Ventura Advances Proposal for Highway Footbridge : City Council: Neighbors fear the California 126 overpass would promote crime and reduce privacy.

Despite complaints from homeowners that crime and vandalism would increase in their neighborhood, the Ventura City Council is moving ahead with plans to build a $1-million, elevated footbridge across California 126.

A majority of the council’s seven members said the pedestrian overpass near the intersection of the Santa Paula and Ventura freeways would provide better access to Camino Real Park and Elmhurst elementary school.

But nearly a dozen residents along Lafayette Drive and Citadel Avenue, including scores of senior citizens in Patrician Mobile Home Park, complained Monday night that the overpass would promote crime and allow people to see into their back yards and bedrooms.

Most of those residents urged council members to forget the plan altogether, or to construct the crossing farther west.

“We don’t want it either place,” said Lynne Cloud, who lives on Citadel Avenue. “You can’t possibly put a public overpass into a residential area.”

Sue Kellie, who lives in the Patrician Mobile Home Park north of the Santa Paula Freeway, said the overpass would invite crime.

“There would be a clear view into our yards and homes,” Kellie told the council. “That’s temptation with a capital T.”

But Ventura police investigators reported no residential robberies in the Citadel Street neighborhood last year and said two burglarized homes near the Hill Road crossing to the west are not visible from the foot-bridge.

City officials support the overpass because children frequently climb over freeway fences and dash across California 126 to reach Camino Real Park or nearby schools.

California Highway Patrol officers issue several tickets a year to children illegally crossing the highway, officials said.

Three years ago, the City Council delayed approval of the crossing until money could be raised for the project.

The city has since received $400,000 in state and federal grants, and plans to pay its share with $650,000 in building fees from the Weston Development Co., which plans to build scores of homes south of the freeway.

Acting on a recommendation from police officials and the city transportation committee, the council voted 6 to 1 on Monday to pursue the footbridge at Citadel Avenue.

Councilman Jim Monahan, who chairs the city’s transportation committee that endorsed the bridge, changed his mind and voted against the project after nearly a dozen speakers opposed the bridge.

“The benefit of a public hearing has changed my mind,” Monahan said. Councilman Gregory L. Carson accused Monahan of “backsliding.”

City officials considered two alternatives for the proposed crossing: the recommended site at Citadel Avenue and another location that would have dropped the bridge into Camino Real Park.

But the Ventura Police Department opposed locating the footbridge at the park because it would not be immediately accessible to officers responding to crime.

“This deficiency would surely be understood by the criminal element and exploited more frequently,” traffic investigator John J. Turner concluded in a letter to city officials.

Instead, the Citadel Avenue site would add to an existing bike path along Telephone Road and allow children easier access to Elmhurst School, the council ruled.

“I’m committed to an overpass,” said Mayor Tom Buford, who grew up in the neighborhood.

“A lot of these [opponents] are parents of people I went to school with,” Buford added. “I know the area real well. A park is not a good place to have an overpass exit.”

Varsity Drive resident Kevin Kielas said the city should require developers to provide land for a separate park south of California 126 instead of constructing another overpass above the freeway.

“The opportunity is now to negotiate with Weston Development so [residents south of the freeway] can get a park,” he said.

While several homeowners complained that their property values would decline because of increased access to their neighborhoods, resident Linda Logan disagreed.

“When the houses are built by Weston near this overpass, it’s going to be a selling point,” said Logan, a Ventura merchant who lives on the south side of California 126.

“You’ll have access to the parks and the schools on the north side of the freeway,” she said.