Early Retirement?

Jenifer Warren’s perceptive article on Arland Wiberg and runaway growth in Escondido (“Engineer at Center of Escondido Battle,” Jan. 12) was well done. Most telling was Mr. Wiberg’s arrogant and incorrect statement that opposition in Escondido to non-managed development emanated only from “just a few people feeling their oats and running for office two years before election.”

Where has the gentleman been living of late, on Mars? Escondido citizens are clearly tired of their hills being bulldozed down, their historic structures being destroyed and their landscape inundated with ugly high-density apartment buildings from which largely out-of-town speculators can make quick profits at the expense of the quality of life in the Hidden Valley.

Escondido citizens are flatly rejecting continuing helter-skelter growth and those officials and advocates attempting to perpetuate it. They are also supporting City Council members like Jerry Harmon and Doris Thurston who truly have the interests of all Escondido in mind.

Mr. Wiberg just may find that the retirement he forecasts “beside a fertile stream in Montana” may come much more quickly that anticipated, for as Aeschylus warned long ago, “A people’s voice is a mighty power.”

DR. GEORGE W. BERGSTROM JR.

Escondido