By Jorge Casuso

March 19 -- Santa Monica Council member Bobby Shriver said he was “stunned” that his brother-in-law, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, refused to reappoint him to the State Park and Recreation Commission this week.

“A gentleman from his office called me Monday night,” Shriver, who chairs the committee, said Wednesday. “I was surprised. I was stunned.

“I thought we had a great commission that was doing a very good job,” Shriver said. “We were working pretty well, and that commission hasn’t always worked as well.”

Shriver, the brother of California First Lady Maria Shriver, and actor Clint Eastwood were not re-appointed to the commission after their four-year terms expired, a move Schwarzenegger said was not unusual.

But Shriver said his brother in law’s decision was in retribution for he and Eastwood’s opposition to the governor's plan to build a toll road between Orange County and San Diego that would have cut through San Onofre State Beach.

“We’re there to represent the views of the people of California, not the governor’s views,” Shriver said.

Park advocates and other commissioners said they were stunned by the decision, noting that both men had championed the beleaguered state parks system and that the governor’s decision could send a chilling message.

Read the rest here

Not on same page with U-T on parks issue

Regarding "No lock on parks/Eastwood, Shriver let go for good reason" (Editorial, March 31):

I'm sorry but the Union-Tribune got it wrong. The issue is simply encroachment. Laissez-faire economic theory cannot be allowed in this case. If we allow the market to dictate construction of anything these days, we are all going to suffer more greatly as our environment begins to crumble. We need to keep and, in many cases, increase parkland. Miami Beach is a prime example of laissez-faire economics. The article denigrates little old surfers. Wasn't it a little old lady with white tennis shoes that started a worldwide environmental movement in the early 1960s? A little piece of parkland here and a little piece of parkland there, and pretty soon, no parkland, just freeways.

JOHN H. BORJA
San Diego

In supporting Gov. Schwarzenegger's dismissal of Clint Eastwood and Bobby Shriver from the State Parks Commission for, heaven forbid, protecting parks, the Union-Tribune states that the former commissioners did not get their facts straight. However, it is the Union-Tribune that wholly misconstrues the impact of the six-lane Foothill toll road on San Onofre State Beach. Rather than run along its "northern edge," the toll road would run four miles through the center of the park. According to the Parks Department, 60 percent of the park would likely be abandoned, including the popular San Mateo Campground. As executive director of the Endangered Habitats League, I believe there are transportation solutions that save the park, and these should be pursued.

DAN SILVER
Los Angeles

For Immediate Release                
 
Mike Roth (Garamendi) 916-445-8994
Lynda Gledhill (Perata) 916-651-4188            
Jim Evans (Steinberg)   916-651-4006
Tim Shelley (Kehoe)     916-651-4039               
                                                                                                                    
 

 

Office of lieutenant Governor
John Garamendi
 
GARAMENDI, PERATA, STEINBERG, KEHOE CALL ON
BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO RECOGNIZE CALIFORNIA’S
COASTAL PROTECTION RIGHTS

 

California leaders demand that feds let “no” vote on San Onofre Toll Road stand
 
SACRAMENTO, CA – Lt. Governor and State Lands Commission member John Garamendi, Senate President pro Tem Don Perata, Senate Resources Committee Chairman Darrell Steinberg and Senator Christine Kehoe today called on the Bush Administration to recognize California’s right to protect the state’s precious coastline, saying in a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez that the federal government must let stand the California Coastal Commission’s rejection of a proposed toll road through the heart of the park at San Onofre State Beach.
 
In the letter, the four state leaders said that the Administration’s reversal of the Coastal Commission’s decision would amount to an unprecedented attack on California’s right to protect its coastline.  More importantly, they added, a federal overturn of California’s lawful decision would set a dangerous precedent that would undermine the state’s ability to protect its natural resources for future generations.   
 
“After careful deliberation and an open and transparent public review process, the Coastal Commission did precisely the job it was established to do: to fully and properly carry out the intent of both the California Coastal Act and the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act.  A reversal of this decision by the Bush Administration should be seen as no less than an attack on California’s environmental values,” said Lt. Governor John Garamendi
 
“The California Costal Commission rejected the proposal to put a toll road through the state park at San Onofre State Beach,” said Senate President pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland). “The federal government should respect that decision, made with the input of thousands of Californians who have an inherent interest in preserving their coast.”
 
