Pomerado Plan Stirs Controversy in Poway

A San Diego plan to close Pomerado Road to through traffic is causing some hard feelings in Poway.

Pomerado Road, which branches off to the northeast from Interstate 15, serving Scripps Ranch and United States International University, continues into Poway and is the shortest and least congested route into San Diego for thousands of Poway residents.

But when San Diego completes annexation of a portion of unincorporated land that separates the cities, officials plan to close Pomerado Road to through traffic, leaving Poway commuters with only one path to the I-15: Poway Road.

Ellen Capozzoli, executive assistant to San Diego Councilman Ed Struiksma, said the closure is necessary to prevent traffic from a fast-developing south Poway industrial park from using the convenient Pomerado route through quiet San Diego suburbs to reach I-15. She said Struiksma is adamant that the road be closed to through traffic just east of Semillon Boulevard in Scripps Ranch and remain barricaded to all but emergency vehicles at least until a new and more direct major east-west route is completed from the Poway industrial area to I-15 at Mercy Road.

That route--known to San Diegans as Scripps North Parkway and to Poway residents as South Poway Parkway--is a joint venture of the two cities.

Capozzoli said Struiksma defends his position on the Pomerado Road closure as a means to “put the impetus on Poway to build its part of the new highway.” Without the closure, “Poway will have no incentive to build the road.”

After the four-lane divided highway is completed and opened for traffic, a referendum would be held by Scripps Miramar residents to determine whether they favor widening Pomerado Road to four lanes. The road would not be widened to accommodate Poway traffic through Scripps Ranch unless the residents of the San Diego suburb approved.

In Poway, officials are less than happy with Struiksma’s stand. The “city in the country” is surrounded by San Diego’s fastest growing suburbs on three sides and is faced with increasing traffic congestion on its one remaining route to I-15, Poway Road.

Poway Councilman Carl Kruse admits that the Pomerado closure “is something that we don’t look forward to, but we must live with for a while.”

Poway Councilwoman Linda Brannon said: “If they don’t think we are going to do our part, they don’t know what they are talking about. We’ve got the money in the bank” to build Poway’s share of the new east-west highway between Pomerado and I-15.

Brannon believes that Scripps Miramar inhabitants will be impacted more by the road closure than will Poway residents because “a lot of them (Scripps residents) use the road to come to work in Poway, or to shop or go to the dentist’s office. So the problem works both ways.”

Brannon said San Diego is correct in closing Pomerado for improvements, which would take about a year, but said extending the closure until the South Poway Parkway is open to traffic “just is not justified.”

Poway City Manager Jim Bowersox seconds Brannon’s statements and goes a step further. Poway already has appropriated $6.9 million to build its share of the new highway and is proceeding with land appraisals and right-of-way acquisition on the 6,000-foot stretch of the 3-mile highway it is committed to build, he said.

San Diego, however, has not begun work on the remainder of the new road, Bowersox said, “and we hesitate to go ahead and build a road that goes nowhere.”

Poway may gain some support from another San Diego council member when the road closure comes up for public debate in early October. Linda Bernhardt, aide to Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, said the councilwoman “is very concerned” about the impact of the Pomerado Road closure on her district west of I-15.