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 Santa Fe Avenue going nowhere

Arterial road stops at former councilmen’s property

By HILLARY BORRUD Staff Writer

    HESPERIA — When the Ranchero Road underpass is completed at the BNSF railroad line, the arterial road it leads to, Santa Fe Avenue, will not be a through road.
    Santa Fe Avenue stops three blocks north of Main Street, where it runs into property at Spruce Street that has been owned for decades by local movers and shakers.
    The road starts up again just north of the property.
    “In Hesperia, you have an underpass to nowhere,” said Paul Bosacki, a planning commissioner.
    “If there’s any through traffic, which there will be when Ranchero opens, Santa Fe is a perfect way to do that without going through neighborhoods,” he said. “It solves so many problems and makes so many issues easier to look at if the city were to use whatever methods — land swaps or negotiations — to complete that road there.”
    The city designated Santa Fe Avenue as an arterial in its original general plan adopted in 1991 but from the beginning, the influential property owners stood to lose some of their land if the city ever required them to dedicate the vacated portion of Santa Fe back to Hesperia.
    Percy Bakker, who served on the City Council from 1988 to 1994, has owned land at the corner of Spruce Street and Santa Fe along with his family since 1969, according to the San Bernardino County Assessor’s property information management system.
    To the north , Theron Honeycutt and Kathleen Honeycutt — respectively councilman from 1991 to 1995 and state Assembly woman from 1993 to 1994 — have owned land at Santa Fe Avenue and Chestnut Avenue in partnership with Rhett and Velta Brown since 1993.
    Theron Honeycutt resigned from office in 1995 and he moved with Kathleen to the Northwest, Tad Honeycutt has said. Contact information could not be found.
    Their son is Tad Honeycutt, a councilman since 2000. Together, Rhett Brown and Theron Honeycutt operated Brown & Honeycutt Truss Systems Inc. from 1976 until 1988, according to the company’s Web site.
    “I don’t really have any opinion on that,” Bakker said when asked whether he or Honeycutt opposed putting Santa Fe through because their property would be affected.
    Now, as the city works on overhauling its general plan for the first time since incorporation, it is also considering changes to the circulation element, which lays out plans for roads.
    “We are looking at all seven elements of the general plan, including circulation,” said Dave Reno, Hesperia’s principal planner. “If an official wants us to examine any element, we’ll look at it.”
    “There are no plans for Santa Fe now,” said Kelly Malloy, city spokeswoman. “If we were going to pursue Santa Fe, we would need the council’s consent.”
Santa Fe always a question
    The break in Santa Fe Avenue has come up repeatedly since Hesperia’s incorporation in 1988.
    “I talked to Mike Podegracz when I got elected, showed him some of my concerns,” Councilman Ed Pack said of Hesperia’s city manager. “Santa Fe was definitely one because when Ranchero gets in, that’ll be a main road.”
    Poor planning was common before the city incorporated, Pack said. “Back in those days, the county could care less.”
    The issue even came up while one of the property owners, Percy Bakker, was a sitting councilman.
    “Putting the road through (Santa Fe) was discussed when I was on the council,” said Bakker. “Santa Fe is steadily getting busier and of course, it wasn’t 15 years ago.”
    One current council - man who does not support making Santa Fe Avenue East a through street is Tad Honeycutt.
    “Even if the (owners) didn’t want to sell it, the city would have to pay fair market value,” he said.
    “What’s the point of putting a road in there? It might make more sense to curve off and use the existing at-grade crossing at C Avenue,” Honeycutt added.
    One sign that Hesperia intended on making Santa Fe Avenue a major road sits several blocks north of the vacated portion, where Tim Timmerman’s company — Timco Trusses — is on the only lot with sidewalks, gutters and paved road.
    Santa Fe Avenue is a dirt road before Timmer man’s company and becomes dirt again for several blocks north of his business.
    But in 1989, Bakker’s City Council required Timmerman to pave the road, build sidewalks and dedicate right of way on Santa Fe Avenue in exchange for approval of his building plans.
Rail spur stopped the road
    Santa Fe Avenue did not always stop at Spruce Street.
    The county Board of Supervisors vacated two blocks of Santa Fe Avenue from Spruce Street to Chestnut Avenue in 1946, according to minutes from the meeting. It was around that time that the Tatum family that owned the property built a railroad spur off the main line with their own money.
    T h e Tat u m f a m i ly n ow builds homes, but in the 1940s they were farmers, said Jim Tatum, president of the homebuilding company American Housing Group.
    “We built packing sheds in 1945 and 1946,” he said. “Dad was probably farming 14,000 acres of potatoes, onions, sugar beets.”
    Bakker said that the county “gave the roads back” because it did not want to maintain them.
    Bakker confirmed that Clyde Tatum, Jim Tatum’s father, built the spur next to a potato packing shed he owned.
    As for ownership of the spur, “that’s something that’s been contested,” Bakker said.
    “The ground under the spur is owned by at least four property owners,” he said. “BNSF has an easement that says they can run cars on the spur, but don’t own land under it.”
    The Daily Press requested records of any construction of the small rail spur that branches off into Honeycutt, Brown and Bakker’s property from Hesperia and San Bernardino County, but neither was able to produce any such documents.
    Records were transferred from the county to the city after incorporation 1988.
    As Hesperia’s population grows and its roads grow more congested, the impact of past planning decisions will increasingly be seen.
    “Like everything else, the city operates when there is a crisis,” Bakker said.
    When the City Council adopted the general plan in 1991, resident Stanley Nadolski called for Santa Fe Avenue to be made into a major road, according to minutes from the meeting.
    “You ask the people of Hesperia to g rant dedications; what are you willing to do for Hesperia,” Nadolski said. “When are you going to dedicate the area from Spruce to Live Oak so we can have a thoroughfare from Bear Valley on Santa Fe all the way into Summit Valley Road.”

 

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