How to Spend Park Money
The voters in June approved Proposition 70, which was sold to the electorate as a state parks and recreation program for our future.
However, Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Conservancy, seems to think (Letters, July 29) that most of the $770 million in taxpayer dollars authorized (plus $1.5 billion interest costs) should go to finance open-space land grabs. No active parks for inner-city people. No recreational facilities for metropolitan-area citizens. But millions of dollars to buy land for wilderness wanderers, horse owners and hikers who live next door to the refuge areas. How convenient and how elitist.
Edmiston, the new Robin Hood of the wealthy, is taking taxes from the poor to finance vast playgrounds for the rich. What a moral crime! Edmiston’s conservancy empire has a revenue cup that is half full now. But taxpayers who are concerned with the homeless, hospitals and educational facilities have pockets that are half empty.
ERNEST DYNDA
Agoura Hills
Dynda is president of United Organizations of Taxpayers .
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