‘Exercising Rights’ to Protect Carson

Re: “Carson Council Struggles to Fill Gaps at City Hall,” by Anthony Millican (Times, Feb. 17).

I am one of the Carson residents who frequently speaks before the Carson City Council, but I don’t feel we are “lashing out” at a city official. I feel we are exercising our rights to try to protect our homes and city from big business, which seems to have more influence on city officials than is healthy for Carson citizens.

In the last two to three years, we have had to fight City Hall to prevent the construction of 138 homes on land that should only have 106 according to code. This had been approved by staff and presented with a request to reduce lot sizes to 4,000 square feet from 5,000. Next there was a tentative approval by staff for a McDonald’s on a site that we proved to be totally inadequate after several public hearings.

We have seen approval of a major development with a questionable EIR, which promised adequate water in face of the drought and severe problems with traffic congestion.

The closure of several mobile home parks has been tossed around for more than two years, with high costs to the city.

As Councilman Mitoma states, “There’s just no damn leadership.”

JAMES H. WHITMORE, M.D.

Carson