OC Reg: Mimi Walters - a wave of misinformation,
Guest Column, Sunday, Sept. 14, 08
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a citizen response:
Used to be, mustachioed men in stripped suits
and tall hats sold Snake Oil. Now women can too.
Mimi Walters is credited with describing San Onfore
State Beach Park (our state's 5th most popular) - our
Yosemite of Surfing, as "nothing but dirt and weeds."
Mimi's open space ignorance is bliss - and convenient,
with her goal to pave a toll road thru San Onofre (if open
today, its toll fare would be $15 one-way). Even OCTA
knows no one's going to drive it. Same as no one's
driving TCA's 'busted' 73 now - or the suddenly
tanking 241.
Where did TCA's toll payers all go?
They're at the gas pump paying $4 a gallon.
A scary enough toll.
Here's what Mimi calls dirt & weeds: The Donna O'Neill
Land Conservancy, the San Mateo Watershed, San Mateo
Creek / the Panhe village site - the Acjachemen People's
sacred ground, dating back 10,000 years.
All totaled, they make up the last, intact, naturally perfect
coastal watershed (open space treasure) along southern
California's coastline - Tijuana to Ventura.
Lose that to a an unaffordable toll road and we lose SoCal's
last consistently healthy coastal waters / San Onofre.
Some leadership.
Mimi admits to loathing "Labor," then flies the Union label
when it suits her toll road pitch.
Truth to Power: With SoCal's sagging highway infrastructure
requiring a decade's worth of make-over, there's no shortage
of highway-work / construction jobs on OC freeways and
arterials going forward.
Ironically the state park Mimi would plow asunder is not even
in her Assembly District - or her County. Maybe it's Mimi's road
map that's clogged with dirt & weeds?, because blindly paving
away priceless State Park land and watershed for a toll road
no one would drive, rather than solving OC's real world
transportation issues: how to get OC commuters to work
'affordably' today, tomorrow, and when gas hits $9-bucks
a gallon, smacks of 100-Proof Mimi pitching TCA snake-oil.
Don't drink it OC.
It's bad medicine.
