Please help us bring some transparency and accountability to twenty years of wasted expenditures by sending the below email to the Wildlife Conservation Board.

to: WCBCorridors@wildlife.ca.gov

subject: Opposition to premature Ballona Wetlands funding decision

body:

Dear Chair Bokde and members of the Wildlife Conservation Board,

In August of 2004, the State Coastal Conservancy indicated that restoration planning for the Ballona Wetlands Restoration Project was “expected to take three years and cost up to two million dollars.” (tinyurl.com/Small2004) Instead, it has now cost over $12 million and taken over 19 years with no current budget projection or timeline for completion of planning for the full project. There has been highly polarized discussion for many decades about how best to restore the Ballona Wetlands. However, both supporters and critics of the proposed plans should agree that it is not prudent to spend another $2.8 million in public funds without a clear understanding of how this requested funding will be managed more effectively than past funding. For those reasons, I am respectfully requesting that you change item #40 on your preliminary agenda for the November meeting to an informational presentation and then revisit the funding authorization at a subsequent meeting, after governmental agencies and public stakeholder groups have submitted comments that will help the California Department of Fish and Wildlife assess the true scope of the remaining work. This will allow for more informed decision-making and help avoid yet another funding authorization for this planning process which fails to fulfill its purpose.