Golf at Hill Canyon

Re “Proposed Hill Canyon Golf Course,” Ventura County letters, May 23.

Rusty Geller says no golfer will play a course near a smelly waste water treatment plant. I’d pay him $100 for any morning tee time he can schedule me at Olivas Park Golf Course in Ventura. This course is one-quarter mile downwind from such a waste water plant. When the Santa Ana winds blow, you get the aroma of the mushroom farm.

Camarillo Springs is the same. The fact is, it’s quite common for golf courses to be next to sewage plants, airports and freeways. It’s the only practical use for land like this--and it’s the only city parkland that generates a lot of money.

I have been a member of the Audubon Society for 15 years and contribute to Ducks Unlimited and the Nature Conservancy. I don’t believe Mr. Geller and friends object to the Hill Canyon plan for environmental reasons.

The real reasons are very apparent to me: simple greed. They have their house on their own little piece of heaven with lots of open space around, and they don’t want anything built anywhere near, no matter what benefit it has to the community. They want someone else to own the land, pay taxes on it and let them walk their dog on it for free.

If people with vision want to stop all development, they should lobby their government to limit population growth. This is the driving market force behind growth. Sadly, this will never happen.

JOHN GLEASON, Camarillo