Footbridge Widens Gulf Between Neighborhoods

A footbridge--now nothing more than two unconnected foundations jutting skyward on either side of the Santa Ana Freeway--has come to symbolize the struggle by the city’s wealthier neighborhoods to seal their borders against outsiders in a desperate bid for safety.

On one side are people like Mel and Terri Vernon, who have paid a high price for their tree-lined streets and shaded porches and who draw a hard line in the sod when it comes to compromising that placid life--for themselves, or the toddler they are raising.

They keep a sharp eye out for strangers, they know how to organize and they want construction of the bridge halted.

On the west side of the freeway are people like Vivian Ruiz Valdez, whose family lives in a crowded apartment complex. Ruiz Valdez wants her 8-year-old daughter to be able to walk across the new footbridge to the elementary school in the Vernons’ neighborhood--instead making a circuitous trek by bus or foot on busy streets.

In the middle are officials with three public agencies: Caltrans, the city and the Santa Ana Unified School District, all somewhat startled by the sharp tenor of debate, which has become increasingly fierce in recent weeks.

The issue has everyone talking about subjects key to the city’s psyche: fear of crime and the growing population of low-income immigrants; the legacy of crowded apartment buildings spawned by haphazard development in the early 1980s; and the desire by some to mend Santa Ana’s sharp disparities and extract lessons from the city’s diversity.

The California Department of Transportation is building the bridge to replace a tunnel that about 133 schoolchildren were using to trek to school on the eastern side before a freeway widening project closed it.

Both Caltrans and city officials have tossed the issue to the school district, asking the board to decide whether the children from the west side really need the new bridge. The board is expected to make a decision July 12.

School board member Audrey Yamagata-Noji cautioned residents not to let the issue divide an already troubled city.

“Those of you who have lived here 30 or 40 years have faced a lot of changes,” she told an audience packed with about 100 bridge opponents at a recent board meeting. “What I hope we don’t do is point across neighborhoods and say ‘It’s those people over there,’ but that we solve problems as a community.”

Some complain that the opposition to the bridge smacks of discrimination. Others say the fears that it will bring a crime wave are exaggerated.

Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton said police have no reason to believe that crime increased any more from west to east than it did in the other direction when the tunnel was open, and he knows of no gang that claims the Santa Ana triangle as its territory.

“I don’t think anyone can say that a bridge like that would have such a devastating impact because floods of criminals are going to use it to access the other side,” Helton said. “Criminals do go on foot, and they do use vehicles, depending on what crime they’re going to engage in.”

To opponents with the Northeast Neighborhood Assn., however, completion of the bridge signals nothing short of death for their neighborhood. Like the tunnel before it, they say, the overpass will attract taggers and open a passage way for lawbreakers to their closely monitored streets.

“We’re convinced that it will create decades of problems for all involved,” said Mel Vernon, who has helped launch a petition drive to halt construction. “We feel confident that the bridge will be graffitied. It will allow some people who have committed crimes to cross over.”

Vernon vows to chain himself to the lumbering structure or take legal action if Caltrans proceeds.

“We want to be able to maintain the integrity of the neighborhood, and one way of doing that is to limit access to the neighborhood,” he said.

In an effort to persuade the school board to call Caltrans off the project, the residents have gathered more than 300 signatures. At Tuesday night’s school board meeting, people from the neighborhood talked of the shootings and burglaries they say the tunnel ushered onto their streets.

The $1.3-million project--Caltrans has already spent $600,000--will bridge the freeway at 20th Street, linking Hoover Elementary School and homes on the east with a small, triangular neighborhood brimming with apartment buildings.

Caltrans officials, who have been paying the school district to bus 133 children to Hoover during construction, said they will consider abandoning the bulky, wood-framed bridge half-built if school and city officials request that they do so in writing and supply some good reasons.

The school district plans to canvas parents on the west side before making a decision, and Yamagata-Noji urged residents to get the Santa Ana City Council involved, too.

East side residents have suggested that the busing simply continue until a new elementary school on French Street is completed in about three years, eliminating the need for the children to cross over at all.

Even some in Vernon’s neighborhood, however, say the fervent opposition to the bridge is misguided and betrays Santa Ana’s deep fear of its changing face.

“It’s sad,” Jenny Doh said. “It seems like people are organizing in order to get us even more isolated, to make sure that we’re more and more secured down into this weird cocoon. I think the more that happens, the lower the quality of life will be in the long run.”

Doh was booed by her neighbors at the school board meeting when she said Santa Ana needs “bridges that foster understanding and harmony by connecting our lives with the lives of others.”

She called on the school board to build the bridge so children can get to school safely and families like hers can walk over to the Bowers Museum and soon-to-be built Discovery Museum on the west side.

“We’re committed to this city. We want to live here, we want to start a family here, and the reason we chose this city is because we feel that the diversity is a real plus,” Doh said. “I don’t know where people are getting the idea that chaos would break loose if a bridge were built.”

Leo Teutle knows what it’s like on the west side of the freeway. The Mexico native lived there before moving his family to the Northeast neighborhood in December, smack up against the looming foundation for the new bridge that would connect him with his past.

Tales of the tunnel--including one of a thief who disappeared through the hole on a stolen bicycle--prompted him to act. Teutle said he has collected more than 200 signatures opposing the bridge over the past month.

He concedes that some people might find his new neighborhood’s mission exclusive, but Teutle said he moved away from a neighborhood crowded with lower-income renters in search of safety and peace of mind.

“I probably wouldn’t have opposed the bridge if it was the same type of neighborhood over there as over here,” he said. “But it’s mostly apartments. They’ve got gang members over there, graffiti and everything else. We don’t want that coming across. That’s the reason why we moved over here and purchased this house. It’s family living.”

Some on the west side say discrimination is behind the opposition to the bridge.

“There are more white people over on that side. There are Mexicans over there, too, but they forgot where they came from,” said Vincent Valdez, 30, who said crime is a citywide problem that the bridge won’t enhance or erase.

“They started it already. They should finish it,” said Ruiz Valdez, 26. Her 8-year-old daughter is now being bused to school, but there is no guarantee the busing will continue, and even now her daughter must walk on busy 17th Street when she stays after school.

Other parents, like Ruiz Valdez, have been largely silent on the issue, unaware of the fear their neighborhood has spawned. Only one parent from the west side showed up at the meeting and, in a brief statement, she implored the board to proceed with construction “for the safety of her children.”

Many residents on the west side concede that the tunnel was a haven for drug users. But they said the crime goes both ways. It has hit them equally hard if not harder, they say, and they blame people crossing over from the east side into their neighborhood.

Magdalena Salazar, 52, who has lived in a west side house that abuts the freeway for two years, said the children need the bridge. But if the school district promises to keep busing them, she would agree that construction be halted.