4 Responses to “Let’s fix Los Al!”

1. met00 on August 20th, 2008 2:46 pm

   I’m all for dialog and I would love to know how you suggest we “fix traffic” when two of the busiest intersections in OC are Katella and Los Al Blvd and Katella and Valley View (which pushes THREE lanes of right hand traffic down Katella into LOs Alamitos). We can’t touch Katella (since it’s part of the OC superstreet program) and we have a city next to us that won’t do anything to help us alleviate or mitigate the traffic they are responsible for driving through our city.

   In addition, since traffic is driven by development and Cypress (that wonderful “city next to us” mentioned above) is keen on continued development of tax revenue generating business at the race track property on Katella, how do you propose we stop the development (which will bring many more thousand car trips down Katella)?

   I agree, traffic is an issue, as is parking. But just pointing out that we have a problem isn’t enough. What do you plan to do to address the problem?

2. Dave Emerson on August 21st, 2008 6:24 pm

   Met00,

   Thanks for your comments–excellent questions. Over the next few weeks I plan to put up a number of posts with both specific and general ideas about traffic, but here’s a brief overview:

   1. Traffic must be an ongoing priority and a consideration on every decision made, from when the “islands” are mowed to how the remainder of our city is developed and redeveloped.

   2. Part of this could involve a “Traffic Czar,” possibly someone in the police department, who was responsible to review every council or commission decision for impact on traffic. He or she could also be proactive in suggesting ways to reduce traffic congestion.

   3. Lots of small steps could be taken to make traffic flow more smoothly. The left turn arrows on Los Al Blvd. south of Katella (into the Highlands) should default to “yield” rather than red, for example. A right turn arrow on Farquhar at Los Al should be installed to encourage turns when the left turn arrow for southbound Los Al traffic is on. The traffic study of 5 years ago has only had one of three phases implemented–there are dozens of ideas to choose from. I could go on & on, & will in future posts.

   4. Cypress will, indeed, continue developing their vacant land, and we need to do our best to develop a team spirit between us. A joint West Orange Counties traffic task force could work together to optimize County Transit sales tax expenditures.

   I never said it was easy. I just believe that much more can be done, if our elected representatives can work together instead of fighting each other so much.

3. met00 on August 26th, 2008 1:16 am

   1) city development: with zero open space for development we don’t have a development issue, we have a re-development issue, and even there we don’t have a reasonable plan as we can see by the continued development of non-revenue generating business like medical support for Tenat with no consideration as to development of tax generating business. In fact, with the loss of tax generating business at the old 24 hour fitness, it is upsetting that we have a member of our city council suggesting that it be replaced with even more non-revenue generating business (and he is not up for election this time).

   2) Layers of bureaucracy don’t solve problems. What that got us last time was stop signs at the Howard end of every street in carrier row, signs that are ignored by residents and not enforced by police. A total waste of city funds that the community argued against but was put in by yet another sitting city councilperson (and another not up for election this cycle).

   3) Farquar and Los Al are a major issue. Have been for some time. But how do you address them? There are two thoughts here. One set believes that the solution is to block off the alley, make the first two driveways on the south side “in” to the business only and add a “u-turn” lane to Los Al northbound. Another set believes that we should make both the right and left westbound lanes of Farquar left turn allowed so even more traffic will be able to flow through. Which way is right? Control flow and reduce inflow to Farquar at the choke point or increase flow and make it more attractive for cut-through from Katella (and you can tell from the framing which way I feel on the issue).

   4) Why in the world would Cypress *want* to deal with Los Alamitos on equal footing? They don’t have any reason to do so. There is no upside for them. There is no one who can force them to. In fact, there is every reason for them to NOT do so. Cypress holds all the cards. They can choose to tweak Los Alamitos any time and in any way. Look at what they did to the Lexington extension. They gave the Church two three way stops into private drives. Do you see any three way stops into private drives on Walker? On Valley View? Nope, didn’t think so. So why do it on Lexington rather than a single on demand light? The reason is simple. So that it will be less traveled and to keep traffic in Los Alamitos so that it will continue down Bloomfield as Bloomfield has no mandatory stops. So you expect Cypress to play fair? That’s worse than wishful thinking. Cypress holds all the cards and has no reason to want to deal with Los Alamitos, in fact there is nothing more than they would like than for our little city to fail so that they can take us over and add the homes of Los Alamitos to their current number so that their city grows in size and they can qualify for more federal dollars as a bigger city.

