City Council agrees to enforce 30 mph speed limits along stretch
of private community
Gilroy – Residents of the Eagle Ridge development learned this week that speed limits must increase in their gated community before police can crack down on speeding. A few residents are grumbling about that prospect, but some councilmen think the private community is getting more than it deserves in the form of taxpayer-funded policing.
On Monday, council agreed to begin enforcing 30 mile per hour speed limits and other traffic laws along a quarter mile of road between the Eagle Ridge golf clubhouse – a public facility – and the community gatehouse off Santa Teresa Boulevard.
Drivers routinely ignore the 25 mile per hour speed limits already posted on the side of the narrow, winding road, according to residents. But if a ticket is to stand up in court, speed limits must increase to 30 mph, according to City Transportation Engineer Don Dey. He explained to councilmen and residents Monday night that court-mandated traffic studies indicate the higher speed limit is more appropriate for Club Drive.
“In the past, some cities have put up speed limit signs that aren’t appropriate and created speed traps for one reason or other,” Dey said in an interview after the meeting.
Not all residents liked that reasoning.
“You guys want to increase the speed limit and make me vulnerable,” said Mark Jury, who recently moved his son and mother into the community. “I’m asking you guys to not raise the speed limit.”
Mike Walker, an Eagle Ridge resident and a Watsonville police officer, saw things differently.
“Thirty miles per hour enforced is far safer than 25 miles when nobody’s watching,” he said.
In a narrow 4-3 vote, Mayor Al Pinheiro and councilmen Peter Arellano, Paul Correa and Roland Velasco sided with Walker’s logic.
Best of both worlds?
Not everybody is happy with the decision to patrol Eagle Ridge.
Councilmen Dion Bracco, Craig Gartman and Russ Valiquette cast dissenting votes because they think the city should not foot the bill for traffic enforcement in a private community.
Typically, cities only provide emergency services to private communities, but the law allows enforcement of traffic laws when officials deem a road generally open to the public for commercial use. In this case, public access to Eagle Ridge golf course qualified a portion of Club Drive for policing.
The Eagle Ridge Homeowners Association has pleaded with the city for several years for a police presence. The community’s traffic woes emerged largely because of an arrangement between developer Shapell Industries and city leaders, who agreed to exempt the community from certain zoning requirements during the late ’90s. The money-saving deal allowed Shapell to install narrow roads that do not meet local zoning codes and freed the city from traffic-enforcement duties.
“Eagle Ridge was created with a lot of exceptions to the rule because it was going to be a private, gated community,” Gartman said. “They want the benefits of privacy but they don’t want to take on the additional costs of taking care of their own traffic issues.”
The community could police itself by issuing traffic citations and placing liens on the homes of violators who live there. But David Light, the former Eagle Ridge HOA president and the driving force behind police enforcement, balked at that prospect.
“You have to set up a substantial administration to do that,” he told council members.
Light had hoped for police enforcement throughout Eagle Ridge, but accepted the council decision as a positive step forward.
“Even if they end up patrolling only that quarter mile of the road, it will hopefully create an awareness that will permeate the whole community,” he said.
The HOA must purchase new signs and other traffic calming equipment before May 4, when police are scheduled to begin enforcement.
The roughly 2,000 residents of Eagle Ridge may be in for a rude awakening at that time.
“The whole vehicle code comes into play,” Dey said. “This is not just a matter of ‘Gee, somebody’s in there speeding.'”
In addition, residents will be cited for running stop signs, driving without a license or registration, and bicycling without a helmet, to name a few infractions.
Bracco predicted residents would flood the city with complaints about ticketing.
“I think we’re opening a can of worms here,” he said.
Police Sergeant Kurt Svardal said the department would enforce the council’s wishes, but said the new responsibility would further strain the department’s resources.
“That is going to be an issue because we’re getting traffic complaints from all over the place,” he said. “As the city grows and our forces get stretched thin, it becomes difficult to continue pro-active enforcement.”
