Ahmanson Project

Your editorial “Green Light for Ahmanson” (Feb. 1) seemed to imply that I was in favor of allowing the Ahmanson Land Co. to proceed without the purchase of the two undevelopable land parcels owned by entertainer Bob Hope.

Please refer to my proposal in December 1997 in which I pointed out that two financial giants (Ahmanson and Hope) were going to come to an agreement on price, not whether or not Ahmanson would buy the land.

We had a one-time opportunity to get $35 million to buy up developable land in Thousand Oaks instead of Ahmanson paying Hope for two parcels that could never be developed because of the steepness of the terrain.

I was not trying to Ahmanson but trying to help the people of Oak Park and Thousand Oaks to offset the impact this development will bring. Most of the people, environmental groups and newspapers didn’t believe me that we had this one-time opportunity to partially save us from Ahmanson. But as it turned out, Ahmanson won and we lost because of a lack of interest in discussing new ideas.

FRANK SCHILLO

Ventura County Supervisor

Second District

Ventura County Letters