“The California Coastal Commission engaged in a deliberative process and ultimately voted against a toll road in California State Park at San Onofre State Beach,” Senator Steinberg
(D-Sacramento) said. “The Bush Administration should respect the Commission’s vote and leave decisions about California’s beaches and state parks to Californians.”
 
"The California Coastal Commission acted properly when they rejected the proposed toll road because they understood that it would violate our Coastal Act, and fails to conform to our coastal management plan," stated Senator Kehoe (D-San Diego).  "The Bush Administration, which professes to support state rights, should reject the appeal and sustain California's legal right and responsibility to protect our coastal resources."
 
On February 6, 2008, after a 14-hour public hearing attended by more than 3,500 people, the California Coastal Commission voted 8-2 to reject the proposed Foothill-South Toll Road.   The project would site a multi-lane highway through the heart of the California State Park at San Onofre State Beach.   The Commission’s rejection of the proposed toll highway followed a lengthy review and a series of findings which outlined serious concerns over environmental destruction from the project, as well as potential damage to Native American cultural resources and diminished recreation opportunities for California families.
 
The Federal Coastal Zone Management Act requires development projects that require federal approval to first obtain a “consistency certification” from the State Coastal Commission.  The California Coastal Commission refused to issue such a certification, finding instead that the project was inconsistent with the state’s imperative to protect its coastline.  The project proponents appealed the State’s determination to the Secretary of Commerce in February following the Coastal Commission’s rejection of their case. 
 
The California elected leaders urged the Commerce Secretary to reject the appeal outright.  Should the appeal be considered, they said, the Administration must allow the people of Southern California to have their voices heard in the process with an open and accessible public hearing on the matter. The state leaders are also requesting that proponents be prohibited from meeting or negotiating with federal agencies while the appeal is pending.
 
A copy of the letter can be downloaded at: http://www.ltg.ca.gov/images/press/040708%20tca%20toll%20road.pdf

The dismissal of Clint Eastwood and the governor's brother-in-law Bobby Shriver shows Schwarzenegger's uglier side.

March 24, 2008

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has shown a heartening propensity to install independent-minded people on various state commissions. The problem is that he also shows, from time to time, a dismaying propensity to jettison them as soon as they act independently.

The latest case in point: the dismissal of Bobby Shriver and Clint Eastwood from the state parks commission after they rightly objected to a toll road through one of California's most popular parks.

Shriver, the governor's brother-in-law, and Eastwood, the governor's equal when it comes to tough-talking cinematic sound bites, were simply doing their jobs when they forcefully opposed the Foothill South toll road. The road wouldn't just cross San Onofre State Beach; it would bisect the length of the narrow, pristine canyon that constitutes most of the park and further threaten endangered species. The $100 million offered as mitigation doesn't begin to make up for the damage. It wouldn't purchase new parks to make up for the parkland destroyed.

Note to the governor: This is why California has a parks commission, to protect and support its parks, just as the Coastal Commission is supposed to uphold the Coastal Act. Both panels slammed the toll road.

The refusal to reappoint Shriver and Eastwood after their terms expired uncomfortably calls to mind several similar Schwarzenegger missteps, especially the pressure he exerted on R. Judd Hanna to resign from the Fish and Game Commission. Hanna was a hunter, farmer and real estate developer, not a known bird-hugger, but he listened when evidence indicated that lead bullets were dooming the decades-long campaign to save the California condor. He sealed his own political doom by supporting a limited ban on the bullets.

Read the rest here

Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, March 23, 2008
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E6

Building an expressway through a state park apparently ranks high on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's list of priorities.

Maintaining relations with his brother in law?

Not so high on the list.

Schwarzenegger last week booted Bobby Shriver, brother of first lady Maria Shriver, off the State Park and Recreation Commission. The governor also declined to reappoint actor Clint Eastwood to the same commission, which voted in 2005 to oppose a six-lane toll road that would run through San Onofre State Beach.

Spokesman Aaron McLear says the governor's decisions were unrelated to Shriver's and Eastwood's ongoing opposition to the expressway. But Shriver, for one, doesn't see it that way.

