I just saw this story on the Orange County Register website and wanted to share the good news:
STATE PANEL THWARTS ATTEMPTS TO BLOCK TOLL-ROAD EXTENSION
Budget Conference Committee votes 6-0 to reject recommendation to create new laws to kill 241 plan.
The Orange
An attempt to derail a 16-mile, $875 million extension of the Foothill (241) Toll Road failed over the weekend in the state Legislature.
The Budget Conference Committee – which tries to hammer out differences in the Assembly’s and the Senate’s versions of the
With a 2-1 vote last month, a subcommittee recommended prohibiting the 241 from connecting Rancho Santa Margarita to the
At the time, Chairman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, said: "(A) priority I have is to protect the state park."
The extension would run through the San Onofre State Beach park – a major contention among environmentalists and others opposed to the project.
Nava, a former Coastal Commission member, had been approached by environmental groups that tried, unsuccessfully, to get the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency to back away from the plan. Instead, on Feb. 23, the agency voted 12-3 to construct the extension.
The Budget Conference Committee’s decision came Saturday.
You can read all the good news here.
It shouldn’t be this hard to build a bloody road. Orange County needs the road. San Onofre State Beach park will live. Nothing is going to become extinct, and the waves will continue to crash on the beach (Surfrider Foundation hooey notwithstanding). It’s possible the waves at Trestles might be more crowded with sufers from the 909 area code — the real source of Surfrider oppositon to completing the 241. Locals only!
And if I mihgt indulge in some media criticism, this OC Register story is offers a good example of how the MSM needs to work a little harder to portray this issue accurately. Take this passage for example:
If readers who aren’t familair with this issue or with San Onofre State Beach could very easily — and wrongly — conclude the 241 completion means a toll-road is going to be built next to the beach. And that could elicit opposition based on a false conclusion precipitated by poor exegesis of the toll road. route.
The 241 completion goes through San Onofre State Beach — the park, that is. However, it does not touch the beach part of San Onofre State Beach — the area of the park where the vast majority of park visitors go. The 241 tollway runs by the inland campground. In fact, it is Interstate 5 that is already right next to the beach part of San Onofre State Beach.
However, 241 opponents are content to let the public believe the 241 completion will ruin beach campaign at the state park.
I’m not sure of the Schwarzenegger Administration had anything to say to the Budget Conference Committee on this vote. Ever since their loopy "letter of disappointment" to the F/ETCA when its Board of Directors approved the completion, they’ve adopted a stance of hostile murmuring.
I guess that means weren’t not saying "Let’s Build It!" anymore, huh guys? After all, that was soooo five months ago.