Toll Road Critics Seek Help From Supervisors : Protest: Board offers little encouragement to environmentalists fighting transportation agency suit.

Armed with more than 2,600 postcards of protest, South County environmentalists took their battle over the San Joaquin Hills toll road to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to attack the project’s latest lawsuit.

The environmentalists pleaded with the supervisors to help derail what they termed a “malicious” suit filed against them last week by the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency, which is overseeing development of the $778-million toll road. But they received little encouragement from the supervisors, who said the matter is beyond their control.

The corridor agency brought the lawsuit in U.S. District Court last week against several of its environmental critics in a preemptive strike aimed at speeding construction of the toll road, scheduled for construction later this year.

The corridor agency’s lawsuit asks the court to validate the environmental impact statement for the toll road in order to head off later challenges. Named as defendants are Laguna Greenbelt Inc., Laguna Canyon Conservancy, Save Our San Juan, Stop Polluting Our Newport and activist Elizabeth Leeds of Laguna Beach.

“They are trying to break us. They are trying to make an example of us,” Anita Mangels, treasurer of the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, an opponent of the toll road, said at a press conference by environmentalists. “And they’re trying to make sure that when they kick us hard enough, we don’t get up.”

She and other environmentalists cast their protests as a First Amendment issue, accusing corridor agency officials of using “bullying tactics” to silence their critics through a heavy-handed lawsuit.

After their press conference, nine activists addressed the Board of Supervisors--two of whom serve on the 12-member corridor agency--and appealed for their help in fighting the lawsuit. They also delivered about 2,600 postcards to the office of Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, protesting his “involvement in the malicious and unprecedented action by the Transportation Corridor Agency to stifle responsible citizen input.”

Riley is a member of the corridor agency, and his district includes the proposed toll road. Environmentalists had asked to meet with him about the lawsuit, but Riley told the crowd that he “felt very uncomfortable” about doing so because of the ongoing litigation. “That’s the reason I said no,” he said.

Corridor agency spokesman Mike Stockstill called the protests “the height of hypocrisy.”

“They’ve made it as clear as they could that it’s their intention to take us to (federal) court,” he said. “Litigation is their middle name.”

Riley added in an interview after the board meeting that the lawsuit is aimed not at intimidating critics, but rather at speeding the legal process. “The idea is to get a decision as soon as possible,” he said.

As one environmentalist after another spoke before the board, Chairman Roger R. Stanton avoided addressing the substance of their concerns but reminded them repeatedly that the supervisors are distinct from the corridor agency. One has little control over the other, he said.