"I had hoped to continue to do this work to protect the park system from developers," Shriver told the Associated Press. "It shows you how strong these developers were that were able to arm-wrestle the governor into firing us."

Although Schwarzenegger has taken some strong environmental stands in office, he has a blind spot when it comes to transportation.

Read the rest here

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
No lock on parks

Eastwood, Shriver let go for good reason

March 31, 2008

'You're not going to get people who are interested in state parks who want to build freeways through state parks.” That's Clint Eastwood, interviewed after Gov. Schwarzenegger declined to reappoint the actor/director to the state Parks and Recreation Commission.

If for no other reason, the governor should have booted Eastwood for failing due diligence. The road's path would run mainly along the northern edge of San Onofre State Beach Park east of Interstate-5, but parkland aplenty would remain. The major contention that the road would encroach on the beach portion of San Onofre, a favorite of surfers, was simply baseless. And the “freeway” at issue is actually a toll road that would lessen the daily pollution and congestion on roads long past handling today's traffic between inland Orange County and north San Diego County.

We're not going to get people who can make wise decisions as park commissioners unless they discern fact from fiction.

The prevailing explanation, although denied by the Governor's Office, is that relieving Eastwood and first lady Maria Shriver's brother Bobby of their park commission seats is payback for their votes to kill the toll road despite Schwarzenegger's belated but solid support for it.

The prevailing opinion is that ousting two guys who were “just doing their job” was a huge mistake for a Republican governor praised by liberal Democrats for his “post-partisan” cooperation.

Claptrap. If Republican park commissioners similarly dissed a Democratic governor, would his fellow partisans demand their retention? Lament the loss of “independently minded” fellows? Don't bet your rebate check.

Fact is, park commissioners serve at the pleasure of the official who appoints them. When he is displeased, he has the right not to reappoint them.

No member of any state commission should act as though their concern – parks, water, whatever – exists in a vacuum. Californians want parks. They need roads. Reflexive action won't help either. Yet in this case, as in others, a state commission lined up with the aging Moondoggie lobby at the expense of Californians – 76 percent of them – who've never surfed but drive freeways daily. Too bad. Californians could have had both: a road that eases freeway driving, leaves ample land for park visitors and bodes no ill for the beach.

Source

March 26, 2008,  9:16 am
Schwarzenegger to Eastwood: Hasta La Vista, Baby
By Mike Nizza

An action movie hero turned governor fires a Hollywood icon turned parks commissioner over a project that pits his constituents’ hopelessly irreconcilable passions for cars and beaches against one another. And as an added bonus, the news arrives with a perfect sound bite. That’s California politics, sweetheart:
“I think it was just somebody got a bee under their bonnet,” [Clint] Eastwood said.
There you have it, from Dirty Harry himself, who was quoted in The Los Angeles Times today concerning Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest decisions on who to appoint to the California State Park and Recreation Commission.
Along with Mr. Eastwood, Bobby Shriver, the governor’s brother-in-law, has also been dropped from the nine-member commission, which The Los Angeles Times said yielded up a bit of a gallows-humor moment for Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Shriver: Which of them should be more offended?
Both men’s formal terms on the commission ended in January, but as is common in such cases, they continued to serve at the pleasure of the governor. Mr. Shriver told The Associated Press that both men had sought reappointment to new formal terms; they evidently were told no last week.
Why were they dropped? The governor’s office said it was simply a matter of giving others a chance to serve, but environmentalists aren’t buying that explanation. The two commissioners were on the wrong side of a controversy that roused almost a dozen environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, to protest the governor’s move on Tuesday: The groups suspect that Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to pack the commission with supporters of a plan to build a six-lane toll road through a popular beach state park, a project that Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Shriver opposed.
The governor has not announced any new appointments to the commission yet, so the pressure from the environmental groups ensures that whatever names are sent to the state senate for confirmation will get more than a cursory look.
The road controversy has generated national headlines by pitting an astounding number of interest groups against one another, as Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times explained in a news analysis in February:
Labor is pitted against surfers, American Indians against developers, commuters against campers and coastal people against inland dwellers.
Though Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Shriver are now out of the way, the project is still blocked by another little-known state panel, the California Coastal Commission, which rejected the proposal. If Mr. Schwarzenegger intends a second push for the toll road, which he says would relieve traffic congestion in Orange County, he may face a tougher adversary in the coastal commission than he did in the park board:
“The commission is the single most powerful land use authority in the United States,” one expert told Ms. Steinhauer.
Meanwhile, anyone worrying about the sapped celebrity wattage on the state park panel need not fret. Still ensconced on the board is Paul Junger Witt, the television producer with “Soap,” “Benson,” “Empty Nest” and “The Golden Girls” on his long list of hits.

