Vote to Block Street Ruled Illegal

A federal judge on Monday ordered Santa Ana to remove traffic barriers that separate a community of mostly Latino apartment dwellers from a neighborhood of mostly single-family homes.

City officials intended the barriers to reduce traffic on local streets. But they became symbolic of a divide between two neighborhoods: historic French Park and adjacent French Court.

The traffic barriers were installed to block streets at three locations after a neighborhood election that allowed each household to cast one vote -- except for residents of apartment buildings of four units or more. In that case, only the landlord could vote.

Residents of French Court came to see the barriers not only as an effort to exclude them but also as a sign that their votes were less important than their neighbors’.

Activists went to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued the city. The lawsuit alleged that the election violated the rights of the apartment dwellers, and violated the U.S. Constitution, by giving some residents fewer votes than others.

In a tentative ruling issued Monday, Judge Cormac J. Carney of the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana agreed.

“Under our Constitution, the vote of a resident in a spartan apartment means as much as the vote of a resident of a majestic single-family home,” Carney wrote.

“Since the October 2000 election cannot stand, neither can the traffic barriers that are being maintained as a result of it,” he added.

City officials, who do not plan to appeal, said the barriers would be removed within one month.

City officials had argued that the election was a nonbinding poll and thus no election rights were violated. Under city rules, they say, neighborhoods have the right to propose a traffic plan and cast advisory ballots on it, but the decision is the city’s.

“We still disagree on whether there was an election. We believe this was an advisory feedback, not an election,” said City Atty. Joseph Fletcher. “We were trying to give voice to neighborhoods. It’s hard for neighbors to speak against each other, so we thought a poll would be helpful.”

The controversy began in 2000 when French Park residents asked for the barriers to prevent commuters from using neighborhood streets to get to the Santa Ana Freeway. After residents cast a 66-60 vote in favor of the plan, city workers installed temporary barriers blocking Spurgeon and French streets and Washington Avenue.

In 2003, neighbors were asked to vote on whether to make the barriers permanent. Before the ballots could be counted, however, the ACLU sued and won a temporary injunction barring a count of the votes.

The votes were taken based on rules set up by the city that allowed neighborhoods to develop traffic plans, provided neighbors agreed on them.

The rules did not allow renters in large apartment buildings to cast ballots because they are generally a transient population with little stake in the neighborhood, city officials say.

Until the lawsuit was filed, however, the rules did not say that neighborhood votes were only advisory.

Santa Ana has since revised them to indicate that such votes are nonbinding and optional -- a procedure that Carney has said was permissible.

Loyola University Law Professor Rick Hassen said he was unaware of another city in the United States that judged public sentiment through such a method.

“It may be the first case of its kind like this,” said Hassen. The decision “will certainly make other cities considering such plans to act cautiously.”

ACLU attorney Araceli S. Perez said the election “was a clear violation of the Constitution. The judge sent a strong message to the city about these barriers.”

City officials say they will consult with residents to determine whether the barriers should be replaced later. Under the city’s revised rules, a traffic advisory committee determines if an election should be held.

Residents of French Court applauded the Monday decision.

The barriers “made us feel as if we were on the other side of the tracks,” said Annie Tellez, who has lived with her two daughters in French Court for six years. The barriers “seemed hazardous because emergency services might not be able to reach us.”

Paul Giles, president of the French Park Neighborhood Assn., said he regretted that he and his neighbors, who live blocks from a large Latino shopping district, had been labeled bigots because they tried to divert traffic from their neighborhood.

After the lawsuit, residents of French Court and French Park have met numerous times with the Orange County Human Relations Commission, trying to understand each other’s views, he said.

With the court decision, Giles wonders whether the traffic will return.

“We are opening the floodgates up again,” Giles said. “Cut-through commuter traffic is a huge concern for French Park, and French Court as well.”