Connecting with a cleaner world
Supporters believe much-maligned 710 Freeway tunnels will greatly ease congestion and dramatically improve air quality for millions of people
By Barbara Messina 01/17/2013
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Why is this perfect example of lies about the 710 even given space for printing?? Babs obviously has invested some way in this proposed project, no doubt, nefariously, subject to yet another huge fine for illegal practices. Check out the facts before taking any of this to heart, read all the official documentation on www.no710.com
Wake up Barbara! Seriously it's more like disconnecting from a "Clean World". Exhaust from freeways shortens our lifespan. Building toll tunnels that will dump MAJOR pollution into residential neighborhoods is just BAD planning. If you want facts go to: "No 710 Freeway Extension" on Facebook and read REAL information. Messina is bought and paid when it comes to the 710. The people want light rail to move people, cargo rail to move goods and these kind of investments.
If I were a resident of Alhambra, after reading this concoction of lies, I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.
How is it that someone who misappropriated $14,000, was not prosecuted, and was elected Mayor? What kind of a City government could return such a person to power?
Everything in this piece is a gross distortion and underestimation of the costs and health and safety risks posed by building a tunnel under the Arroyo Seco Historic Parkland. Shame on you Messina for all if your gross misrepresentations.
Paula S.
Pasadena, Ca.
Barbara Messina cites public polling in favor of completing the 710 tunnel. I would like to know if the pollsters included in their question: "Would you be willing to pay a toll of up to $15 to take the tunnel?" This little detail (actually a big issue) keeps getting left out of the conversation by the pro-710 folks. If commuters avoid paying the toll, (and I don't blame them) they end up on the city streets leading to more congestion. If trucks are the only commuters paying the toll, you have trucks carrying freight from the Ports in the tunnel clogging up the 210 and 134. She also cites the cost. The so-called "Big Dig" in Boston ended up costing $22 billion. Why does she think the cost will only be $5.3 billion?
What is sad here is our bureaucracies are working harder for the interests of foreign countries and their need to get their slave labor manufactured cheap plasticware out of the ports and to American markets more efficiently than they are the people whose taxes pay their salaries. Can we call it treason yet?
Knowing something about Barbara, I can't help but wonder who helped her write this nonsense. She has a tough time with complete paragraphs, let alone an entire opinion piece.
It is hard to take anything she says seriously due to her long history of ethical lapses. If Barbara says the 710 tunnel is a good thing, then I know it isn't - at least not for the public.
Citywatchla.com has the best explanation of the "in bed" Politics of the Fasana/ Messina cabal. Please look for the Najarian article published yesterday. It beautifully explains the sorted relationship between Messina and SGVSOG. 86 people from Duarte will decide the fate of the region. This is good old boy style politics at it's worst.
Don't let these crooked politicians determine the future of the region we all live in and love.
Paula S.
Pasadena, Ca.
The big mystery here is who wrote this piece for Barbara Messina. After having done extensive research on this person, countless hours of having to listen to her irritating voice, and well acquainted with her speech pattern, I am of the opinion she does not posses the vocabulary to execute this narrative. The written piece contains grammatical structure that is not consistant with her speech patterns, technical knowledge that she could not previously grasp. Did Katehrine Padilla or Bo Huddy write this for her. This piece is more consistant with that of a consultant than Barbara Messina. By the way, no one has come to El Sereno to ask anyone what we think about ths tunnel, that in itself is a lie.
I question all of the points Mayor Messina makes about the SR 710 EIR starting with the header “Connecting with a cleaner world.” How will adding more traffic, which will result in more congestion and in turn more vehicle emissions result in a cleaner world? You don’t have to be an engineer to know that adding road capacity increases vehicle usage and congestion. We saw what happened when the 210 was extended east. The only way to reduce congestion and clean the air in the LA basin is to REDUCE THE USE OF VEHICLES. Not only will the 710 tunnel not result in less vehicles and cleaner air, it will blow the vehicle exhaust out of the ends of the tunnel which means at the north, the Huntington Hospital and Sequoyah School and, at the south, the border between El Sereno and Alhambra near many residential neighborhoods. I wonder how many residents in these neighborhoods know the danger to their health this poses? And since it’s being promoted at a public-private partnership, the cost of the 710 tunnel will be supported by tolls estimated at $8-$12 per trip. I wonder how many of those “supporters” Messina refers to in her article would be willing to pay this toll or are even aware of it? Mayor Messina may have people in Alhambra fooled but she can’t fool those in other cities who have representatives that are asking the right questions.
Please print in letters:
Ever feel like you're being manipulated into undermining your own instinct? Think back when we were kids. We knew when we were told about the starving children that we should appreciate the food on our dinner plate and wanting a cookie instead was wrong. We knew we were being manipulated into eating what we didn't have an appetite for. That sent some of us into a resistance and a stubborn inner "no" no matter how many times we were told finishing that plate was the healthy choice and the right thing to do.
That's the same feeling I got when I read the January 17, 2003 letter from Barbara Messina published in the Pasadena Weekly. Only the dinner plate is full of freeways, traffic, big rig trucks, pollution, neighborhood devastation and 9 miles of toll tunnels through El Sereno, South Pasadena, and Pasadena, and the mommy is Alhambra Mayor Barbara Messina. What kind of mother pushes a poisonous plate at her young ones and tells them it's healthy?
As residents of this densely populated already freeway full area, our appetite has been ruined. The sugar cookies of Metro's other projects; light rail, bikeways, buses and trams, pedestrian paths are being held hostage until we finish the rancid 710 meat rotting after 6 decades in front of us. It's abusive to make anyone sit at the dinner table until every morsel on that plate is gulped down, especially when mommy knows it will make us sick.
I don't understand Barbara Messina. Her city, Alhambra is a planning mess. The streets are continually denuded of trees and parkways to cater to automobile traffic. High density housing and office buildings are built by design to cater to individual automobiles and not to be inclusive or accessible to any other more affordable form or convenient transportation model. What qualifies as future public health to her? More freeways?
Does she have a plan to put a glass bubble over Alhambra to keep the freeway pollutants out? What about all of the cars of residents that cram her streets just to get around? She helped create a localized traffic nightmare instead of guiding her city to alleviate it by not creating building density near transportation centers. If she really wanted Alhambra to mimic the Alhambra of Spain and the streets of Granada, then that would require the narrowing of streets not widening them and making her city a walkable one.
Barbara Messina certainly cannot claim ignorance. She is informed by her own involvement with experts in SCAG, COG, and the Metro Board. Yet she appears to want a sugar cookie instead of a healthy, fortifying dinner herself. Her sugar cookie is the 710 Freeway and she resists other healthy offerings with a firm "no." How weird. There is no sweetness in that.
Dianne Patrizzi
Pasadena, CA
If they build it, I promise to use it.
The stats that Messina quotes of all these cities that want the project were collected by Alhambra's own lobbyist years ago. And that was for the surface route not a tunnel. Ask Miss Barbara how much Alhambra has paid for the pro-710 lobbyists over the years?? A lot. There are so many holes in Messina's statements that she is frankly not worth my time to dispute them. Get the facts on no710.com. Her recent attempt to get Ara Najarian off the MTA Board just shows she doesn't play well with others and that people should question every single word and action that she does. It's too bad too. Because those of us who want responsible transportation solutions would be willing to help Alhambra too if she weren't so nasty.
Barbara? Have you paid that $14,000 FPPC fine yet? How's Nick Conway doing?