When I saw that the
Consulting Engineers & Land Surveyors PAC added another $10K last week to the $367,300 that they’ve already given to Arnold’s campaign committees, it made me think a bit more about the recent developments concerning the San Onofre Toll Road proposal by the Schwarzenegger administration.
As you may have heard, California’s state parks lost two well-known advocates in our state government last week when Governor Schwarzenegger decided not to reappoint Clint Eastwood and his brother-in-law Bobby Shriver to the State Park and Recreation Commission. Reports in the press say the main reason for their dismissal was that they spoke out against a plan, currently supported by the gov after opposing it a few years ago, to put a six-lane toll road through San Onofre State Park.
The Toll Road proposal was recently dealt a major setback when it was rejected by the California Coastal Commission, after hearing testimony of thousands of concerned Californians. Sounding like he was not to be deterred, the gov said in a recent interview, this road "… has to go through somewhere. We can’t stop progress."
Pushing plans to build roads and development projects in state parks and threatening to close nearly 50 of our parks in your budget proposal is not most peoples’ idea of progress, Arnold.
If our state parks aren’t safe from infrastructure development, then they are parks in name only. The gov should listen to the demands of Californians instead of his corporate donors, and drop the plans for his doomed toll road.
