Toll-road foes are selfish

Why is it you only print the comments against the toll road? These are narrow-minded people that do not wish to share their local surfing spot.

As a surfer for many years, I have personally experienced this. When I first moved to San Clemente, I was shouted at, told to get off the waves, etc. I grew up in Malibu, and that was the typical attitude. I was stunned to find it in laid-back Orange County.

Perhaps these people should really look at the facts. Fact 1: We need the toll road for safety. No one can count on the I-5 as a quick way out in an emergency. La Pata, when complete, will not hold all the traffic either.

Why is everyone afraid of progress or change? Imagine if the home they live in was not built due to a few people that didn’t want a new neighborhood. Talega, anyone? Where would they live?

It’s time the good people of Sonny’s take a look at the real issues in the area: rundown rentals, gangbangers, high traffic, illegal immigrants, not enough employment for our high school kids, etc. Maybe when they take a look at being part of a solution, and not decide how everyone else should live, this once-beautiful city could rise again.

Without some of the newer construction, many parts of this community simply look like the barrio.

Michael Jones

San Clemente

241 wouldn’t alleviate I-5

Sue Waltman’s fears of homes and buildings being displaced by widening of the I-5 are real. They will be when it is widened to relieve traffic, whether or not the 241 is extended, because the proposed extension will not deflect much north/south traffic. It would serve to help drain traffic in and out of the 14,000 homes approved to be built on Rancho Viejo over the next 20 years.

And we’ve been told that if the 241 isn’t extended, that need will still be served by a way less invasive new parkway that would then be constructed by the ranch developers. The TCA has always known that once the backcountry was allowed to fill in as it has, they purposely left themselves no alternative other than the one they blindly pursue as their manifest destiny.

The more realistic, economical and softer options here are to extend Cristianitos to the 241 and La Pata to Ortega Highway.

As for Waltman’s intent to boycott Sonny’s, the Pezmans for one, pledge to increase their frequency to help make up for it.

Steve Pezman

San Clemente

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