Readers Respond with Letters to LA Weekly About Zuma Dogg's Grand Avenue Project Article

The Grand Scheme

The Grand Avenue Project is even worse than Zuma Dogg indicates [“Eli Broad’s Grand Illusion,” July 20–26]. First of all, there’s the increased traffic it will create. The existing freeways through and around downtown are already at gridlock much of the time, as are the surface streets downtown. Any attempt to increase the capacity of any of these freeways will be horrifically expensive, even if their capacity could be increased. As the Legislature is considering cutting substantial amounts from the transportation budget, these costs would have to be borne by local taxpayers.

Then there is water. We are in the midst of a major drought. The Legislature wants local government to bear the costs of increasing water capacity. There’s no sign the developers of Grand Avenue will be asked to pay the costs of bringing in the additional water their project will require. Once again, the taxpayers will have to pay for this, if it is done at all. In a rational world, local government would put a moratorium on all development until we figure out where the water will come from and who will pay this cost. But this is not a rational world.

Finally, as Zuma Dogg says, we don’t need this development. We’ve seen vanity books, vanity movies, vanity cars, vanity houses. And now we have a vanity redevelopment project, no different except in scale and no more useful than the 16,000-square-foot houses some people want to build.


Stanton J. Price
Glendale

Two Gold Stars

I just wanted to say thanks for the good reporting on the following two articles: “Antonio’s Kitchen Cabinet,” by Patrick Range McDonald [July 20–26] and “Eli Broad’s Grand Illusion” by Zuma Dogg [July 20–26]. Your stories are far more informative than most L.A. Times articles. Your writers really investigate and report, which is lacking in so many news media today.

Fred Castillo
Duarte

LA Weekly "Letters" page

Thanks Mr. Price and Mr. Castillo! That was a real highlight for me to see those letters published in the paper like that! Yeah, yeah...that's MY stuff they are talking about. That's right! They were so moved, they couldn't help but express their opinions publicily! LOL!

zumadogg@gmail.com