Source

Late-night vote goes 8-2 against project as commissioners challenge road agency's science and finances.

By PAT BRENNAN and ELLYN PAK
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

DEL MAR – The state Coastal Commission late Wednesday denied approval of the Foothill South toll road, delivering what could be the project’s fatal blow.

The 8-2 decision came after a 14-hour hearing at the Del Mar Fairgrounds at which more than 2,000 supporters and opponents gathered, chanting and carrying signs.

The 16-mile road would extend the 241 toll road through San Onofre State Beach park, habitat for a variety of threatened and endangered species, and pass within a few hundred feet of a popular campground.

Commissioners grilled representatives of the Foothill Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency about science, finances and other aspects of the toll road proposal.

The commission’s approval would have moved the tollway agency a step forward toward obtaining a number of additional approvals necessary before the road could be built.

The agency’s chief executive officer, Thomas E. Margro, said he will appeal the commission’s decision to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

Read the rest here

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 09/02/2008

telegraph.co.uk

Activists claim victory after fighting to preserve one of the world's best spots for surfing, Catherine Elsworth reports.

Surfers have claimed a victory in their battle to protect a world famous California surf break threatened by a proposed toll road extension.

Environmentalists said plans to build a highway close to Trestles Beach, immortalised in the Beach Boys' 1963 song Surfin' USA, would destroy the legendary break by blocking sediment that creates its world-class waves.

Debate about the £450 million project south of Los Angeles has raged for years. It has the backing of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state governor, but critics said that as well as damaging the beach, the road would also wipe out about a dozen endangered coastal species and ruin an ancient Indian burial ground.

advertisementOn Wednesday the California Coastal Commission rejected the proposals after a marathon 12-hour hearing which was attended by an estimated 3,000 local residents, surfers, environmentalists, commuters, union activists and tribal members.

Jim Moriarty, head of the Surfrider Foundation, said he was elated at the ruling, hailing it "a testament to the power of grassroots activism".

Backers of the road said it was necessary to relieve crippling rush hour gridlock on the freeway between Orange County and San Diego.

Toll road officials plan to lodge an appeal with the US secretary of commerce in a bid to keep the project alive.

Source

Dana Parsons
Los Angeles Times
February 9, 2008

Thanks to the California Coastal Commission, this was a righteous week for South County surfer dudes and environmentalists.

The proposed and much-dreaded Foothill South tollway extension that had been hanging over their heads like concrete slabs was voted down, and it was time to party.

Because surfers and environmentalists are so identified with California, there’s a tendency to think they were the only big winners, that they were the only ones who had a major stake in the outcome.

But no one was happier than Rebecca Robles of San Clemente. To her, though, the argument wasn’t about a lifestyle or a philosophy; it was about something in her bones that even she says is sometimes hard to articulate.

She remembers being a little girl and walking with her mother and hearing the wind blow. “God’s voice,” her mother said to her.

“She always instilled in us a connnectedness to the land,” said Robles, now in her 50s and the mother of three grown sons. “Not just the land, but to nature, people around us.”

Her mother was a member of the Acjachemen Nation, which includes the Juaneño band to which Robles belongs. Part of the six-lane tollway would have coursed around and near the ancient Acjachemen (pronounced a-HOSH-a-men) village and sacred site where Robles’ ancestors lived centuries ago.

“I thought it would destroy this place,” she says, looking down over the San Mateo Valley in southeastern Orange County that was home to the village known as Panhe. “It’s the one place in Orange County where we can come and practice our spirituality.”

