Date: Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Subject: An Open Letter to Jan Chatten-Brown from CAS
To: Citizens Against Stadium <citizensagainststadium@gmail.
Cc: jlim@ci.walnut.ca.us, tcartagena@ci.walnut.ca.us, tking@ci.walnut.ca.us, msu@ci.walnut.ca.us, ntragarz@ci.walnut.ca.us
Feb. 11, 2009
Dear Jan,
Thank you for your 'Open Letter to Residents of Walnut Concerned about the Proposed NFL Stadium' (see attached)
After review of your letter, we as a group of very concerned residents in the Walnut and Diamond Bar area, would like to express our serious concerns and comments to your letter as follows:
1. Why did we see so many times, the word "mitigation measures" in your letter? In the third paragraph you wrote you will ask Industry to "adopt all feasible mitigation measures and alternatives." In the fourth paragraph you wrote "the City of Walnut will continue to try to identify the most stringent mitigation measures feasible and propose them to Industry in case the stadium project is ultimately approved." You also wrote you want our views, and said "Your views on what measures could be best to protect the interests of Walnut residents would be very much welcome."
We think the central focus of your work for us should not be to keep finding 'Mitigation Measures' instead, your focus should be to ask the City of Industry to redo a completely new EIR which will fully disclose all the negative impacts which were either not disclosed, or not fully disclosed, or disclosed in error in the EIR they just certified!
2. In your 5th paragraph, you asked the residents to provide you with specific adverse impacts of the proposed stadium project. The whole purpose of a new EIR is to disclose all of the specific adverse impacts. We need to hire a team of experts to provide accurate data to prove to the court that serious adverse environmental impacts do exist! It should be our City's responsibility to hire a team of experts to gather all the specific adverse impact information. You wrote we need "photographs of traffic or testimony about how long it already takes you to travel on streets that would be impacted". This data might be helpful, but what we really need again is comprehensive expert analysis and evaluation of all the negative impacts, supported by accurate data and not a few residents' unscientific pictures or comments!
3. In your 6th paragraph, you asked us to provide you with studies about "economic benefit". If you go to our website http://www.nonflstadium.com , you will find so many study and articles about this subject. Attached is the link to one of the studies at http://www.cppa.utah.edu/
There is so much research available to prove that the long term, sustaining 'economic benefit' from stadium project claimed by the developer is simply not true.
4. In your 7th paragraph, you asked us to explain why the Industrial Business Center planned originally would be better than the Stadium and Entertainment Complex.
Again, it is unfair for the residents to provide you the explanation. This analysis should be done by the traffic engineer, economist and other experts who must be hired by our City, to fully compare the two projects economic and environmental impacts to the regions.
We have consulted with other real estate attorneys who are well versed in the CEQA law, and we were advised that:
If we want to legally challenge the EIR, it is perfectly legal to do so NOW!!!
We know that you are a very reputable environmental attorney. Unless you have been instructed otherwise by our City Council Members, we urge you to reconsider your present stand on legal action to challenge the EIR and advise our City Council members to authorize you to take that action NOW!
We, the Walnut residents are counting on you to take the most aggressive stand to legally challenge the EIR NOW and later legally challenge the 'Project' once it is approved. We look forward to your continuing effort to protect us. We will do our very best to support you. Your hard work and the ultimate success will be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
CITIZENS AGAINST STADIUM
PROTECT WALNUT, DIAMOND BAR, ROWLAND HEIGHTS, AND OTHER SURROUNDING CITIES!
PROTECT OUR CHILDREN AND OUR QUALITY OF LIFE!
PS. We noticed that your open letter was printed on the City of Walnut's letterhead without your signature, please provide explanation if possible. Thanks
Open Letter to Residents of Walnut Concerned about the Proposed NFL Stadium
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