Re: TOD housing/Derry Project/Information Item on 3/03 Agenda- City Council Meeting

Hon. Mayor and Council Members, et al

These are some of the comments I mentioned Saturday at Meet-the-Mayor from the occupants of the $1m+ high rise condos and $2500 rentals alongside the rail in San Diego. I told the city manager that I would forward them.

Note: First comment by David Priver - a member of the American Medical Association, the California Medical Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, all of whom hold massive conventions in San Diego - and his intention to write to all three to encourage them to stop holding meetings until "these ridiculous train horns are stopped".

Another, Winston Stevenson, a licensed pilot He said he and his son watched a train crew hanging out the window to look up at his building and then let the horn rip while laughing. He wrote: "I intend to take this up with the Real Estate Board No one said they were aware of any issues affecting the property"

Mike Arnold of Novato, on our regional rail plan, wrote of that city's litigation ongoing with the railroad.

Paul Kerby, the $2500 renter, wrote "I am losing my mind over the train" Feels like he is going to die...Is sure idiot at the horn thinks it is hilarious ..He can't wait to move...

Also note elsewhere on this Sleepless in San Diego web site that the Center City Design Committee thinks that the horn rule must be changed. One rule does not fit all. Hopes are for grade separations one day. In the meantime redevelopment money is paying to establish "quiet zones". (Johnson@ccdc.com).

Here in Menlo Park it will be many years before the rail is separated from vehicles due to recalcitrance of city officials (without adequate public input). Now two remarks by MP and Atherton council members at a joint meeting on grade separations suddenly switched to HSR, which should be unrelated, and the fearmongering of a "disaster" went all the way to Washington from press releases next day. Where is a survey of the people and not just a few men? We know that the railroads will win in the end. Let us think Site Location, Location, Location, Mitigation, Mitigation, Mitigation!

In the meantime, how many strokes, heart attacks, etc. will occur due to the severe stress of being assaulted around the clock with a deadly weapon while unprotected?
Acoustic trauma, in addition to raising blood pressure, is capable of bucklling the knees and freezing people in their tracks with just one blast.

The outcome of a class action lawsuit for all the injuries and damages which have already occurred to residents here and all over the country would make the tobacco
lawsuits look like small claims

The goal of the railroads is to protect themselves from liability for a few careless, risk-taking people for the most part. The railroads' liability extends to
neighbors when they speak of "SAFETY".  

Perhaps the O'Brien developers should redesign their project to eliminate housing. The "disaster" is in establishing another human habitat in a known hazardous, polluted area which was revealed to them at the very first meeting with their e.i.r. consultants. My subsequent letter was attached to the draft e.i.r.

When speaking of "liability" and "quiet zones" it should also be noted that there was an Assembly Bill introduced last year by Florez/Bakersfield on that issue. A hearing was scheduled in Sacramento for January '08.. I believe off the top of my head that it was AB150/2007-8.

Assembly bills often don't go anywhere so we shouldn't hold our breath on bills for HSR funding despite the press articles published on the MTC web site last week and e-mailed to the MP e-mail log yesterday.

Now where are these issues on the Menlo Park Project Priority Settings I submit that if another year passes they will be heard in the courts.

Please save all correspondence and petitions. Menlo Park apparently has already lost two petitions. The last one was not delivered to the City Clerk as required. Jan Dolan, a former city manager, admitted the loss of the first one. I have her e-mail filed somewhere and one day may unearth the other one.

Margaret Petitjean, Menlo Park
H.A.L.T, H.O.R.N

attached mail follows:

http://www.quietzonesd.info/CommentsShared.html Received on Mon Mar 3 11:46:49 2008