Youths Want Living Memorial to Friend : Sympathetic Council Denies Plea to Rename Park

In the middle of Clarington Park is a bent sycamore the kids think of as the Tree of Life.

On April 5 last year, popular Laguna Hills High School sophomore Brian Voight carved his initials into the rough bark, adding the phrase “+ LIFE.”

An hour later, he was dead.

Before the eyes of horrified classmates following closely behind, Voight lost control of his 1985 Mustang along Aliso Creek Road and veered into the path of an oncoming car, killing himself and two other youths riding with him.

His best friends pulled Voight’s body from the wreckage, and remember feeling the 16-year-old die under their hands.

For nearly a year, about 15 of Voight’s closest friends have searched for a way to ease the painful memory of his death. They thought about trying to name a star after him, but hit on what they think is a better idea: renaming the modest, three-acre Clarington Park to Brian’s Life Park.

“I can’t say it will bring an end to everything,” said Laguna Hills senior Steve Pornbida. “But it will be a proper place for us to remember him.”

Clarington Park wasn’t just a gathering place for teens, it was more like an psychiatrist’s office for Voight, called by friends the “Dear Abby” of Laguna Hills.

“If you had a problem, you called Brian and he’d say, ‘Meet you at the park,”’ Laguna Hills student Mike DiSimone told the Laguna Hills City Council on Tuesday, appealing for the name change. “One time, I thought about suicide and Brian talked me out of it there.”

Some neighbors say the park was plagued with drug and alcohol use before Voight and his friends started hanging out there.

Laguna Hills police have no recollection or records of such activity in Clarington Park, but park neighbor Dean Lichter told the council that “while I didn’t know Brian personally, there used to be problems in that park. I called police myself numerous times.”

About 15 teen-agers scoured the neighborhood around the park last weekend, gathering about 1,000 signatures on a petition to the council to rename the park.

“I was really proud of them,” said Lynne Voight, Brian’s mother. “They relived the tragedy all weekend long, explaining to people what happened. These kids faced things that no 16-year-olds should have to face.”

In the past, they’ve paid homage to their friend in other ways. On the first Mother’s Day after the accident, several of them cooked breakfast for Lynne Voight and gave her a handmade flag representing nature, one of her son’s loves.

But beside the devotion and feeling of loss among Brian Voight’s friends, a shadow of guilt also exists, his mother said.

“They feel like there’s something they should have done to save their friend,” Voight said. “They thought they felt a pulse, but paramedics told him later that all three died on impact. There’s nothing they could’ve done to save him.”

California Highway Patrol investigators concluded that Voight was driving more than 70 m.p.h. and lost control of the vehicle, slamming into opposing traffic. Also critically injured was Edward Tilden, now 51, the driver of the other car, who survived his injuries.

The CHP said no drugs or alcohol were involved and all three students who died, including 15-year-old Tracy Myers and 14-year-old Heather Zito, were wearing seat belts. The two girls eventually had a nursery named after them in their Mission Viejo church.

The accident scene was so gruesome that even experienced rescue workers were shaken.

“This was the saddest, worst accident scene I’ve ever seen,” said CHP spokesman Bruce Lian. “When you see young lives snuffed out like this, it’s something you don’t forget for years, if ever.”

Pornbida and DiSimone raced over to the wreckage and pulled Voight partially out of the Mustang.

“He was lying in my arms and Mike felt his neck for a pulse and thought he felt something,” said Pornbida. “I was hysterical most of the night. I just pounded the grass when they took Brian away.”

The news hit Laguna Hills High School like a punch to the stomach. Dozens of students went for special counseling arranged by school administrators.

“The effect was devastating on our campus,” Principal Wayne Mickaelian recalled in an interview. “It’s been a long, hard healing process that still hasn’t ended for some of our kids.”

It’s also been a bad year for Lynne Voight. Beside losing Brian, her father died before Thanksgiving, and around the same time she was found to have a brain tumor.

“These kids have given me a lot of strength to handle this,” said Voight, who returned to work this week after surgery. “These are wonderful, genuine young people. My son had good friends.”

Brian Voight was large for a sophomore, standing about six feet and weighing around 170 pounds. He kept his black hair short and was a dead ringer for his father, Earl, also a large man.

Friends say Voight needed to make everyone around him feel like a friend, including any new kid at school eating alone at lunch.

“He’d walk over to them and say, ‘Hey, you want to come over and eat with us?’ ” DiSimone said. “He never liked to see people down.”

Clarington Park is where Voight’s circle of friends would meet, sometimes several times a week. Occasionally, a guitar-playing friend would show up and play a few tunes.

“Our crew chased away the druggies just by being there,” Pornbida said. “It’s a place to go just to have some nice, clean fun.”

In a movie script world, the City Council probably would have agreed to rename Clarington Park after hearing Voight’s friends bare their souls in public on Tuesday.

But real life held a bitter disappointment for the students.

Citing policy, the council turned down the request. Instead, they made their annual donation to the school’s graduation dance in the names of the three crash victims.

Mayor Joel T. Lautenschleger told the Voights and about 30 supporters of the name change--including Principal Mickaelian--in the audience that park and recreation policy prohibits renaming city parks.

“What happened last year was very tragic,” the mayor said. “But, I am concerned about establishing a precedent that could be manipulated.”

The students are angry with the response and determined not to walk away and forget Brian.

“We will not give up,” DiSimone said. “We’ll try to find another way to convince the City Council, but if that doesn’t work, we’ll take care of Brian somehow.

“There’s always a star up there that we could name after him.”