Oak View Neighborhood

Since the city's first police substation opened in the crime-ridden Oak View neighborhood a year ago, it has drawn praise, criticism and 13 rounds of gunfire. But what it mostly attracts are people in need, such as the Latino woman who walked in last week with two children at her side and a quizzical look on her face. In one hand was a subpoena in English that she did not understand.

Since the city's first police substation opened in the crime-ridden Oak View neighborhood a year ago, it has drawn praise, criticism and 13 rounds of gunfire. But what it mostly attracts are people in need, such as the Latino woman who walked in last week with two children at her side and a quizzical look on her face. In one hand was a subpoena in English that she did not understand.

The troubled area's front door is the busy commercial intersection of Beach Boulevard and Warner Avenue. But the high-rise officer tower, swank movie house and glittering health club belie the problems that lurk just around the corner. Because behind this gleaming commercial strip is Oak View--a densely packed, graffiti-scarred residential area that has become Huntington Beach's biggest social problem. Police statistics tell a grim story about Oak View.

The troubled area's front door is the busy commercial intersection of Beach Boulevard and Warner Avenue. But the high-rise officer tower, swank movie house and glittering health club belie the problems that lurk just around the corner. Because behind this gleaming commercial strip is Oak View--a densely packed, graffiti-scarred residential area that has become Huntington Beach's biggest social problem. Police statistics tell a grim story about Oak View.

A project involving extensive street reconstruction and storm drain improvements has commenced in the Oak View neighborhood west of Beach Boulevard. City Engineer Bob Eichblatt said that the neighborhood near Slater and Warner avenues is old and that work "has been sorely needed for about six years." The project is about 15% complete and should be finished next spring, he said. The city awarded a $724,000 contract to Clayton Engineering Inc. of Newport Beach to do the work.

After years of fighting gangs, drugs, and graffiti, residents of the Oak View neighborhood this weekend plan to celebrate their efforts at cleaning up the area. At Saturday's fifth annual Oak View Community Pride Day, residents and city officials will clean up trash and paint over graffiti. Afterward, there will be awards, food and music, said organizer Peggy Flanagan. "Things are really looking better," said Flanagan, a code enforcement officer.

The shelves are filling up with 3,000 English- and Spanish-language books as workers prepare for the opening of Oak View Library, the city's first new branch library in 30 years. Salomon Flores, a senior at Ocean View High School who lives in the Oak View neighborhood and has been shelving the books, is among those eagerly awaiting the library opening. "This is great to have this in our neighborhood," he said. "I think it's a good thing. It will help to keep children off the streets.

A new police substation serving the Oak View neighborhood has won final approval from the City Council. Team Construction Management of Huntington Beach will make improvements to a storefront in the Vista Center at 17411 Beach Blvd. for the station. The cost, projected at $30,000, will be covered by a federal Community Development Block Grant. The council approved a lease agreement in November with the owner of the shopping center for $1 a year.

They arrived in cars and lined up into the wee hours of Saturday morning to buy cocaine in an alley in the Oak View neighborhood, where blatantly open drug sales have frustrated residents for months. But by the end of the night, undercover police officers posing as drug dealers had arrested 20 men and women who bought plastic bags filled with a white substance they thought was cocaine.

The City Council has taken steps to open a branch library in the Oak View neighborhood, which officials describe as a blighted, high-crime area. The council last week approved a $12,000 contract with Von Roon Architects of Laguna Beach to prepare site plans. A $98,000 federal grant, which the city has already received, will pay for the architect, a 1,200-square-foot modular building and parking and landscaping.

The City Council this week stiffened regulations for street vendors, mainly targeting merchants in the Oak View neighborhood. The approved ordinance, the result of an accord between police officials and Oak View street vendors, limits merchants to selling between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. It also restricts vendors from parking their trucks, carts or wagons at one spot for more than 30 minutes at a time. After the 30 minutes are up, a vendor must move to a location at least 500 feet away.

The city and a nonprofit organization have joined together to buy and rehabilitate 10 apartments in the Oak View neighborhood. The City Council this week approved allocating $518,000 in federal money for the affordable housing project in the predominantly low-income neighborhood. The city will lend the money to Orange County Community Housing Corp. in Santa Ana, which will use it to buy the property at 17361 and 17371 Koledo Lane, off Slater Avenue.