Opinions, and letters to the editor

Joel Anderson

There is nothing more terri­fying than watching a wall of flame sweep toward one’s home and family. My family and I were at Ground Zero in our Al­pine home as the Cedar fire dev­astated many of our neighbors and friends property.

It was only a miracle of God and the incredible courage of our firefighters that prevented our house from being one of the over 2200 homes destroyed in this devastating disaster which killed 15 of our East County neighbors including a fire fight­er.

During and afterwards I thought of those most vulner­able to these fire-storms; the el­derly, disabled and housebound. Is there access to escape routes? Can our first responders access someone in need quickly?

As our region develops with more homes to meet our grow­ing population, various East County road improvements, expansions and safety enhance­ments have been promised to meet these needs. As taxpayers, we have been paying a 1/2 cent sales tax increase for 15 years to pay for these promised roads.

Now downtown politicians and planners in the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) a board chaired by Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, have proposed diverting much of our road funds to additional trol­ley, transit and high speed rail projects. Not only will this place additional traffic on our already clogged roads and not meet the needs of East County’s future growth, but it will increase am­bulance response times and the danger wildfire emergencies pose to all of us, especially for the elderly, disabled and house­bound.

I don’t know about you but I am tired of paying taxes with the promise of road expansions, repairs and safety improve­ments to only be disappointed when I hear that SANDAG’s downtown elites have, yet again, decided to steal our money for trolley projects and new public mass transit “vision plans” we didn’t ask for.

It’s time for East County to stand up and fight for our roads.

Joel Anderson is a former state senator and a 35 year resident of Alpine.

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