Bad Decision on Reseda Extension

Councilman Marvin Braude’s decision to support the extension of Reseda Boulevard to Mulholland Drive will open up the Santa Monica Mountains to urbanization and new landfills.

Mark Volmert, aide to Supervisor Pete Schabarum, confirmed in a telephone call I made to him three months ago that the county considers Rustic and Sullivan canyons “high technical bests” as new solid waste landfill sites. Volmert also said the canyons had been owned by the county for more than 30 years with that purpose in mind.

Chris Funk, the attorney for the developer who is extending Reseda to Mulholland, is also the attorney for Browning-Ferris Industries, the landfill management company that is in the process of extending the Sunshine Canyon Landfill. In a hearing Oct. 5, Funk was reported in The Times as saying, “The city would not have the power to thwart a land-use approved in county territory.”

If that is true of Sunshine Canyon, it is equally true of Rustic and Sullivan, which are located between the communities of Brentwood-Pacific Palisades and Encino-Tarzana. The road to Rustic and Sullivan Canyon county dumps will be Reseda on the north and the south, as well as Mulholland Drive on the east and west. Braude and Funk are in constant contact, as our citizens watchdog group has learned to our dismay.

The battle over the Reseda Boulevard connection is whether or not the citizens of Los Angeles are going to preserve or destroy the last clean air shed in the basin and the irreplaceable resource of a Santa Monica Mountains national park. Braude cannot save the mountains if he accedes to building this road.

JEAN ROSENFELD

Tarzana