Dear Editor: 11/24/99
The first salvo in Ed Andrisek's campaign for supervisor has been fired. Result: a well-crafted proposal to leverage millions of dollars in outside funding with $400,000 in county money was critically wounded. Andrisek agreed the Ellwood bicycle/pedestrian bridge is desperately needed, but said "I wanted to send a message to the county."
We got the candidate's message all right: Not only is he willing to sacrifice the public good in a transparently crass political maneuver, but he demonstrated extremely poor judgment in choosing to kill this particular project. Bicycle/Pedestrian crossings of the freeway in Goleta are acknowledged to be the most urgently needed transportation projects in the third district and are widely supported. "Saving" us from paying $400,000 to get a multi-million dollar bridge hardly discredits Gail Marshall, who crafted the bridge funding and who he'd face in the Supervisorial race.
Thanks to Andrisek, we still have the problem of how to fund the bridge, but at least we don't have to waste any effort wondering if we should vote for him.
Art Ludwig