Where's The Damn Citation?

I'm pleased as spiked punch with the Coastal Commission Staff Report condemning the 241 (Foothill-South) toll road. It's the shiz-nizzle hiz-izzle. For rizzle.

But would it have killed them to cite one of my articles?

Most of the report isn't exactly news. It was news at one point in the time, back in the day, when I raked muck for OC Weekly, cheerfully slaving away under Will Swaim and R. Scott Moxley for an absolute pittance that was worth every penny (all three of them, in other words). So here's a little self-gratification to cheer me up and make me forget the amount of studying I have to do for my sixth week of law school.

What follows are the juicy excerpts from the report, as mentioned in a previous post, with links to the relevant Toll Road Rage stories published last year in the OC Weekly.

“…it would be difficult to imagine a more environmentally damaging alternative location for the proposed toll road and one which would be more clearly inconsistent with the environmentally sensitive habitat resource protection requirements contained within Coastal Act Section 30240.” (pg. 3

This one was great - DOCUMENTED INCOMPETENCE. It discusses how the online Environmental Impact Report's Table of Contents was garbage, omitting a section with a comically evil name ( Irreversible and Irretrievable Commitment of Resources) that discusses, among other things, "environmental conditions degraded or destroyed by the project." Sounds like the kind of section people might not mind having omitted from the T.O.C., if you K.W.I.M.

“When the value of these resources is taken into account, the project is the most environmentally damaging rather than the least environmentally damaging feasible alternative…Moreover, the toll road’s impacts would be permanent, irreversible, and, for the most part, unmitigable.” (pg. 5)

Another beauty - KEN RYAN AND FRIENDS. Ryan, a former Mayor of Yorba Linda and a brunette, calls himself an environmental planner, not an urban planner. But his only plans involved destroying San Onofre under cover of a "green" banner. The TCA called it the least environmentally damaging alternative, but they considered damage to the URBAN environment. Language is a tricky thing.

“…it is more likely that the proposed toll road would encourage continued growth, low density housing and inefficient transit patterns, and that the traffic system within the region would be equally or more congested than it is currently. Thus the toll road’s impact on emissions is likely to add to, rather than reduce, vehicle emissions on I-5.” (pg. 8)

Aha! Traffic. Here's the skinny: TOLL ROADS MAKE TRAFFIC WORSE. They are what's called traffic inducers or traffic incentives or, in layman's terms, utter clusterfucks. NOT SO FAST used the expert opinion of UCI's Dr. Michael McNally to explain just how building a road could possibly generate more traffic. I've got two words for you. "Off-ramp." Okay, maybe that's one word; i don't know about the hyphen. Point is, interchanges jack up land value due to increased accessibility, enticing large commercial zones, office towers, and low-occupancy housing tracts. I believe 14,000 new McMansions are slotted to go up, not counting an unseemly amount of imaging centers, skin care centers, plastic surgeons, marketing companies, restaurants and shopping centers. I could go on but I feel sick.

“The project would result in significant adverse effects on public access and recreation, particularly at the campground and related recreational resources in San Onofre State Beach (SOSB). Significant adverse effects would occur both during construction and after completion. Such effects may include the de-facto closure of the coastal access Panhe Trail, the abandonment or severely limited use of the San Mateo Campground, the temporary occupation and permanent alteration of the California Coastal Trail, and the overall interference and degradation of the recreational use of SOSB.” (pg. 6)

I used WHAT YOUR MIMI DOESN'T KNOW to piss on a politician from a great height, or at least a safe distance, and boy was it fun. Assemblywoman Mimi Walters (R-73) had no idea what she was talking about, which was dangerous as the State Parks Commissioners she addressed had been told in no uncertain terms by park staff that very morning that the Foothill-South toll road extension would force the closure of the San Mateo Campground. I'm not calling Mimi an ignorant cheerleader for the Orange County Republican politburo. I'm really not. I don't know if she was ever really a cheerleader anyway.

“The Commission could not more strongly disagree with TCA’s arguments that on balance it is most protective of significant coastal resources to authorize the project.” (pg. 230)

Just wanted to emphasize that one last time. Theoretically, if you flip things around and make all sorts of logical substitutions, those dudes are basically saying, "We could not more strongly agree with Alex Brant-Zawadzki," which is like a big old stamp of approval on my work. It's a bit twisted how I derive much of my self-worth from occasional massive injections of outside approval, but it's something to build on. And when this road goes down, well hell, I'll be the happiest man in San Francisco. One less thing to worry about besides law school.

Got 99 problems; bein' wrong ain't one.