LAGUNA HILLS : Council Again Rejects Pleas to Rename Park

For the second time in two weeks, about 20 teen-agers cajoled, pleaded and showed anger to persuade the City Council to rename Clarington Park after a youth killed in a car crash last year.

Council members on Tuesday took a little longer to explain their position, but the answer was the same: a firm “no.”

The city has a policy against naming parks after people, Mayor Joel T. Lautenschleger said, because “how do we judge who is qualified? I can think of 20 . . . names dating back to our incorporation of citizens who are worthy.”

Popular Laguna Hills High School student Brian Voight and fellow students Heather Zito and Tracy Meyers died last year when Voight’s 1985 Mustang veered out of control and crashed into an oncoming car.

Clarington Park was a haven to Voight and his friends, who took over the three-acre park from a drug element, students and neighbors say.

As they did at the council’s March 14 meeting, friends of Voight pleaded emotionally to the council about renaming Clarington Park to Brian’s Life Park.

This time, their comments bore an angry edge.

“Other cities (deal with) this problem, why can’t you?” asked Eric Cheney. “We intend to get this park renamed with or without your help.”

Michael DeSimone told the council to “make no mistake. We are not going to accept this decision as a final one and disappear from sight.”

Several adults also spoke to the council members, some urging them to rename the park and others suggesting alternatives like establishing a scholarship fund.

One of the speakers was Richard Zito, whose daughter died along with Voight and Meyers. Zito said the park shouldn’t be named after only one of the three teens who died in the crash and suggested calling it the Youth Life Park.

“I don’t think anyone is deliberately forgetting Tracy and Heather,” he said. “But there were others in the car.”

Lautenschleger said he was saddened by the teens’ unwillingness to accept other ways to honor their friend.

“It doesn’t seem like anything else will satisfy you and I feel sorry for you,” he said.