Unnatural Allies in a War Against a Common Enemy

For the latest dispatch from the politics and strange bedfellows front, look no further than the South Pasadena-El Sereno line.

There, joined together in one of L.A.’s favorite pastimes--fighting freeways--we now find the mostly white conservative Republican town of South Pasadena keeping company with the largely Latino blue-collar Democratic enclave of El Sereno.

Their common enemy: the extension of the Long Beach (710) Freeway through their communities.

But some old-timers in El Sereno are wondering how they joined South Pasadena in this particular fight. They remember that back in the 1970s, South Pasadena activists used every tactic they could think of to prevent the freeway from coming through their city. At one point, South Pasadena adopted a “West Is Best” campaign to reroute the proposed extension to the west--away from their town and right into El Sereno.

Hugo Garcia, president of a fledgling El Sereno citizens group against the freeway, put it to me this way when the subject of the strange bedfellows came up: “We sleep in different beds in the same house.”

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It’s an uneasy alliance, spawned by a newly identified five-block El Sereno historic district that now stands as a potential roadblock to the project. That has delighted many in South Pas, but some in El Sereno are rankled by what they see as the superior attitude of their neighbors--who figure they wrote the book on how to fight the 6.2-mile freeway extension since they’ve been at it for 30 years.

Freeway opponents in both areas agree they want to kill plans to extend the 710 Freeway from where it now ends--at Valley Boulevard near the L.A.-Alhambra city boundary--to the 210 Freeway in Pasadena.

The sides are united in their opposition because they think the extension would disrupt their neighborhoods and eliminate needed housing in the area. They think other options, including light rail, ought to be considered instead of the freeway.

But first, the allies have to deal with things that divide them.

For example, Garcia and his group of freeway fighters, the El Sereno Action Committee, want South Pasadena officials to reopen a street, Via Del Rey, that was closed between the two communities. Years ago, South Pasadena erected two fences, blocking off the street, to meet residents’ concerns about troublemakers coming into the area from El Sereno. It smacked of racism, El Sereno folks charged. When South Pasadena refused to back down, then-City Councilman Art Snyder ordered L.A. workers to install a wooden three-foot-high barrier, blocking South Pasadena traffic on Alpha Street.

Reopening Via Del Rey will be seen as a sign of good faith in El Sereno, Garcia thinks.

But South Pas officials, while wanting to keep their newfound partners happy, don’t seem ready to act just yet. “We understand the concern,” City Manager Ken Farfsing told me. “But it’s not that simple an issue.”

There’s also the sense that South Pas residents unknowingly have treated their El Sereno counterparts with less respect than others opposed to the freeway. “In subtle ways, they’ve tried to tell us how to do this or say that,” Garcia said. “We joined in the fight, but we have our own points to make.”

South Pas folks wearily dismiss such talk. “We want to stop the freeway,” one told me. “All this BS detracts from our effort.”

The South Pasadena freeway opponent then paused for a few moments and added, “I can see where they think we’re telling them what to do. We’ve been at this for so long. They’re new to it.”

The El Sereno group has been active only in recent years. Also, El Sereno’s politicians are not united against the freeway like South Pasadena’s. Assemblywoman Diane Martinez of Monterey Park, who represents part of the area, wrote the bill authorizing the state to build the extension. Federal approval is still pending.

Still, Garcia wants to put his community’s concerns into the anti-freeway strategy. Among them is the future of Sierra Vista Elementary School, where enrollment is threatened after Caltrans proposed moving the roadway westward to protect some nearby historic homes.

Schools in South Pasadena and Pasadena were spared but, Garcia asks, what about Sierra Vista? And how come, he adds, state officials held public hearings on threatened historic structures in South Pas and Pasadena--but not in El Sereno?

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Latinos haven’t fared well in the freeway wars. Witness the five freeways that slice up East L.A. Others have succeeded. Ever wonder why the Beverly Hills Freeway (2) was never built?

Garcia is hoping to repeat in El Sereno the victory Latino activists scored in stopping the proposed state prison near the Eastside. First, he’s got to deal with that strange bedfellow thing.

He’s working on it. He wants El Sereno to have its own anti-freeway poster to rally community support. Right now, he’s using the one from South Pasadena.