[ Bribery a Poor Public Planning Policy... ]

Bribery a poor public planning policy

Your reputation is the most precious thing you have. Your credibility, once destroyed, can’t be restored.

What, then, are we to make of the people behind the Ponte Vista project? They put forward a “traffic study” to justify their huge project but keep quiet that it was done while Western Avenue was all but shut down by a sink hole. They turn out “supporters” for a public hearing on the project, but keep quiet that they got these folks, some of the area’s poorer families, to come to the meeting and wear “Support Ponte Vista” buttons by giving them a free hotel dinner.

I know because I spoke to a group of them who told me they just came for the free food. “What’s the harm?” said one. “This project is already approved.” The harm is to the credibility of the people behind the project.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice …

— PETER M. WARREN

San Pedro

Sadly, port profits come before health

Thank you for “Area ports face costly challenges” on Monday, one of the better things published on the dangerous growth of port- related toxic pollution. Your comment, “Also, any gains in sulfur reduction will be quickly offset by growing volumes of trucks, trains, cargo-handling equipment and harbor craft in years to come,” is critically important. It is equally true of all of the to-date token pollution-control efforts undertaken by the ports, particularly in view of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to address the issue of ocean-going vessels.

One comment that deserves response is: “Burlington Northern Santa Fe has proposed a massive railyard near western Long Beach that would take hundreds of thousands of big-rig-trucks off local freeways … “

This is a misleading and disingenuous propaganda statement by the railroads and their friends. The traffic studies of the ports clearly show that port truck traffic on the local freeways will double or triple in the next 15 to 20 years, even if this and other railyards are built. The purpose of the railyard is to facilitate the doubling and tripling of port through-put, with all of the increased impacts of ships, trucks, trains, cargo handling equipment and harbor craft you have enumerated — not to take trucks off the freeways. This is why they want the public to fork up additional billions of dollars to add truck lanes to the Long Beach (710) Freeway.

Anyone who is concerned about the cost of this cleanup to the ports and the industry should consider the present cost of the thousands of premature deaths and billions of dollars in health- care impacts caused by port-related toxic pollution. These costs are borne by the public.

— NOEL PARK

Rancho Palos Verdes

Monitor development in our backyard

I’m happy Winnie Verner’s recent letter (“Putting Ponte Vista into perspective,” Tuesday), set straight those people who wrongly assumed the Seaport Homes located on Fitness Drive are part of the Ponte Vista project. Those amazed at the largeness of the building should know the project was approved during a public hearing. The L.A. city planning staff recommended the applicant’s request for zone changes and community plan amendments be denied. However, the planning commissioners were faced with overwhelming community support from the nearest neighbors, the Northwest Neighborhood Council as well as Councilwoman Janice Hahn.

That said, I think Seaport Homes is a good indication that strong community support can trump good planning decisions. As it stands now, the oversized residential building could serve as a poster- child for poor traffic planning and density gone wild. Thank goodness the “fight” for what’s right at Ponte Vista is not over.

— APRIL L. SANDELL

Rancho Palos Verdes

Mobile park fight a Dickensonian saga

As a tenant, and even from the start of The Knolls Lodge gouging saga, I have always felt that what was happening here was straight from Charles Dickens’ writings. Then when I received the Jan. 28 Daily Breeze (“He’s the ultimate fan, but his tenants may not cheer him on”), and there on the front page was a picture of a likeness of Scrooge himself, for a minute I thought I was in hell. Your Daily Breeze has covered the plight of these other mobile home tenants very well, as you have also done for us a number of times. We at Knolls Lodge and Knolls Manor are braced for follow-on oppression, for we know the nature of owners Kort & Scott Financial Group, which seems to be the same as pictured James E. Goldstein — perpetually preying on those vulnerable to being fleeced and gouged.

Believe me, we will keep you and the good citizens posted on the volleys of oppression shot at us here in Knolls Lodge, and at Manor also, because these should be exposed. At the present and as an organized “Neighborhood Friends,” we are pursuing possible legislative action by appealing to state assemblymen and senators to bring about designation of mobile homes as affordable housing in hopes that our homes can be counted as such and see that they become and remain affordable for seniors and others.

— GLENN D. HENDERSON

Torrance

Driving? How antiquatedly indulgent

I believe that the gas prices spike during the summer months in order to drive down the number of cars on the road, and, as it were, to keep pollution down so that the sellers of petroleum can falsely claim that their product is not that bad. We should all stay home and enjoy the fruits of our labor. Our homes and our back yards and our family and friends can fill the hours and a lot of work around the house can get done if we stay home for just one summer. We must have a better way to travel. Burning fossil fuels is so 19th century.

“In times of great oppression and suffering, and with breach of law, not everyone is guilty; but everyone is responsible.” — Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

— CINDY BAY

Torrance

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