Newhall Ranch and Campaign Funding
Re “Newhall Ranch Project,” Ventura County letters, May 16.
John Bergamo’s letter stating that legal bribes in the guise of campaign contributions were the key to the approval of the Newhall Ranch mega-project by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is right on. Newhall Land & Farming Co.’s largess has been generous to the political players involved.
A description of the corrupting influence of such payments is right there in the Bible, Deuteronomy 16:18: “You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality; and you shall not take a bribe [substitute “campaign contribution”], for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.”
The Newhall Ranch Project straddling the Santa Clara River at the Los Angeles County line would be a noose around the throat of the Santa Clara River Valley, containing the last free-flowing river in Southern California. With luck, the mounting legal actions against the project will put the noose around this ill-conceived development.
Newhall Ranch is the poster child of the Southern California urban sprawl that has earned such a bad name in the rest of the country.
CLARENCE FREEMAN, Fillmore
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