Board Went by the Book on Soka

In explaining why he opposes the proposed Soka University expansion in the Santa Monica Mountains (Valley Commentary, May 16), Dave Brown has taken a few liberties with the facts.

Mr. Brown tries to paint the board as having a predisposition toward approving this proposal. He insinuates that the board in past years “bent the rules� to approve favored projects. Nothing could be further from the truth!

For example, he accuses the county of upzoning what he refers to as the “Renaissance Faire� property. As he knows, the property was not owned by the fair operators. Further, the general plan amendment approved by the board was based upon a finding that the previous land-use classifications were based on incorrect hillside slope information. The board’s action simply corrected the mapping to give this property the same development opportunities enjoyed by other properties having similar characteristics. More to the point, the board’s action permitted only 150 homes on 320 acres, hardly a dense project.

Mr. Brown wanted the classification to remain unchanged so that the Park Service could acquire the site at less than fair market value. However, as Joe Edmiston of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy wrote in a letter to The Times on April 26, 1989: “Bluntly stated, the Constitution says government cannot lower property values with one hand so that the other hand can write a smaller check to buy the land.� It should also be remembered that Superior Court Judge David Jaffe later confirmed the legality of the board’s action.

In another example, he states that two members of the board (myself included) sent letters opposing the purchase of the Soka property through eminent domain. I did send a letter to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors complaining that it was improper for Ventura County to circumvent the law to condemn land in Los Angeles County. A Ventura County Superior Court judge ultimately agreed with me on this issue, and the action was disallowed.

While it is true that the proposed condemnation action was to acquire the Soka site, the issue was not Soka but the impropriety of one county’s action as it affects property in another county. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time an outside agency attempted to condemn property in this county. The letter makes no mention of Soka University.

Mr. Brown seems to condone illegal actions when they fulfill his ends, but he is very pious when he impugns the motives of others. By law, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy must follow established procedures in acquiring properties for the park. It was Mr. Brown’s friends who tried to “bend the rules.� The conservancy was caught and spanked by the judge. Nowhere in Mr. Brown’s commentary is that mentioned.

The Soka proposal raises a number of legitimate questions that must be dealt with as part of our public hearing process. Mr. Brown would serve everyone better if he stuck to those real issues instead of raising bogus ones.

MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH

Supervisor, 5th District

County of Los Angeles

Public Land Buys Bring Trouble

* I would like to comment on Joseph Edmiston’s letter (May 23) about “the importance of public purchase of the property to protect for all times its spectacular natural and historic resources� in reference to the public acquisition of Soka University.

In these times, public purchases by our government is the worst thing that can happen to a piece of land. Lets review the facts:

* The state of California is so poor it depends on Pepsi-Cola for playground equipment donations, the L. A. Clippers for improvement of basketball courts and a home-building firm (Kaufman & Broad) to build a dog-exercise park, all in the San Fernando Valley.

* A new policy change has opened millions of acres of national parks to strip mining for coal.

* The national forests are heavily logged.

* We now have to pay $23 per year for a permit to hike in our own county-owned parks.

* The Los Angeles City Council voted to close several parks in the Sepulveda Basin at sundown because of vagrants and criminal activity at night.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority has strongly supported the Baldwin and Micor developments which add 800 homes to the Las Virgenes area, remove more than 2,000 oak trees and grade 25 million cubic yards of earth.

At the same time, this agency has spent close to $500,000 of taxpayers’ money in a two-year attempt to seize Soka University land.

In contrast, the public has free access to 582 acres of Soka University every day. Over 80% of the land will remain wild. Only 160,000 cubic yards of soil will be graded in areas previously developed or cultivated. Also, Soka University currently pays $500,000 per year in taxes.

Soka University has offered the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority a free package consisting of 71 acres of land for a park, $2.5-million park headquarters, a $1-million endowment for maintenance and 20 campus buildings. The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority has flatly refused this offer.

As a taxpayer I am sick of my tax dollars being misused by agencies such as this one. Let’s stop driving business and education out of California.

MARY C. MONTES

West Hills

Soka Plan Would Devastate Area

* The article by Dave Brown on the public acquisition of Soka University property (May 16) was outstanding. Mr. Brown has been an outspoken friend of the Santa Monica Mountains for longer than I’m sure he’d cared to remember.

Soka’s development plan means an abrupt and devastating end to scenic lands which have long been viewed as a nature preserve and park center for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Nothing could be less appropriate than 4,000 students in, on and around 2 million square feet of buildings and parking structures.

Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

TOBY KEELER

Topanga

Driving Courtesy Ought to Be the Law

* I read with great interest Hugo Martin’s response to a letter writer in the Street Smart column on May 17, regarding lane usage on our freeways. His comment and those attributed to Highway Patrol Officer Preciado indicate to me that our traffic laws need to be changed.

What’s missing from our traffic laws are rules which enforce courteous driving.

Why legislate common courtesy? Because as the letter writer and most all L.A. drivers know, most drivers simply don’t choose to be courteous. And because this lack of courtesy clogs up the flow of traffic and creates dangerous driving conditions for all drivers.

Unfortunately, driving laws do not include useful rules regarding lane usage. So CHP officers find themselves powerless to act when a car obstructs the flow of traffic.

I propose adding the following to the California Vehicle Code: “A vehicle shall be considered to be legally positioned on a highway if it is (a) in the lane furthermost to the right, (b) passing a vehicle on its immediate right, (c) directly following a vehicle in its lane, or (d) forced by transition road locations or road conditions to use a particular lane.�

Translation: Get as far to the right as you can while still going where you want to go at the speed that is comfortable for you. This rule is merely an extension to multiple-lane highways of the rule most drivers know (if not obey) for two-lane highways: The left lane is for passing only.

It is ludicrous to accept Mr. Martin’s premise that a driver should be forced to break the law by tailgating or using high beams in order to force a driver to be courteous. If drivers obeyed the proposed rule, no such illegal and dangerous ways of saying, “I want to get around you� would be necessary.

It is equally ludicrous to take seriously Officer Preciado’s suggestion that a driver should choose a lane based on how long he or she will be driving. This is the kind of thinking used by the most obnoxious and lazy of drivers, those who plant themselves in a lane and claim permanent ownership of it, regardless of what’s going on behind them. Sure, lane changing will be minimized for those drivers, but lane changing by other drivers will be maximized, and smooth traffic flow will be greatly impaired.

RICHARD PRICE

North Hollywood

CSUN President’s Bank Post Improper

* I just read (May 20) that Cal State Northridge’s new president, Blenda Wilson, has been elected to the board of directors of Union Bank. Frankly, I’m not so sure this is in the best interests of the state of California.

The post at Union Bank is not honorary or volunteer. Ms. Wilson will be paid well over $24,000 for this work, in addition to her $134,000 salary at Northridge, highest in the 20-campus CSU system.

While the state of California’s moonlighting laws only apply to other state positions, nonetheless Ms. Wilson took office at a time of great crisis for the Northridge campus and education in general. Furthermore, she only this week announced a significant number of layoffs at the campus. Yet her new job, which will drain her of time and energy for her Northridge duties, will actually pay more in part-time remuneration than the full-time salaries of many she has just fired. I’m incensed.

There are many professors at Northridge, particularly in the Business School, who are prohibited from teaching any classes outside of CSUN unless they cut back to a 50% or 75% schedule at Northridge (this is a Business Society rule, not CSUN policy). Staff members at Northridge who work in offices and wish to teach one class at night must either cut back to an 80% work schedule or teach the class for free (it happened to me when I worked at Northridge in the mid-’70s).

So while President Wilson may legally take this extra assignment, I don’t feel the prestige of saying the CSUN president plays a role in major banking is worth the detriment of having her away from campus frequently on outside business or having Union Bank business done on state time!

Finally, CSUN is not a major university. It is a large university, though not when compared to Wisconsin or Penn State. But by major university, we should mean UCLA, USC, Stanford, Berkeley, Pepperdine, Cal Tech, possibly the Cal Poly campuses and places like Chicago, Princeton, Harvard, Duke, Texas at Austin, but not Northridge, not Cal State L.A., not Long Beach. Not yet.

RICK ROFMAN

Van Nuys

Deriding Monorail Is Elitist Position

* I simply couldn’t let the incredibly elitist comments on a proposed monorail by Gerald A. Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, pass by.

On May 14, Mr. Silver was quoted as saying, in part: “It would bring rail service to people with BMWs and Mercedeses. They are not the ones who would use a rail system. It’s unrealistic to expect a resident of the Encino Hills to drive his BMW to a station at, say, Hayvenhurst and take the train to work. But in areas north of here, these people don’t have 450s. They need public transit.�

Well--la dee dah! I moved away from the Sherman Oaks hills 20 years ago to escape the terrible smog and traffic that are plaguing Encino right now. I live in Westlake Village, and even our traffic is becoming too much.

