Letters.

No Dedicated Buses on Wilshire

All individuals concerned about the future of Wilshire-area communities should be aware of an important transportation decision that will be made in the coming weeks. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in the process of studying transportation alternatives for Wilshire Boulevard that will pick up where the subway leaves off at Western. This decision is one that will have impacts for generations to come.

On Friday, Feb. 4, consultants hired by the MTA issued their recommendations to the MTA board for alternatives to undergo further study. Their recommendations, they claim, came from months of meeting with community organizations and receiving input on, as they put it, "locally preferred alternatives."

What they recommended was more a justification for the MTA's pet project, a dedicated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, than a true representation of the community's wishes. In fact, nowhere in the report was reflected the Wilshire community's input.

The Wilshire Advocates Coalition is an organization made up of the key business, residential and community groups stretching from Wilshire Center to Miracle Mile. Not one person among us, nor among other Wilshire Community groups, supports this bus line. We know what it will do to our communities that we have spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours improving and beautifying.

The report issued to the MTA outlines the environmental issues associated with the BRT, citing: 1) Traffic diversion -- loss of two lanes (one lane each direction); 2) Access and circulation -- significant loss of left-turn lanes; 3) Parking -- loss of on street parking; 4) Impact to north/south traffic; and 5) Impaired access to local businesses.

In addition, the engineer who delivered the report to the MTA board said that the BRT would mean they would have to "effectively rebuild the middle of Wilshire Boulevard." This is not an option we can or will live with.

The Wilshire Advocates Coalition, in numerous meetings with MTA representatives, asked that a monorail be studied as a transportation solution for Wilshire Boulevard. Monorails are proving themselves to be fast, clean and cost-efficient transportation options in cities around the world. The MTA has completely ruled out even studying this alternative.

If community input is not going to be taken into consideration in the MTA's final decision, then we have one final piece of input: Please take your funding and put your dedicated bus elsewhere. It doesn't belong on Wilshire Boulevard!

GARY RUSSELL 

Executive Director

Wilshire Center Business Improvement Corp.

Policing the Polluters

On Jan. 31, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported that several businesses have accused the Santa Monica BayKeeper of extortion in its efforts to rid Los Angeles of polluted runoff from industrial facilities ("Businesses Accuse Environmental Group of Blackmail"). These accusations are untrue and are intended to discredit the BayKeeper, which has been an effective force in reducing pollution to the Santa Monica and San Pedro bays.

Los Angeles suffers from some of the worst water pollution in the nation which, increasingly, is the result of runoff from our urban environment. Both the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and the County of Los Angeles have recognized that junkyards are one of the worst-polluting industrial categories in Los Angeles.

Enforcement of the storm-water regulations by either the regional board or the county has been minimal. The importance of citizen suits when governmental regulatory agencies are overwhelmed, understaffed or unwilling to enforce the law has been recognized time and again by state and federal courts.

The accusations of extortion currently being made against BayKeeper are from a minority of local junkyards that refused to voluntarily undertake the measures necessary to bring their yards into compliance with the law. In particular, Sunlite Salvage, a scrap metal facility along Alameda Street in Los Angeles, has been engaged in litigation with the Santa Monica BayKeeper for more than a year. Rather than immediately undertake compliance measures at the Sunlite facility and settle the lawsuit, the operators of Sunlite refused to even discuss the pollution issues at the facility, preferring to litigate the lawsuit and conduct an attack against BayKeeper's motives. Operators of Sunlite went so far as to transfer part of business operations to a site without pollution control in an effort to avoid BayKeeper's scrutiny. Sunlite Salvage and Mr. Lite were found by a federal court to be in violation of the Clean Water Act and the state of California's storm-water permit.

Certainly, BayKeeper prefers to avoid the type of protracted litigation that is sometimes required to enforce environmental laws and would prefer to settle cases early. Indeed, the legal system is designed to foster settlement at numerous stages. This not only helps resolve differences between the parties but also reduces legal expense by the plaintiff as well as the defendants. BayKeeper will not be intimidated, however, by businesses that choose to litigate rather than come into compliance and settle a case, that choose to abuse the process to the environment's peril, or that choose to initiate a smear campaign against us.

STEVE FLEISCHLI

Executive Director

Santa Monica BayKeeper