Soka Deserves a Fair Review
I wish Joe Edmiston of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy would back off and let the National Park Service provide the public with its plans for the Soka University property. The park service should have to provide the same kind of information, and be under the same scrutiny, that has been required of Soka University.
Condemnation must not be a solution to land-use controversies, even when it’s applied for the alleged sake of environmentalism. The public should decide, and all the facts be available. Edmiston is wrong to stand in the way.
He says that Soka has a great deal of political power and that their plans would damage the environment. What a laugh! From what I read, Soka is lucky to have an elected official even talk to them, let alone be influenced by them. And the conservancy itself has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money for its own lobbyists and consultants on this project.
I’ve been to Soka and I have seen their plans, which call for the protection of more than 80% of the land in its natural state and the protection of 99% of its oak trees.
I hope Edmiston and the other park bureaucrats step aside and allow this project to go forward in a normal, public review process.
DR. JANET KLOUZAL
Chatsworth
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