Irvine Seeks State Funds for Planned Great Park

Re “Irvine Wants State Taxpayers to Fund Big Park,” Oct. 8: So the good citizens of Irvine decline to build an airport on the closed El Toro Marine base but ask that taxpayers from around the state help build the park and museums they prefer to a regional airport. On the face of it, this is a blatantly self-serving strategy: decline to assist in accommodating the needs of the same air traffic to which they themselves contribute, but expect others to finance the open space and cultural resources “in their own backyard.”

However, the self-serving may go deeper. If this travesty of funding does slip through on the coattails of Proposition 51, does anyone want to guess how Irvine will view out-of-area visitors to “their” park? Perhaps, as yet another source of the same congestion they claimed as a reason to reject an airport?

Elizabeth Shadish

Gardena

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Talk about chutzpah! First, Irvine opposes sharing future problems of air congestion at LAX. Then it has the temerity to ask the entire state to build an outdoor park for its over-privileged area. Evidently the residents have not heard about crises in education, health and transportation. If Irvine residents want this park, let them pay for it out of local taxes. No on Proposition 51.

Marvin H. Biers

Tarzana