Why Slow Growth Lost, What Will Happen Now

The Times is right (June 12). Measure A was badly written. But even sadder, it was amateurishly promoted though well-intentioned. Certainly Tom Rogers’ wizard idea deserved better handling.

The Times, too, was right: Measure A, even in failing, sent a message to politicians that all is not well with their trusteeship.

Voters now sense that the supervisors, in approving new housing developments, pack traffic: the more housing, the more people; the more people, the more cars.

County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder (against Measure A in her weird pit bull defense of Irvine Co.’s earth-defacing 3,200-unit Laguna Laurel housing project) has perplexingly frog-hopped from mass transit to freeways, suggesting insincerity. Recently she had offered an interesting solution: an elevated rail system sliding on air, as I understand it. A supportable notion.

Then she appointed herself and two other development-minded supervisors (but to soften the approach said they would only be “non-voting members”) to an 11-member citizens growth management committee--presumably to police the committee. Holy Wow! Perhaps she could present it her sliding mass-transit rail idea. Implemented, that would control growth.

County officials should look the way Measure A pointed. If they don’t, or even if they do, the people will.

TOM ALEXANDER

Laguna Beach