   While I think it’s great to have a forum to discuss then issues facing us, I fail to see where there are that many options. As long as Cypress continues to fight to keep the traffic flow to the south of them to the south of them, we will continue to bear the brunt of traffic. There is one option we can look at, and that is to try to work with Garden Grove to move some of the Katella traffic off Katella before it gets to Katella. That would require creating a two lane left turn at Lampson. Now why would Garden Grove want to put more traffic through their city? They wouldn’t. And don’t you think that Seal Beach would fight to make sure there was no additional traffic through their end as well? You bet. So the one viable option that would help little old Los Alamitos would be fought tooth and nail by the two cities that would have to agree to it.

   It has been said by many that Israel is a country besieged by neighbors on all sides that wish it ill. Amazingly enough Los Alamitos is a city besieged on all sides by neighbors that wish it ill. Is there any reason to doubt that the Residents of Rossmore don’t want to be in our sphere of influence? No one in their right mind would want to be in our sphere of influence. Rossmore residents are in their right minds.

   One final note. You feel that our elected representatives don’t work and play together well. As a long time resident of Los Alamitos I’m sure you will agree that Bates/Poe/Jempsa worked together well. Of course they ignored Debolt when he was the minority. The ignored Debolt and Parker when they were the minority and Parker and Freeman who were in the minority. There is a long history of the majority ignoring the minority as these two sides have very different agendas. I’m sure you can remember how Parker was not provided his “turn” at the mayoral post because Bates/Poe/Jempsa decided to ignore the standard cycle and skip over his turn at the wheel. Today Dean and Troy carry the water for that side. In the last two years neither has shown a desire to “work with” the other side. It’s really hard to get people to work together when they have a win at all costs mentality. Unfortunately neither of these two is up for re-election this time, which means that “working together” is more like “giving in”, and since I don’t believe that the Poe/Bates/Jempsa years were good for the city or the residents, I really don’t believe that giving in to the latest incarnation of that side will be of benefit either. Which side of the LART would have churches and which side would have sales tax based business development (ie: Costco) if the Poe/Bates/Jempsa side had negotiated $1sqft + 20% of the tax revenue for anything on the Katella side instead of $1/sgft one time payment? Working together sounds great, but if it’s just giving in to the same people that created the mess we are in today and working our way out of, then we might as well close city hall and turn the keys of the city over to Cypress now.

4. Dave Emerson on September 9th, 2008 12:28 pm

   Met00,

   Thanks so much for your thoughtful, informed comments. You’ve obviously got a lot of background on the issues and raise a number of good points.

   I agree 200% that we don’t want to go back to the days when “working together” simply meant one side taking control of the City Council and the Commissions. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case for the past ten years at least, regardless of which “side” is in the majority.

   I never said working together was always easy. As I’ve said, I’ve made my living for the past 26 years by getting buyers and sellers to work together, and the key is focusing on mutual concerns and finding “win-win” solutions. (Before that I taught and ran a reading program in an inner city Los Angeles junior high.) So I know a lot about working with difficult people and huge bureaucracies.

   I plan a full post on building an effective team, whether at the City Council or regional level. We will never have “perfect” teams at any level, because the teams will always be composed of imperfect people, but that shouldn’t keep us from trying. I am convinced we can do much better in this area, or I wouldn’t have tossed my hat into the proverbial ring.

   Thoughtful and informed comments like yours are a step in the right direction. Hopefully, having this web site available where anyone can instantly yet respectfully express their opinion is another.

   Working together, taking good ideas from all sides, being gracious yet wise, we really can do much to help fix Los Alamitos.

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