She wants me to feel it, too, on this tranquil morning, where a near stone silence surrounds us. She says she feels a burden to explain to me the importance of her roots. She talks lyrically about the transcendent quiet and how her ancestors would have fished and worked the ground and raised their children — long before anyone would have heard of surfing.

“You heard a lot about surfers, a lot about endangered species, but very little of the sacred site issue got in the news,” she says of the toll road debate. “Some of the time, I felt, boy, we’re invisible.”

If that appears bitter in print, she is not. To the contrary, she celebrates the convergence of interests that defeated the tollway. She knows an impassioned band of Indians could never, by itself, have stopped the bulldozers.

Many times since her childhood, she pictured the life that those in her bloodline would have lived in the valley near the creek bed. “If it’s beautiful now,” she says, “imagine it then. Imagine a world . . . way over there if you saw a fire, you’d know the people who were making it. Or over there toward Dana Point, those people would be collecting abalone and shellfish.”

She knows there’s a romanticism in her words that eludes many people. “We’re a part of all of American culture,” she says, “but there’s a disconnection. Indians are everywhere, a huge part of the culture. But to me it seems like a big disconnection in history. The Spaniards came in 1769, so there’s kind of a gap where people don’t really know us. They don’t know who we are or what we are.”

She’s convinced the tollway would have done untold damage to the land around Panhe. She’d like to attribute part of the project’s defeat to a belief that people today have a greater appreciation for Native American culture.

“The way state laws were written, Indian history wasn’t protected,” she says. “But maybe that’s the juncture we’re at now, that this part of California history is being seen as irreplaceable.”

She wants people to appreciate Native American sites — not out of a sense of guilt, but from a sense of importance.

“Places like this are important to us, because it’s our history, our connection to who we are,” she says. “But the other part that worried me is that I’m an American. I’m a Native American, but I’m an American. I love this country. I love this country. I believe in all the stuff about freedom and justice and our ideals. We lose our greatness as a country if we lose our ideals, if we let everything be destroyed.

“If what’s important to native people is their religious freedom . . . a toll road through a sacred site would have destroyed something that was irreplaceable. Most of the people, I don’t think, got it. Our allies eventually got it.”

Perhaps most important, the Coastal Commission got it.

So, to repeat, it was a good week for surfers. But it was just as good a week for a hard-to-pronounce Indian nation whose descendants walk among us.

“Wednesday was a tremendous, tremendous victory,” Robles says. “As good as it gets.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.

By Elizabeth Goldstein
President of the California State Parks Foundation and a member of the Save San Onofre Coalition

On the heels of a state budget that proposed closing 48 parks, including 11 in Southern California, Gov. Schwarzenegger last week endorsed a damaging and illegal toll road through the state park at San Onofre.

The Orange County Register's editorial, "A step on the toll road to redemption" [Jan. 21], portrays the governor's letter to the California Coastal Commission as "deserving more than just a little praise" and a solution that would run through a "sliver of a state park."

This is only good news if you are a Californian who doesn't visit parks, doesn't care about the coast, and believes politicians should be able to ride roughshod over local communities as well as the law to get what they want.

In the editorial, the Register ignored some key facts.

First, the Register did not mention the proposed toll road threatens one of California's most beloved, treasured and visited state beaches. If you are reading this and are one of the 2.4 million visitors who visit San Onofre State Beach annually to camp, surf or just enjoy the sunny weather, this toll road is going to affect you.

WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Susan Davis’s amendment requiring a proposed toll road through a state park to follow state environmental laws became law when President Bush signed the defense authorization bill (H.R. 4986) last night.

“This has always been about maintaining the integrity of the process that we follow for proposed transportation projects in the state,” said Davis, a member of the Armed Services Committee.  “There is no reason why it should have received a special exemption from the standard process and environmental safeguards, especially when such unique natural resources are at stake.”

The proposed toll road would have a devastating impact on the unique environmental and highly utilized recreational resources at San Mateo campground and Trestles Beach.

San Onofre State Park is virtually the only publicly accessible open space remaining along the entire Southern California coast, and the campground threatened by the toll road is a very popular destination for youth groups, surfers, families, and seniors seeking convenient and affordable accommodations for coastal recreation in an undisturbed natural environment.

