how things once were.

“It won’t go back to the way it was,” Zamora said. “You can write that down in stone.”