M <i> Won’t </i> Right Past Wrongs

I take exception to the editorial “Measure M Would Right Past Wrongs” (Oct. 7).

The profligate and self-destructive building spree referred to as occurring in the ‘70s and ‘80s is, in fact, not at all in the past. Hotels, business parks and vast tracts of housing are in process everywhere in Orange County at this moment, and according to my calendar, this is 1990.

Not even Measure M, with the promise of alternative transportation, could possibly make a minuscule dent in the problem without a firm commitment on the part of local government to limit growth. Limiting growth could really mean that passage of M might allow a substantial period of time to play “catch up.”

Admittedly, transportation is a mess. I look at another aspect of what all this has wrought. Where is there an energy policy? True, the United States doesn’t have one, so I suppose it is not incumbent upon us to have one.

In the fourth year of drought, the Rainbirds are sprinkling away night and day to green up the plantings of those hotels, industrial parks and housing tracts. Thousands more toilets to flush, laundries whooshing away and down the drain.

This all without regard to the future hardships. Shasta looked pretty dry to me when I passed just a few weeks ago. This is planning?

There is an overall picture to consider. Without the will to put this crisis truly in the past and to take drastic steps to improve the quality of life here, there is no true beginning of a solution.

To plan for the future, widening freeways and adding alternative means of transport while simultaneously inviting myriad households with multiple cars here is playing Russian roulette with the future well-being of all.

Next, it will be a bond proposal fo finance a desalination plant. That I would support.

MARY LOU RIPLEY

Laguna Beach