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| Send your letters to Conejo Valley Examiner: Attn.
Editor |
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| editor@ValleyExaminer.com |
www.ValleyExaminer.com |
| 2899 Agoura Rd. #363, Westlake
Villiage, CA 91361 |
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| Not convinced about Ahmanson |
| Your story on Ahmanson
Ranch was interesting and provided information that was
new to me. But I still am not convinced that it will benefit
the area and remain concerned about additional traffic
congestion. |
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Marc Garrett, Thousand Oaks |
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| Questions Washington Mutual’s
facts on Ahmanson Ranch |
In your front page article
on the Ahmanson project, I was surprised to read "Eighty
percent of the homes are middle to lower in terms of cost."
I am wondering when this figure increased from 25 to 80
percent? Ahmanson Land company's own ads state 774 of
3050 homes are for low to moderate income residents. Even
25 percent is deceptive when you consider that almost
half are for single rooms or granny units attached to
other homes. It is, however, not unusual to see Washington
Mutual's fuzzy figures. The claim of the donation of 10,000
acres of land - actually taxpayers paid some $27 million
for the land! The claim of $14 million in regional traffic
improvements - In fact less than $4 million of that goes
to L.A County for a project wholly contained in Ventura
County.
The claim of 1,700 permanent new jobs - well that is about
half of the number of people laid off when they bought
out Home Savings.
I think they need a new battery for that calculator! |
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| I am against the project
for so many reasons. Traffic, pollution, and of course,
impact to our environment are a few to mention. Did anyone
forget the jobs that were lost when Washington Mutual
took over Home Savings by shutting down many branches?
Wake up people! |
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Mr. Seigel mentions in
his article: "One of the results from a study of the area
was the creation of a nonprofit institute called the Las
Virgenes Institute designed to monitor during construction
and in perpetuity the environmental management of the
area's natural resources..."
Who's behind this non-profit institute? It seems odd that
the Ahmanson Project will be monitoring during and after
construction - how about before any irreversible damage
occurs? Fair monitoring should certainly start now, not
after the fact- Please evaluate and consider the damage
that will happen to the spine flowers, red legged frogs,
oaks trees, grasslands, wetlands, archeological sites
before they are gone forever. Also, please don't ignore
noise and dust pollution, displacement of our mule deer,
mountain lions, jack rabbits and other endangered and
protected wildlife that currently live on the controversial
Ahmanson property. Remember once it is gone... it is gone-
forever. The natural resources that we all own and that
everyone loves viewing in our valley are our majestic
hills, rolling conejos and 100+ year old oak trees...
(as depicted in your beautiful photograph accompanying
your article). The huge Ahmanson development plan would
be as upsetting as if they suddenly decided to damn up
Niagara Falls or put condos in front of Mount Rushmore.
I assure you, Washington Mutual would never be able to
get approval for this type of environmental nightmare
in their home state... Why dump it here, in California?
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| Your newspaper is really
first-class. I particularly like the legal columns and
hope that you will continue them. Keep up the good work.
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Michael Silver, Westlake Village |
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| The cartoon you selected
for your editorial page pertaining to obstacles to Mideast
peace was quite offensive. It is not the Americans buying
gasoline, nor the Israeli's protecting themselves from
homocidal bombers, that is the obstacle to peace. It is
those that encourage and harbor terrorism that are an
obstacle to peace. |
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Marvin Friedman, Thousand Oaks |
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| Political cartoon inaccurate |
| " I loved the paper, however,
found the political cartoon to be inaccurate and almost
offensive - SUV's have nothing to do with the war. Terrorism
is the obstacle." Shimon Paskow, Thousand Oaks |
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Marvin Friedman, Thousand Oaks |
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