French Court Barriers: Safety or Segregation?

Re “School’s Perils Are Blamed on Street Barriers,” Jan. 15:

I am a resident and homeowner in the disputed French Court neighborhood in Santa Ana. The barricades that went up have since definitely become rendezvous spots for unwanted people to gather. They are physical anchor points like rest stops on the road for people to congregate for illegal activities as described in the article.

Besides limiting access to our streets, motorists end up making U-turns at these dead ends, creating more hazards and chaos than actually driving through them. I believe the only people who benefit from these barriers are the residents of the more affluent French Park neighborhood, as the barriers serve to separate the two communities.

In my opinion it is more an issue of segregation than public safety.

As taxpaying and law-abiding citizens, we deserve to live in a clean and safe environment just as much as anyone else, and the city has not been fair to us in this matter.

This is not to mention the physical condition of our streets, with road surfaces that are buckling and filled with cracks and no prospect of them being budgeted for repair. It often makes me wonder if I made the wrong move by choosing Santa Ana to be my home.

Jesse Cao

Santa Ana

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My husband and I purchased a 2,400-square-foot condo on Spurgeon Street in September 1999. We are one family out of 22 taxpaying homeowners of the Santa Ana towers.

French Park went around the local property owners and somehow convinced the Santa Ana City Council to spend our tax dollars installing temporary street barriers. If French Park wanted them, they should be on the French Park side of Washington, not on our side. We never wanted them. Gang activity, crime and mugging is on the rise in our neighborhood. Police and fire department vehicles are not able to reach the people in our neighborhood. We are being denied our right to public services and protection.

We want the roadblocks removed! We want to be able to access the freeways by using Washington and not having to go way out of the way to drive around. Let French Park have the street closure on their side of Washington. They wanted the barriers -- let them live without access to police and fire department services for a while and see how they like it being trapped!

Why would council members hurt their voters? Put children at risk? Block a city street that has a traffic light on 17th Street? Why would they block in a school? Create a barrio with increased crime? Please help correct this problem.

Linda Shelton

Santa Ana