Slow Growth and Bridge Collapse

Re: “Partial Closure of Highway 118 Drives Down Business,” Feb. 5

County Planning commissioner Mike Wesner’s remarks implying that resistance from “slow-growth advocates” was responsible indirectly for the 118 bridge collapse near Balcom Canyon is pure rubbish. I challenge Wesner to back up his accusation with facts and quotes or I think he owes me and a lot of Ventura County residents with similar views a public apology for his contemptuous remark.

We “slow-growth advocates” will admit we want to slow and stop the headlong rush to make the 118 into an 84-foot-wide superhighway so as to prevent the demise of agriculture in Las Posas Valley.

We would prefer not to look like Supervisor Judy Mikel’s Simi Valley or Wesner’s Moorpark with no significant agriculture left. But we have never advocated stopping common-sense maintenance or adequate periodic inspections of highway infrastructures.

Perhaps Wesner should look to other bureaucracies, or even his own board, that may not have done their jobs instead of lashing out falsely at citizens who may look at the so-called benefits of widening of roads in a different way than he does.

JOHN F. KERKOFF

Somis