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.
I assume that the bike trail will be wide enough for a park ranger to swing by at least once per day and it is usually closed at night.
This is all BS published by a very small group of individuals who want the trail for selfish reasons. There is no comparison to the Hart Park trail and the one they want behind my house. The distance where they want to put a trail is extremely narrow and will back up to my fence and would require them to clear cut all life unlike at Santiago. The tagging is done mostly by harmless children not violent gang members, and there is not that much. There is no violent crime down there, what is there is one of the last protected natural environments in Santa Ana. There are old growth trees and a variety of birds and wildlife. It is also labeled a bird sanctuary by the City of Santa Ana. Us “NIMBY’s” are trying to protect that life that cannot protect itself. How much concrete and asphalt do you people need?
Before the city does any fencing, they are going to need to get the easement maps and do a property line survey to make those property owners pull back their encroachments.
It is hard to tell from a overhead goggle maps, but it sure looks like a few property owners on the north side of the creek bed have improvements beyond their lot lines.
Lots of comments and did not read them all, so apologies if this has already been covered, but why doesn’t the city simply paint over the graffiti and clean it up w/o the bike trail? Is one (a nice and clean area) dependent on the other (a bike trail)? Seems like they could carry a bucket with rollers and some garbage bags if they wanted a clean area…
Good question.
Why doesn’t those property owners take care of their property?
Regardless, the city has the power to win this. This trail has been used by the public for a vast amount of time. The property owners have allowed this for many years. Therefor “public easement” laws come into place.
Thanks in advance for completing the bikepath!
If it is private property, then they can paint it whatever color they want or leave whatever paint that others have painted it. They can have trash if they want too. We all have neighbors that have poor design taste. Maybe there is a city or neighborhood ordinance against poor design on private property, but probably not in that area. If it is private property, should the public have the right to pave it over? Personally, I don’t think so. If it is private, I guess that the private property owner could possibly put a toll passing on it though…
If it is public, then the city should take care of it, but a bike trail should not prohibit the city from cleaning it up.
Sounds like there is a question as to whether that property is public property or private. Just my gut tells me that it is probably both…where that property line lies may be the bigger question.
I overheard that the report on the circulation plan will be ready in 6 months and the bike trails are part of the reports.
I also had a change to look though the ACE plan for the creek from the SA freeway to the SA River for about 2 hours, it is a huge report and I think I will go back for a couple days to study in detail.
A couple items I looked for specifically was the bike trail itself.
It is in the ACE plan.
Another item was about the green life, the trees and shrubs already in place.
all must go.
Will private property be taken?
Most likely unless the entire length is converted into a concrete culvert.
And I think someone else has been looking at this report because it had fresh highlighting on the text.