Open Road Ruling : Long Beach Loses Bid to Shut Gate on Hawaiian Gardens Border

For some residents of Hawaiian Gardens, a gate that would seal off a street between an affluent Long Beach neighborhood and the mostly blue-collar, Latino city, is an example of racism.

For some residents of Long Beach, sealing off Pioneer Boulevard at the boundaries of the two cities has nothing to do with race, but is necessary to control traffic on the busy street.

After a months-long battle that has attracted national attention, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Friday ruled against allowing Long Beach to seal off the street. “It would have been a Berlin Wall,” said Tamar Stein, an attorney representing Hawaiian Gardens.

The gate was installed by Long Beach--but has never been used--after residents of the upscale El Dorado Park Estates neighborhood complained about traffic coming off the San Gabriel River Freeway.

“For four hours a day, those people have literally got (a) freeway coming through their streets,” said Les Robbins, the Long Beach council member whose district includes El Dorado Park Estates. Hawaiian Gardens officials “made a racial issue out of it, and unfortunately I think Judge (Diane) Wayne bought into it,” Robbins said. “This is not a racial issue. It’s a traffic issue.”

Wayne ruled that Long Beach did not have the right to close a street that would affect Hawaiian Gardens. “The closure . . . promotes the health and safety of some of (Long Beach’s) own citizens by interfering with the rights of others,” she wrote.

In November, after El Dorado residents complained about excessive traffic cutting through their neighborhood, the Long Beach City Council voted to seal off the road. Some residents also complained about crime they said originated in Hawaiian Gardens.

The proposal was to block Pioneer Boulevard, which narrows and twists as it passes through the Long Beach neighborhood, for one year to test the effects.

But Hawaiian Gardens council member Kathleen Navejas blasted the closing as racist. Combatants from both sides appeared on the Phil Donahue show, and an El Dorado resident joined with Navejas and Hawaiian Gardens to file a suit to stop the closure.

Wayne suggested that Long Beach explore alternatives to deal with traffic, such as speed humps. Long Beach officials say other methods are being examined and that no decision has been made on whether the decision will be appealed.

Long Beach traffic studies say that few who use Pioneer are from Hawaiian Gardens, and that traffic would not be rerouted on other Hawaiian Gardens streets.

*

But Hawaiian Gardens produced studies that officials say showed that blocking Pioneer would increase traffic on its roads, particularly near an elementary school.

“Their traffic engineer disagrees with our traffic engineer, which is why we are in court,” Deputy Long Beach City Atty. Heather Mahood said.

For El Dorado resident Francis Workman the question is not academic. He worries about his four grandchildren, who play outside his house on the street where he said he has seen two parked cars get totaled and a motorcycle skid out of control onto his curb.

“It’s the fear of my life, that street,” said Workman, adding that residents of all races in El Dorado share his concern.

Cesar Galvesolo, who lives in the El Dorado Estates house closest to Hawaiian Gardens, said: “They say it’s racist, but it’s not. We’re worried about burglaries and robberies. Sometimes drug dealers use it as a cut-through.”

But Brandy Mancilla has a different view. She can see the gate just outside her Hawaiian Gardens home and it reminds her of racism. “If they want to be secluded from Mexicans, they should go somewhere else,” Mancilla said.

“We respect that they don’t want to devalue their property, but they should respect us too,” Mancilla said. “They’re disrespecting me because of who I am.”