No exceptions to environment act

Re “We need this NFL stadium,” Column, Oct. 7

Good for the small homeowners group for holding out and standing up against a conglomerate. They must have valid reasons, as do I, for opposition to such a plan.

What of the congestion to the already overcrowded 60 and 57 freeways that would create a traffic nightmare?

Furthermore, the beautiful landscape of hills would be replaced by an eyesore of a stadium that would create jobs for unemployed San Gabriel Valley residents, even though they live closer to downtown.

I suggest the stadium be built in Tim Rutten’s neck of the woods.

Elka Fung

Hacienda Heights

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One always expects Rutten’s column to present food for thought, and his latest is no exception.

I particularly liked the closing line: “The Constitution is not a suicide pact; we can’t let our environmental laws become a straitjacket.” The stadium project is projected to employ 12,000 construction workers and create 6,732 permanent jobs.

This is all well and good, and perhaps the project deserves an environmental pass.

However, if the Legislature really wants to champion an environmental cause, one would think delivering water to the parched San Joaquin Valley would be much higher on the priorities list. On a recent trip, we saw a seemingly endless line of dying fruit and nut trees. The stadium can wait.

George Malouf

Irvine

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I am a Walnut resident who likes the idea of the stadium project. That being said, exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act should never be given, particularly in a case like this.

If the project really has been studied to the extent that Rutten states, then complying is mostly a matter of paperwork. If the lawsuit by the few homeowners really has as little merit as he claims, it will not stand long in the courts. Neither is it much to ask considering the price or time-scope of a project of this magnitude.

One wonders what would have been in a full, new environmental impact statement that would make Majestic Realty Co. want to work so hard to avoid having to provide one?

Or perhaps it is just the precedent of granting exceptions that is so valuable.

Daniel Nolte

Walnut

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Exempting any project from the California Environmental Quality Act would set a terrible precedent.

More astonishingly, Rutten’s assertion that the intersection of the 60 and 57 freeways is “ideal” for a large stadium, entertainment and commercial development is laughable. What are we going to call the new team, the “Industry SigAlerts”?

For the last 20 years, new major sports venues in America have been built in downtowns with rail-transit access. Many people take public transit to the new baseball and football stadiums in San Francisco and San Diego.

Let’s build a new football venue downtown like other major American cities.

Dennis Lytton

Hollywood

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Billionaire developer Ed Roski Jr. can well afford the cost of compliance with environmental regulations.

It is setting a dangerous precedent to allow him to abrogate such rules, based on speculation that an NFL team can be stolen from another community and/or that sufficient long-term jobs will be created, justifying further destruction of finite resources.

I say this as a sports fan who had season tickets for the entire existence of the Los Angeles Raiders. But as a longtime resident of the east San Gabriel Valley, virtually every day I see a gray haze of poisons rising from the backdrop of unfettered development.

Compliance with time- and court-tested regulations is a simple thing to ask.

Phil Kaufman

West Covina