CHSP South Entrance in Danger?

[Frozen208]

I had this email forwarded to me, thought I would pass it along.

We are dangerously close to losing the South entrance to Chino Hills State Park. There is another Brea City Council Meeting on Oct.21st if you care to come and voice your support for wild areas we still have left. Your help is needed!!! As you can see below, wild land is fighting developer’s money in the form of BRIBES.

This letter is from Clair Schlotterbeck, the Director of Hills for Everyone, who is the main organization fighting the Canyon Crest Development and the development of the Shell/Aria property in Brea Cyn. & Powder Cyn.

Read up on the situation here ~ www.hillsforeveryone.org also - http://www.savethemissingmiddle.org/




In our email earlier this week announcing the Brea City Council meeting on Canyon Crest, we mentioned the investment group that "owns the land tried to silence us - don't let them silence you." Enough people wrote or called wanting to know what that meant that I thought I needed to respond. This is Part One - more next week.
___________

Did you ever feel that "the way of the world" stacks the cards against you? We feel your pain.

The Shopoff Investment Group convinced themselves they cannot succeed solely on the strength of their own arguments supporting approval of their 165 unit Canyon Crest project. So they chose to use the strength of their pocket book instead.

Throughout the Brea Planning Commission hearings from April to June, strengthened by the thoughtful and factual testimony of residents, our attorneys presented numerous legally sound arguments against the project. Nevertheless the Planning Commission approved the project on a close 3-2 vote on June 24th.

Two weeks later an intermediary for the Shopoff Group offered me, as a Hills For Everyone representative, $1 million for "an acquisition or for using it any way we wanted to use it" - if we "went away."

In most circles this is known as "hush money." With stomach churning, I nevertheless, took the offer to our Board of Directors who considered the offer and unanimously turned it down. Most reactions were:
"Who do they think we are?"
"What the &*#@!"
"That is not who we are."

Just to be clear, this is not a bribe because we have no power to make a decision on the Canyon Crest project and there is nothing illegal about the offer. In fact, I am told this is just smart business practice and everybody does it. Really? In 30 years working to conserve land, this has never happened before. We have participated in negotiations we thought were wise, but we have never been offered money to just go away - in 30 years, in four counties, never before.

If this is standard operating procedure then why is this sort of thing whispered in the halls and not announced proudly from the rafters. Why, three months later is it still uncomfortable for me to even bring it into the light? I think it is because these kinds of backdoor dealings are found in the raw, base, shadowy, and musty alleys of our communities. And the smelly odor lingers in the air for a long time even if you just passed by the alley.

Finally, if anyone doubts the truth of this I would be willing to sign an affidavit.

You have a chance to use your precious freedom of speech at the City Council meeting on October 21. I hope you do. More next week.

Sincerely,

Claire Schlotterbeck
Executive Director
Hills For Everyone

[RustyIron]

And if you can't make the meeting, you can donate through PayPal. Just visit their web page and click on the DONATE button.

[un-kola]

This makes sense now.Several years ago (late'90s early '00s),the boyscouts were ready to sell that property to the consevancy.All they had to do was sign the paperwork.Then City of Industry suddenly stepped in and offered more money.A lot more money.The boyscouts took City of Industrys' offer.The consevancy thought that they had a sealed deal with the boyscouts so the sale went into litigation for a number of years,but ultimately Industry won.At the time they claimed that they,(Industry),were looking to preserve a water source.Yeah...riiiiggghhhtt.Nobody at the time could figure out why they bought because Diamond Bar sits between Industry and that piece of land.The City of Industry is strictly a corporate city.They have about 500 residents,and they would like to get rid of them if they could.Never,ever trust anything the City of Industry says!This is going to be a tough fight for the consevancy.- Lloyd

[DirtRider]

How would this close the South entrance? I am looking at their project site map and it looks like their site is further in the Carbon Canyon not near the Telegraph south entrance.... am i missing something??