I don’t have a 450--I prefer my Lexus. But if we had a monorail service, I’d be delighted to drive my Lexus down to a neighborhood station and take a clean, fast, quiet monorail to Santa Barbara, Pasadena, downtown Los Angeles, Newport Beach or San Diego. What a joy it would be to watch our beautiful scenery go by and leave the driving to modern technology. I certainly wouldn’t feel the same about a subway!

BARBARA K. GIBEAUT

Westlake Village

Poem from Knight Shames the Hero

* I would like to express my bitter disappointment with Assemblyman Pete Knight’s distribution of a racist poem.

What Mr. Knight finds interesting and amusing I find to be disgusting, wicked and the antithesis of what I have sought to convey to my students during more than 20 years as a high school Spanish teacher. My teaching colleagues and I have sought to communicate and demonstrate the values of cross-cultural and multicultural understanding, indeed even appreciation.

How any public official could be so insensitive to the real world in which we live is difficult to understand, but to purposely and blatantly endorse such inflammatory garbage is without excuse.

What Mr. Knight finds humorous might be expected from a sophomoric fraternity pledge even though it would be equally repulsive, but Mr. Knight is a world-renowned test pilot. I was present when he was honored at the Lancaster Aerospace Walk of Fame and applauded his achievement. His election to a place of honor makes him a hero to many, especially to youth who would seek to emulate him. I suggest that the city of Lancaster remove the granite monument with his name and replace it with a monument of clay.

CHARLES W. KEORTGE

Lancaster

A Monorail System Is the Way to Go

* There are many advantages to building a monorail system over digging a subway tunnel.

First of all we must think of the growth of Los Angeles in the future. The sprawl will assuredly include the north and west which includes Lancaster, Saugus, Newhall, Simi Valley and the Ventura-Santa Barbara areas. It would seem highly improbable that we would dig tunnels for subways through the mountains to the outlying cities. The expense of tunneling those great distances would be astronomical and very impractical.

Monorails could follow the freeways that already exist, so obtaining rights of way is no problem and would be more economical. Representatives from Ventura have already appealed for their inclusion in a monorail system.

If building an overhead rail is dangerous, then I would ask anyone to ride down the Harbor Freeway and view the overhead busway. Surely it was examined by the proper authorities and considered to be safe for motorists on the freeway.

Monorail track, made of precast units, is laid out on pylons and can be very cost effective as well as very easy to construct. Contrast this to digging a subway through unknown obstacles.

The beginning of a vast monorail system for all of Los Angeles could and should begin with the first leg on the Ventura Freeway route. Furthermore, once this is completed, all future freeway planning could include monorail construction at the same time. The cost savings would be very significant when a total transport route is combined.

DALLAS E. GIPE

Reseda

Parenting Is More Than Open House

* If the father objecting to the teachers’ unwillingness to put in free time for the traditional open house (Letters, May 18) is so dependent on one night to see “what our kids have been doing all year “ (italics mine), it seems clear enough to me that he needs to spend more time with his kids in order to keep informed of their educational progress.

If the parents are dependent on open house to inform them of what their kids do in school, I suggest they reorder their priorities and take some of the responsibility for parenting off the backs of the teachers. Teachers have enough to handle.

Surely your children are worth more than one evening of genuine interest.

MICHAEL KOLLANDER

Canoga Park

Finding Positives in New Edition

* This is a quick note to inform you how much I enjoy The Times Valley Edition.

I finally know what is happening “where I live.� The combination of editorials and pictures is excellent. Grouping articles from the different Valley areas makes it easier to locate items of immediate interest first.

But what I enjoy and appreciate the most is the generous reporting of positive happenings. Nowhere else can I be so reassured that there is still goodness and cooperation, sensitivity and understanding in my community and therefore surely also in my state and my country.

My thanks to you for bringing normalcy back to our daily lives.

HELGA UNKELESS

West Hills

New Coverage Falls Short Editorially

* Recently, The Times sought to increase its appeal to the residents of the San Fernando Valley by expanding the Valley coverage and changing the name of the Metro section to the Valley supplement.

A community newspaper is much more than just coverage of the local bake sale, the picture of the local beauty-pageant winner, or news of the traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony of the newest merchant in town. I would submit to you that a community newspaper is one which reflects the editorial philosophy of the members of its community.

Sorry Los Angeles Times, you may think that by printing a few articles of local interest in your citywide paper that you have become the community newspaper of the San Fernando Valley, but I for one think that you have a long way to go editorially.

CHARLES O. HALL

Woodland Hills