The Impact of Health and Safety Issues on Oak Park Living

By "Tony" Fote

Because we are a "bedroom" community bordered on all sides by seperate municipalities not necessarily sharing our County's interests, traffic and other health and safety issues call for creative and alternative solutions to the status quo.

Oak Park is a great place to live...but a tough place to traverse in a vehicle. A relatively small place with few alternate routes to schools, shops or access to the local freeways, if you try to get around in Oak Park...traffic can be a real problem. And environmental safety issues from surrounding areas can have a profound impact on our own relatively small geographic area.

At the September MAC meeting a resident brought up the issue of the cleanup of toxins at the site of construction of the new Yerba Buena elementary school whose border is our County line. Our own Supervisor Linda Parks admitted at the meeting candidly that she was not aware of the problem nor the cleanup. The MAC could have been proactive in finding out what was going on and informing our Supervisor that our County needs to take action on our behalf to assure our safety as the cleanup takes place.

The MAC needs to be sure we have an intimate relationship with all of the key members of the County Transportation Department as well. We need to communicate our specific needs which include:

1) Sensors on traffic lights must be set correctly so that they become elements to smooth traffic flow rather than block and impede it. The current settings are not working with the settings in the rest of the surrounding areas.

2) Special community involvement to help ease the jams that occur at and around our schools at pick up and drop off times. Parents need to have more than just gentle reminders to carpool. Innovations such as programs where only vehicles with odd or even numbered license plates are allowed to pick up and drop off on certain days need to be explored. Special drop off zones a block or so away from campus with parent volunteers to help bring children onto campus as well might work. The point is, this problem is bad enough right now that we need to implement ever more creative solutions.

3) Immediate attention to terrible road conditons like the potholes and large cracks in the road on heavily trafficed routes throughout Oak Park. An awareness of the nature of our traffic (many family vehicles are SUV types that are very heavy and may take more of a toll on the pavement) and how this affects our roads must be taken into consideration before repairs or repaving are done. The amount of money we pay in taxes to the County from our area is great enough that we should not have to be driving around on potholed and cracking roadways. Needless to say this is a danger to all of us especially on streets that front shools and parks.

4) The agencies that patrol our traffic (Ventura and LA County Sherriffs as well as the California Highway Patrol) need to understand the importance of flow for our traffic situation. Patrols should be spending less time hiding to create speed traps and more time rolling their vehicles to assist in the flow of traffic. If the patrol is meant to help make traffic slow and add safety, a patrol car making it's way up and down the road way will slow traffic every time while a speed trap doesn't slow traffic until a punitive measure has to be taken.

5) The need for more and continuous feedback and exchange of ideas from various Home Owner Associations, Parent Teacher Associations and the like, seeking their ideas in alleviating traffic.

As the MAC is an "advisory" Council it would seem the right place to be doing investigations into what compounds could be used to pave our roads (including the new compounds made from recycled materials like tires that are far more long lasting than traditional tar compounds)so that they would last longer under the strain of the heavy loads they support.

The MAC should also be aware of the calendar for repaving and be proactive in taking measures to assure that roads never get to the condition they are now. If this is some sort of budgetary problem, this MUST be brought to the attention of the County Board of Supervisors with great emphasis as to the serious nature of the problem.

A mother swerving to avoid a pothole or enormous hump in the road from a bulging sewer cap while driving an 8 thousand pound SUV full of children in front of a crowded and bustling elementary school is a frightening scenerio. Unfortunately this is played out on a daily basis only blocks from our homes.

Maybe you've heard the stories of kids being followed home from school, or being offered a trip to Disneyland if they go along with a stranger. If you have not, it DOES happen! Our policing is very scant in Oak Park as we are not in the kind of area that experiences a high level of crime.

Because we enjoy a sense of serenity and security, we can not become complacent. We as concerned citizens must take on the duty of everyday policing ourselves within the community in every way possible. Neighborhood watch programs and the like are certainly NOT just beneficial to high crime areas.

I feel it would be more beneficial to our community to have deputies driving patrols throughout our community rather than parking in hidden areas on main arteries to speed trap drivers. A patrol vehicle moving at the speed limit will have a more calming effect and keep traffic flowing far better than the sight of a cruiser hidden carefully to catch a person speeding.

Finally, the recent clearing of land that directly adjacent to Oak Park on our south west border to make way for the building of the Yerba Buena elementary school has turned up dangerous and toxic levels of pesticides and fertilizers. The cleanup of this site is being done without the notification of residents...indeed without notification of our own County's Supervisor Linda Parks.

This on top of the deteriorating conditions with algae overgrowth and gneral lack of water flow in Medea Creek threatening the beauty and living nature of our habitat. We need a MAC that will explore these problems and bring the conditions to the awareness of any and all agencies...County, State or Federal...that could help to fix what is wrong.

We need the MAC to have ongoing and regular communication of information on every level...up to the federal government if necessary...in order to assure the safety of our residents.

While the impact on the roads will be temporary, ANY slowing or stoppage of traffic on Lindero, one of only two major arteries through Oak Park, will be dramatic and must be consulted between Counties. This takes communication between entities that may never trade information...and proactive communication efforts on the part of the MAC in order to anticipate problems and look for solutions to whatever might arise.

This, not to mention the more important role of the MAC in figuring when and where the cleanup of the Yerba Buena site will take place, and coordinated efforts to keep Oak Park residents informed so that they will be able to protect themselves from harmful release of dust and toxins into the air in OUR county.

Again, proactivity in communicating with surrounding Counties and gorverning bodies is the key. We do not live in a cocoon in Oak Park...we must interact with the cities and Counties that surround us and voice our concerns and work toward getting what we need from them as well as what we need from our own County. In many cases, our own County may have to be pressed into service for us as defense of our area.

In short, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors should be made aware of our traffic difficulties and environmental safety issues and should assist us by having the Transportation Department as well as others make repairs and recommendations immediately. MAC needs to consult with Las Virgines School District on the Yerba Buena Problems immediately...BEFORE the cleanup is underway and the toxins invade the air. Our MAC should actively consult all three of our local policing agencies in order to help put together a strong community policing effort that is coordinated with watch commanders at not only the Ventura County Sheriff Department, but with the CHP and LA County Sheriff Department as well.

(to be continued)