Sharon Williams, San Clemente
Dear Editor,
As a longtime resident of San Clemente, I am deeply concerned by our mayor’s suggestion that the Transportation Corridor Agencies’ (TCA) toll road should go through the protected areas south of town. In the Jan. 3-9 edition of the San Clemente Times article “Looking Forward,” Mayor Steve Swartz said of the toll road controversy, “The solution they need is to connect back to the (I-)5 further north of us, or go around us, through the base and have it connect to the south.” The TCA is barred from building through San Onofre State Beach, the Donna O’Neill Land Conservancy and the northern coastal portion of Camp Pendleton.
The protection of these areas was won in a long and hard fight with the TCA. Currently, the San Clemente City Council is suing to undermine this protection. The mayor’s southern “solution” alternative would only be possible by invalidating popular and historic protections won to preserve some of our most treasured and pristine local assets. The lawsuit also does nothing to protect San Clemente from a toll road. I am adamantly opposed to Mayor Swartz’s suggestion that those protected lands be a possible site of a new toll road. And as such, I oppose their efforts, and our city tax dollars being spent, to destroy the protection of these vital local assets.
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