Letters: Ballona’s backers aren’t budging

Re “What kind of wetlands?,” Editorial, Feb. 5

As someone who spent years as part of the community effort to save the Ballona Wetlands as an ecological reserve, I think the Annenberg Foundation’s proposed interpretive center is indeed a travesty. I am not opposed to the foundation’s plans to build an animal rescue center or even an interpretive center, though providing an interpretive center is already required of the Playa Vista developers as part of their mitigation. Do we need two such buildings?

In any case, why should Annenberg build on rare wetlands? There are acres of land that need re-purposing immediately adjacent to Ballona. That any wealthy organization feels that wetland open space, preserved using taxpayer dollars, is an appropriate location for their buildings is just plain wrong.

This wouldn’t serve the taxpayer, the endangered species and other wildlife that live there, the people who benefit from natural space or the fragile wetlands ecosystem.

Susan Suntree

Santa Monica

There is nothing “thoughtful” about the Annenberg Foundation moving forward with a proposal of rooftops and parking lots on our precious ecological reserve. In fact it is downright inconsiderate to the owls, hawks, herons, egrets and coyotes that I have seen hunting — right on the site of the proposed interpretive center — for terrestrial creatures that live and forage there, hidden in the cover and under the soil that are their homes.

Jonathan Coffin

Inglewood

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