Ahmanson Ranch

Starting with the hiring of Lenora Kirby [as director of the Ahmanson Ranch-based Las Virgenes Institute for Resource Management], who likes to kick people off the ranch, and [former Interior Secretary] Bruce Babbitt, who was once a hero to environmentalists, it’s clear that Washington Mutual’s lobbyists and PR spin doctors don’t like being perceived as on the wrong side of an environmental issue.

But the fact is, their report to Heal the Bay documents what many community leaders have been saying all along: The project Washington Mutual has in mind for Ahmanson Ranch is a disaster for the environment, and the damage will be so extensive it really can’t be mitigated.

It doesn’t matter if Bruce Babbitt delivers the news, or [Interior Secretary] Gale Norton and Lenora Kirby do it. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck. Ahmanson Ranch development will wreak considerable environmental damage on Santa Monica Bay and the Malibu Creek watershed, no matter how many different ways Washington Mutual tries to spin it.

James D. Wrigley

Calabasas

*

I wonder if Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo is paying attention to the ever-worsening news about Washington Mutual’s plans for Ahmanson Ranch, including the latest story about its double-cross on water quality.

Does he really want to go into retirement with a vote that will offend the vast majority of the constituents whom he has served for the past eight years? Both candidates to replace him want to stop Washington Mutual.

If Schillo can’t bring himself to vote no on this project, maybe he should just ask the Board of Supervisors to delay it until he is safely out of the limelight.

Mike Glenn

Calabasas