Toll Road Column Took Toll on Logic

* Kenneth Khachigian would have us believe he wants more money spent on battered women and less on endangered species (June 20 column).

Any time a right-winger starts supporting women’s issues, check your wallet.

The truth is that the right wing has opposed every effort to deal with domestic violence. Khachigian writes, “The total amount available in California for public service announcements discouraging domestic violence is less than half a million dollars.”

What Khachigian did not say is the reason the amount is so low is because right-wing governors cut the budget, not because environmental laws have eaten up all the surplus.

Khachigian calls environmentalists “extremists.” When it comes to the environment, I reserve that term for those who want to turn our beautiful state over to the developers.

JAMES R. CORBETT

San Clemente

* Once again Ken Khachigian graces readers with some of his amazing drivel.

Khachigian wants the Foothill South toll road--a road being run by a private company--to run through a public park. And a private firm will make a profit off public lands that the public loses to the private firm.

Isn’t this called “corporate welfare?” Giving public property away to a private firm with no compensation?

There should be a lawsuit filed to stop this giveaway! And whoever it was in local government who voted for it needs a change of profession the next time we go to the polls.

Khachigian brings up the poor motorists of the future forced to do battle with congested freeways unless this toll road is built running through the public park.

If he were really worried about congestion on our freeways between San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties, he’d be advocating getting people out of those cars and into mass transit, or increasing “work at home” employment.

But that would be, in Khachigian’s eyes, that evil “social engineering” we hear so much about from him and his friends.

Khachigian concludes his column by bringing in the plight of battered women and how little money there is to help them. What does this have to do with the toll roads?

DAVID G. PORTER

Anaheim

* Ken Khachigian seeks to resurrect the thoroughly discredited argument that protecting endangered species is somehow bad for people.

He apparently hasn’t visited the Nature Reserve of Orange County recently, or the San Diego Multiple Species Preserve. Not only do habitat lands for endangered species provide open space and recreation right next door to urban areas, but they increase property values as well!

He also hasn’t checked his medicine cabinet recently. He would find that remedy after remedy comes from the types of plant and animal life he values so little and would let go extinct.

DAN SILVER

Coordinator

Endangered Habitats League

Los Angeles