It's not just about bicycle trails and horse paths -- it's about democracy and accountability too

A scoping meeting April 3 reintroduced Southern California's proposed Emerald Necklace project to communities near the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers. According to environmental reporter Steve Scauzillo, the proposal was greeted with some skepticism.

The project is a plan for "interconnected bike, running and equestrian paths along the two rivers, from Peck Road Water Conservation Park in Arcadia on the north end to Whittier Narrows Recreational Area on the south end," Scauzillo writes. 

Such greening of heavily industrialized areas it can be agreed is, in and of itself, a good thing. So, Scauzillo asks, "how can people be against connecting bike lanes to river trails? Or adding a small park near the San Gabriel River?" 

He wonders whether the resistance he observed was a matter of "people conditioned to being against everything in CEQA." 

We at the Friends have tremendous respect for Steve, his reporter's eye, and his great writing. But in this case we wonder if he missed the larger issue at play -- that of concerns about democracy, transparency and accountability to the people.

People have come to understand -- rightly, in our experience with the Discovery Center project and other environmental matters -- that the CEQA process and other such meetings are often little more that ways in which government serves the interest of the powerful while either taking advantage of communities or tossing them a few easy scraps.

The Emerald Necklace is a project of the Watershed Conservation Authority, one of four supposedly independent agencies all run by the same individual. The state's department of finance criticized such arrangements in 2009 in these same agencies but the situation hasn't changed. Except to show a lack of accountability and consequences.

But the WCA and its parent Rivers and Mountains Conservancy are only two examples of power getting farther and farther away from the people. As Kevin Uhrich, of the Pasadena Weekly pointed out regarding the powerful county MTA, it is "but one of many such boards that make monumental decisions, recommend spending lots of money and forward critical recommendations to other governing boards, yet are populated by nothing but already elected officials, who are paid stipends and other perks for their 'extra service.'"

More paths along these rivers is a good thing, but you could hardly do further damage to the rivers at this point, encased as they are in concrete for much of their courses.

Not so for natural stretches of the Santa Clara River in the north, which developers and their allies in government want to channelize so they can build more houses, make more profit, and exchange more campaign and lobbying dollars for access and influence.

The question isn't "Why are people opposed to bike trails?" The question is, as Uhrich wrote, "how to use the instruments of democracy that we have available to make our present system stronger, more inclusive and representative, and better.

We wish the Emerald Necklace project great success. And we wish the communities it is supposed to serve the representative and responsive government that is so often lacking.

Whittier Narrows Master Plan meeting Wednesday

A meeting to solicit comments from the public on a new master plan for the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area is scheduled to take place Wednesday from 2 - 4 p.m. in Pico Rivera.

The location of the meeting is the Pico Rivera Parks and Recreation Department's community room, 6767 Passons Blvd.

The meeting is being called by the Watershed Conservation Authority, a joint powers authority consisting of the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.

How is bulldozing dozens of mature trees and paving over wildlife habitat in a county Significant Ecological Area to build a meeting center for bureaucrats and a 150-car parking lot in any way compatible with conservation or restoration?

The information I've picked up from the project's Notice of Preparation and from an article in the Whittier Daily News raise a few questions.

First, why is the WCA the lead agency on this rather than the landowner, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers? (USACE's Sepulveda Basin Master Plan is also being revised, but there the corps apparently hasn't ceded control of the planning process.)

Second, why is the Whittier Narrows scoping meeting being held midweek, 2 - 4 p.m.? Is the WCA intentionally trying to suppress public participation? Or is the WCA staff simply disinclined toward weekend or evening meetings? (Again, contrast this with USACE's Saturday, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., meeting regarding Sepulveda Basin.)

And third, why is the Discovery Center being proposed for what is identified in the new master plan as a conservation and restoration zone? (See map above.) How is bulldozing dozens of mature trees and paving over wildlife habitat in a county Significant Ecological Area to build a meeting center for bureaucrats and a 150-car parking lot in any way compatible with conservation or restoration?

The logic stays screwy when you read in the Whittier Daily News that Norma E. Garcia, deputy director for Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation, says they "didn't want to intensify the use of Whittier Narrows."

How is doubling annual visitation of the natural area to 120,000 people without first analyzing the potential impacts of such growth anything other than intensifying use of Whittier Narrows?

Perhaps the county and the RMC need to get their story straight.