Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007 | Re: “Promised Habitat Conservation Funding Dealt Another Delay.”
I cannot fathom why the preserve in question has not yet been purchased and maintenance funding mechanisms adopted. Local voters have voted to tax themselves to the tune of almost $100 billion over the last 20 years so that SANDAG and its local government members would be able to purchase and maintain the regions last remaining wildlands as mitigation for all the new transportation elements we’ve built over the last 30 years.
Yet, year after year, the politicians on SANDAG’s board keep promising to fund and maintain the preserves, yet, year after year, they kept moving the money into developer subsidy boondoggles like the SR 125 South Toll Road project — projects that enable developers to begin shoving new housing subdivisions into the very preserve areas they had promised to save and maintain.
SR 125 South was originally promoted as a privately financed toll road, yet SANDAG and CalTrans have sunk hundreds of millions of tax dollars into it, primarily to benefit big housing developers who have bought up land on either side of the right of way. They will reep billions, and the pols hope they’ll get some of those profits in the form of future campaign contributions.
This is no way to run this crooked little town, folks. The voters need to wake up and start holding these elected officials accountable at the polls.