Whose open space is it?
Carlsbad residents are fairly covetous of their open space — what there is left.
The city fathers, who brought you their definition of Open Space to include school yards and road parkways, is also the same council, peddling the 85/15 project, which still has a chance to proceed without the safeguards of CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Assessment).
Even the sage California columnist, Tom Elias, has said that the California Legislature (with the citizens initiative) introduced a short circuit path for developers, to circumvent public scrutiny and oversight. Now, it’s being used more and more.
CEQA was a landmark invention of the 1970s, and is sometimes used to slow projects, good or bad, but overall it is better for projects of “our” California, to meet the requirements of CEQA, than to “Carte Blanche” projects with the “so called” Citizens Initiative.
I know how municipal government works, because I was an engineer for one.
When there is a consensus to do something, whether it is for actual good or for some private party’s gain, the wagons of those who have been “compensated,” circle around the project, and will say almost anything to protect the project.
Is this the best that Carlsbad can do?
I’m very skeptical. Not all city councils do what’s best for its citizens. (Bell Gardens?)
Remember when you cast your vote Feb. 23, that there has been a lot of money laid out to the promote Measure A!
If the traffic congestion projections by city staff are wrong (which I think will happen), it will be much like Michigan’s governor, pleading “oops” to his constituency.
G. Lance Johannsen,
Carlsbad
