The Bolsa Chica Marina Channel

We’re writing with regard to your story on the Bolsa Chica Marina Channel Plan, wherein Signal Development Corp. has proposed that an assessment district be established, wherein local residents pay for a large part of their project.

Plans would have us, as residents in a neighborhood adjacent to Bolsa Chica, pay in excess of $10,000 toward a $24-million project to connect Huntington Harbour to the proposed Bolsa Chica waterfront community development.

Signal representatives and Harriett Wieder, county supervisor in the area, continue to suggest that the Navy may close the existing ocean access to harbor residents, though there is no information substantiating this fact. The Navy itself says it would take an act of Congress or a declaration of war to close the existing channel.

The tactic of placing the unfounded fear of having no ocean access in the minds of residents who will ultimately vote on the assessment is an untruthful presentation of facts to the public. We’ve lived in (Huntington) Harbour for 16 years, and it seems strikingly coincidental that talk of a Navy closure of our ocean access occurs just when Signal is looking for $24 million for a new access.

While the idea of an assessment district for such needed things as sewer lines is understood in some cases, this is an altogether different purpose. For those who do not live on the water in the harbor, an assessment of $5,700 has been proposed, based on the assumption that property values will increase.

One can imagine the ramifications of an assessment district coming to fruition where a developer creates a project which may make an area more attractive, thereby increasing property values in nearby neighborhoods. The day that “taxes” of this sort may be levied will be a sorry day for a lot more people than just those of us who live in Huntington Harbour.

CHUCK FOULGER

DONNA FOULGER

Huntington Harbour