1 Hurdle Left for Bridge Over Stream Where Boy Died

MOORPARK — Six months after a Moorpark boy drowned in the rain-swollen Arroyo Simi, city officials have assembled nearly all the permits and plans they need to build a pedestrian bridge over the stream.

Designs for the 20-foot-wide bridge, to be located near Liberty Bell Road, are complete. The development corporation that built many of the nearby homes and owns some of the needed property has already signed off on the project.

And now the Ventura County Flood Control District has granted the city an easement across the arroyo. Moorpark City Council members accepted the easement during their meeting Wednesday night.

All that remains is for the city to purchase from Southern California Edison an easement over a small strip of land the utility company owns on the arroyo’s southern bank.

“Everything else is ready to go,” Councilman John Wozniak said before the council meeting. “We’re ready to build this thing.”

Well, almost ready. Negotiations with Edison have stretched on for two years. Although council members have not given up hope of reaching an agreement with Edison, they also have started condemnation proceedings to take possession of the property and have hired an appraiser to determine the land’s value.

“We’re down to that--at this point we don’t have an alternative,” Mayor Paul Lawrason said.

Paula Ames, Edison’s representative in negotiations with the city, said the company is willing to grant the easement and donate an acre of land for the bridge landing. In return, Edison wants an easement through nearby Arroyo Vista Community Park to provide better access to 20 acres of the company’s property, sandwiched between the park and the arroyo.

The company said it hopes to build a driving range and batting cages on its land.

Ames said Edison wants the access either through the park road or across the proposed bridge, which would then be redesigned for automobile traffic. The easement is important, she said, because the county flood control district plans to expand the arroyo, widening its banks, and that project would cut off the company’s current access to its land.

“We are in no way wanting to hold up construction of this bridge,” Ames said. “We do have the right to have access to that property. . . . Our attorneys are ready to fight to get us access.”

Although city officials have pursued plans for building the bridge for years, the project took on new urgency this year after 11-year-old Joel Burchfield drowned in the arroyo near Liberty Bell Road on Jan. 31. Police believe that while on his way home from school, Joel tried to wade through the water, racing after heavy rain, and was swept away by the current.

One week later, Joel’s classmates from Chaparral Middle School presented City Council members with a petition, signed by 1,300 high school and middle school students, asking that the city finally build the bridge.

Wozniak stressed that the bridge, by itself, would not prevent a repeat of the tragedy, because neighborhood children still wade through the arroyo at other points. But it would give those crossing Liberty Bell Road a safe route.

“The bridge just needs to be built,” he said.

After Joel’s death, council members said they hoped the bridge would be ready before the rains returned to Ventura County. But with the long process of securing easements still unfinished, Lawrason said that deadline will not be met.

“We’re not going to be able to complete the bridge before the rainy season, and I feel very badly about that,” he said.