Further, the toll road would run directly through the San Mateo Creek watershed, the only undeveloped watershed left in Southern California.  Development of this protected area could result in major degradation of water quality in the creek and surrounding ocean waters.

Davis’s amendment repeals a federal law enacted in 2000 declaring that state law does not specifically apply to the toll road.  Her amendment was approved by the House Armed Services Committee in May after public debate.

Then after seven months of successfully navigating the legislative process and as a member of the Conference Committee, Davis was able to ensure the survival of her amendment.

In December, President Bush vetoed the original defense bill (H.R. 1585) over a separate provision the Iraqi government found objectionable.  Congress returned in 2008 and altered that language and returned it to the President with the toll road provision still in tact.

By David Reyes and Dan Weikel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
February 7, 2008
 
DEL MAR -- -- The California Coastal Commission handed environmentalists a major victory and rejected the pleas of motorists Wednesday, voting down plans to build a six-lane toll road through San Onofre State Beach, a popular preserve in north San Diego County known for its scenery and famous surf spots.

Before a boisterous crowd of more than 3,500 people, commissioners decided 8 to 2 that the proposed Foothill South project violates the California Coastal Act, which is designed to regulate development along the state's 1,100-mile shoreline. They reached the conclusion following hours of sometimes heated public testimony that pitted protecting the environment against the need to relieve traffic congestion in south Orange County.

Read the rest here

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer

Coastal Commission votes down controversial project at North County's northern edge

DEL MAR -- As a huge crowd erupted in cheers late Wednesday night, the California Coastal Commission voted to reject a transportation agency's request to pave a toll road across a popular North County state park. 

Commissioners voted 8-2 not to certify that Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency's proposed 16-mile, $875 million tollway through south Orange County and North San Diego County adheres to the state's coastal protection law.

"This is a defining moment, I believe, for this California Coastal Commission," said Commissioner Larry Clark, who represents the Los Angeles-Orange County area. "And I think we need to articulate very clearly that this project is dead."

As soon as the commissioners voted at 11:20 p.m., most in the audience clapped and cheered for several minutes, yelling repeatedly: "Thank you!"

Read the rest here

By Terry Rodgers

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 7, 2008

After hearing testimony and deliberating for more than 12 hours, the California Coastal Commission yesterday voted 8-2 to deny a proposed toll road that would cut across a habitat reserve in Orange County and San Onofre State Beach next to Camp Pendleton.

The panel decided that certain aspects of the project failed to meet California's coastal regulations. Their vote prohibited transportation officials from creating the first tollway to run through a state park.

More than 3,000 people attended the public hearing in an exhibition hall at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. It was the largest turnout for any meeting in the commission's 36-year history.

Many supporters and critics of the tollway project carried signs and shouted slogans. They included mayors, construction workers, commuters sick of traffic jams, conservationists, state parks officials and surfing legends such as Mickey Munoz and Shaun Tomson.

Read the rest here

SEN. CHRISTINE KEHOE
San Diego

Letter to the Governor: Written By a Beloved Activist

NORTH COUNTY ---- Expecting as many as 2,000 people to gather next month for a meeting on the San Onofre toll road, the California Coastal Commission decided late Thursday to move the session from Oceanside to Del Mar.

Coastal Commission staff analyst Mark Delaplaine said the move was triggered by concerns that the 160-person capacity of the Oceanside City Council Chambers would be overwhelmed and that crowd control could become a significant problem.

Delaplaine said the meeting now will take place Feb. 6 in Wyland Hall at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, which can accommodate 3,000.

He said that if attendance comes anywhere close to 2,000, it will be a record for the commission, which regulates development along California's 1,100 miles of coastline.

For the rest of the story, click here

SAN ONOFRE - State regulators have decreased the amount of environmental damage they think would be caused by the toll road Orange County officials want to lay down across North San Diego County.

But California Coastal Commission staffers say that the toll road would still do "irreparable harm" to a sensitive coastal wetland, home to a half-dozen imperiled animals.

In a report filed over the weekend in preparation for a key commission hearing next week, the commission's staff downgraded, from 66 acres to 50 acres, its estimate of how much of the potential habitat would be destroyed.

But the damage still would be unacceptable and the project could trigger the extinction of one species, the report says. The Orange County transportation agency looking to build the road strongly disputes that conclusion.


