Poll: Should we finish the Santiago Creek bike trail in Fisher Park?

The disaster that is Fisher Park’s stretch of Santiago Creek

UPDATE: Now YOU can vote to support the completion of the portion of the Santiago Creek bike trail that runs through Santa Ana’s Fisher Park neighborhood.  Click here to vote!

Did the Fisher Park NIMBYs who are blocking the completion of the Santiago Creek bike trail ruin their own neighborhood?  It is a fair question to ask.

If you visit the Santiago Creek bike train in Santiago Park – or over at the Santiago Park Nature Reserve, you won’t see the horrible graffiti that is sprayed all over the place in the Fisher Park Neighborhood.  Sure, you will find isolated tagging, but nothing like the disaster at Fisher Park.

And now, according to my sources, the Fisher Park NIMBYs, led by Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Mark McLaughlin and Chapman University Professor Paul Apodaca, want to fence off their part of the creek altogether – as if that will be some sort of panacea!  It will only make things worse.

Don’t take my word for it – compare the picture above this paragraph to the one atop this post, and then check out the slideshow at this link.  That is the mess at the Fisher Park portion of Santiago Creek – a self-inflected nightmare.  The cops cannot patrol the area.  Bike riders cannot ride through there.  All you have is gang bangers and other criminals – and they would not be there if the trail was completed as it is in Santiago Park – and in Hart Park, over in Orange.

Here is what you will see at the Santiago Park portion of the Santiago Creek bike trails (the one on the north is paved while the one on the south side of the creek is just dirt.

Fisher Park

Santiago Park

 The Santiago Creek Greenway Alliance has been working for many years to create a greenway along the Santiago Creek.  They have a plan that you can read by clicking here.  The plan is almost done – except for the small portion of Santiago Creek at Fisher Park, where the NIMBYs seem incapable of doing the right thing.

Art Pedroza Editor
Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.
Art Pedroza

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

View Comments

  • "How many times was Czechoslovakia/Bohemia overrun throughout history?"..... Hmmmm

    Many times Art and FYI Fiala is Italian name and I may be a Jew too since it was family's unfounded claim.

    However, until you have started calling me Stanislav I was simply claiming myself an American.

    And that is what I am proud and opinionated American.

    The Bohemian, Stanislav, Czech, White Eropean, are simply pseudonyms used in my sarcasm.

    In your case however, you are passionately everything else but American who wouldn't protect its constitution and laws.

    You hate America because it occupies your Aztlan.

    • There is much to appreciate about this country but it did kill a lot of Native Americans and the last war we could be proud to have been involved in was WWII.

  • Agree but we were not there so we have not right to judge these who were!

    Until a time travel will be possible we can only learn from the history we can't relive it or undo it so why dramatize it?

    Look how miserable life Jews have by dramatizing holocaust where other nations do not dramatizing theirs.

    You do not hear Slavs mentioning 10,000,000 of their people being killed in the Hitlers concentration camps. You probably do not even know that it happen. And on the top of it 20,000,000 Russians killed by communist and Stalin. And 60,000,000 chines by Mao.

    You do not hear that you are anti-Slav, anti-Russian, anti-Indian, anti-Chines only anti-Semitic.

    So think about that.

  • I commute this trail daily. Please make it a path so that I do not have to risk my life riding in the street daily. This path would help many commuters stay alive and off the busy streets.

    • Exactly what we are arguing for! The Santa Ana City Council should do what is right for our community - and reject the Fisher Park NIMBYs!

    • Cook,

      The trail ENDS after the MainPlace Mall, just past the 5 underpass. The video shows a southbound trip on the trail - and does not include the Fisher Park stretch.

      I have been on this trail many times. Why don't you believe me or at least believe the pictures I have posted?

  • Other than this site and the Voice Of OC(ea), nobody is really talking abount this.

    After I returned home from my trip(s)and talked to some neighbors, nobody is really even aware of what the plan is.

    If the proponents had a BRAIN, [perhaps they would continually canvas the neighborhood. JFP is treasured by the young families and the BD PARTY at the cabin is a ritual in the surronding neighborhoods. (The Lawn Bowling center is WAY more cool for 15+ parties).

    At Jack Fisher park exists a sliver of culture, where even the HARDENED GANG CULTURE, would vacate and appreciate families. A place, where for just a moment the bullshit of politics were left aside and the kids played. It was the place where the SA SWAT team, with it's helicopter bared down on journalist Nick Gerda's classmates, re-inacting a WWII scene.

    In other words, someone in the neighborhood should broker a deal. Save the cabin, build the trail, respect the OWNERS and move on.

    • The drivers against the trail are Apodaca and McLaughlin. There are a lot of folks in support of this.

      I don't think the city should only take into account what the immediate residents want. This trail affects our entire community.

      We have BD cabin at Santiago Park too.

      When I have visited Fisher Park recently I have observed seedy characters along the way and at the park.

      I do agree that all sides should sit together and get this done. It is time to clean up the mess at the creek at Fisher Park.

  • I do believe you.

    the U-tube link shows that a bike trail IS NOT a problem as those who are against the extension from The 5 freeway to Flower think.

    http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt0g50094h/

    Here is a link to pictures of Santiago Creek in 1969, it is easy to see that the property owners property was washed away. Some of the pictures show the creek up to the house foundations.

    I bet a search of the archives in the old court house or library history room will find the easement for flood control for the entire creek.

    Also the reason for additional work need to expand the volume of Santiago creek From the 5 freeway to the Santa Ana river, can easily be seen in the picture at Hart Park, with the water flow at the very top of the parking area at Tustin Ave. That water volume is more than 3 times the current channel volume capacity between the 5 and the river.

    The FEMA map shows that all the properties from the SA freeway to the Santa Ana river on both sides of Santiago creek will be wiped out in a flood like the one in 1969 or 1938.

    http://www.ocflood.com/LocalFloodHazard.aspx

    Orange County Flood Local Flood Hazard

    In the central portion of the County areas adjacent to Santiago Creek and Collins Channel may be inundated.

    I think a bike trail on top of an improved flood control channel is a small price to pay for those property owners to protect their homes. But if not, after the next big flood those home will not exist anymore and a much larger park can be place there.

  • "And Solorio just got a hold of fifty million in flood control funding".... Hmmmmm

    It is already spent on union pensions and other leftist crapola.

  • cook,
    Land ownership discrimination based on race, religion etc. is illegal, those old CC&R's are irrelevant.
    The property lines are not, if their deeds say they own that land and their property taxes reflect that, then they OWN the land.

  • I remember when the Army Corp of Engineers were showing their plan for the creek bed, it never happened because of funding, but Jeff Dickman claims it will happen in the next 5 years or so.
    The plan that the Army Corp had, would OBLITERATE this proposed bike trail, but would include one of its own. Why spend the money now, when this will happen eventually (and will be done much better) anyway?

  • "Land ownership discrimination based on race, religion etc. is illegal, those old CC&R’s are irrelevant"......
    Hmmmmm

    Illegal?..... you are hater Onanster!

    Nothing is illegal in Santa Ana!.... ask Art he is expert on illegality in Santa Ana.

    It is not even in his vocabulary.

    So yes we should remove these 1/2 humans from the property because they are not only NIMBYs but MONKEYs too.

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