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Matthew J. Cunningham

Pedro Nava, Please Butt Out Of Orange County’s Business

Alex Brant-Zawadski is a young free-lancer who writes for the OC Weekly, primarily about the 241 tollway completion. While I completely disagree with Alex’s passionate opposotion to completing the 241, he is almost always ahead fo the mainstream media when it comes to reporting on new developments on this issue.

Now, this isn’t a really new development because I started thi spost more than a week ago, but still worth posting about.

Alex wrote on May 20 as to how Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara) has taken up the banner of stopping the extension of the 241 Tollway — a mere 3-hour drive south from his district. He’s even pasted this picture of a bulldozer cresting a pile of (formerly pristine) state park dirt:

This takes you to Nava’s stop the tollroad page and apress relase by Nava boasting of his (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to block completion of the 241. I recommend reading the press release: it’s a nice, Reader’s-Digest-Condensed-Books version of the standard enviro-NIMBY cant about how awful this road would be.  I’ve posted about this litany of half-truths and fibs before — here, here and here, for example — so I’d rasther than expend pixels on it here.

I’d like to know why Nava has decided to pick on Orange County’s unfinished tollroad? Don’t his own consituetns have needs that can be taken care of? And why should Orange Countians care what a liberal Democrat from Santa Barbara has to say about our transportation situation (other than the fact he can use the power of being in the Democratic majority to muck with us)? After all, Nava represents a city, Santa Barbara, that is a testament to the unpalatable results of the no-growth agenda.

Currying favor with the environmental special interests that form such a powerful bloc within his Democratic Party would be my guess. Judging from his press release, Nava has done no thinking of his own in this matter.

But since Nava is inviting anyone to register their opposition to the toll road via his Assembly website, I would like to urge FR readers to use the opportunity to register their support for completing the 241 tollway.  It might surprise Mr. Nava to know there are Californians who actually want to build more roads and dopn’t buy his pre-frabricated hooey about how it will destroy the planet.