Read the rest here

The disastrous Foothill South tollway

No matter what the governor says, it's an environmental menace.

January 29, 2008

Maybe Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was trying to make up for planned cuts to state parks. Otherwise, it's hard to imagine what could have led to his recent support for the Foothill South toll road.

In announcing his change from neutral on the highway that's proposed to take traffic pressure off Interstate 5 in San Clemente, the governor said the project was "essential to protect our environment" and could be built in a manner "that will enhance and foster use of the coast." This is environmental doublespeak. As planned, the toll road would cut through a wilderness preserve in eastern Orange County and then traverse the length of a narrow, pristine canyon that makes up most of San Onofre State Beach, one of the most popular California state parks. The governmentSchwarzenegger heads is suing to stop the project.

Perhaps the $100 million offered by the Transportation Corridor Agencies as environmental mitigation -- to be used for improvements in other state parks -- enticed the governor at this vulnerable moment when he's proposing to close 48 parks temporarily as a budget fix. But the mitigation money could not begin to make up for the damage the road would cause. It wouldn't buy more parkland. What makes all this especially paradoxical is that the wilderness preserve and the campgrounds at San Onofre were themselves created as mitigation measures for other developments.

Read the rest here

By Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano Dispatch

San Diego Tribune writes "Federal legislation to rescind an exemption aimed at limiting California's scrutiny of a proposed toll road in North County has cleared a major hurdle.

The amendment – written by Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego – cleared a House-Senate conference committee Thursday. It is attached as a “rider” to a defense appropriations bill.

Congress must approve the bill and President Bush must sign it, but “it's pretty much a done deal,” said Davis spokesman Aaron Hunter. "

Bill allows state a say in toll road planning

OCWeekly Blog reports "The 241 Foothill-South Toll Road extension that would have run through San Onofre State Park endangering wild life and costing tax payers $10 million, has been delayed indefinitely, according to Congressman Ken Calvert.

In the Congressman's words, "thanks to Reps. Susan Davis and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), a toll road project that has been years in the making has been set back indefinitely.""

241 Toll Road Delayed Indefinitely

CONTACT:

Laura Mazzarella

Surfrider Foundation

Phone (949) 492-8170 / Fax (949) 492-8142

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  

SURFRIDER FOUNDATION ASSISTS EVACUEES FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

Victims Find Shelter At Local State Park Campgrounds

With the permission of Huell Howser Productions, Surfrider Foundation has made available for online viewing:  San Onofre State Beach - California's Golden Parks with Huell Howser. 

"San Onofre State Beach in San Diego County covers some 2100 acres and has five miles of beach, including Trestles - one of the most famous and truly iconic surf spots in the world! Park Supt. Rich Rozzelle showed Huell a spectacular section of the park that most people don't know exists. Turns out the park goes four miles inland, contains several archeological sites, is the home of seven threatened or endangered species and protects significant portions of San Mateo Creek, which is one of the last relatively unspoiled watersheds in Southern California. San Onofre State Beach is now the focus of a huge controversy! Tune in to find out all about it."

As reported by both the LA Times and the OC Register, the TCA suffered a major setback in their attempt to place a toll road through San Onofre State Park.  Congresswoman Susan Davis successfully introduced an amendment in the Armed Services Committee that would remove several exemptions obtained by the TCA to allow them to violate state laws in building the proposed extension of the 241...

Thanks to wide-spread support from delegates to the California Democratic Party, the CDP voted unanimously on Sunday, April 29, 2007 to officially oppose the so-called "Green Alignment" of the proposed 241 Toll Road Extension.  Our sincere appreciate to the delegates, the members and leadership of the Resolutions Committee, and all those who helped make this possible!  Full text of the approved resolution is below...

San Diego Tribune reports - "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced major cutbacks yesterday in the amount of habitat it deemed essential for protecting two imperiled species in San Diego County.

Its ruling could, among other things, speed construction of a hotly contested toll road between San Diego and Orange counties.

The agency's lowered habitat figures also continue the Bush administration's trend of shrinking areas designated as “critical habitat.” The term refers to land with conservation requirements that long have been disputed between developers and environmentalists. "

Habitat reduced for two species