SACRAMENTO ADDRESS
STATE CAPITOL
95814
9164450503

DISTRICT OFFICE
363 EL CAMINO REAL #205
SO SAN FRANCISCO CA 94080
415 952-5666

COMMITTEES
TRANSPORTATION CHAIRMAN
AGRICULTURE & WATER
RESOURCES
BANKING COMMERCE. AND
INTERNATIONAL TRADE
BUDGET AND FISCAL REVIEW
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
REVENUE AND TAXATION

SELECT COMMITTEES
DEFENSE BASE CLOSURES
MARITIME INDUSTRY
NORTHRIDGE EARTHQUAKE
PLANNING FOR CALIFORNIA'S GROWTH
STATE PROCUREMENT AND EXPENDITURE PRACTICES
VOTING PRACTICES AND PROCEDURES

SUBCOMMITTEES
BUDGET AND FISCAL REVIEW
SUBCOMMITTEE NO 4 ON LEGISLATIVE, EXECUTIVE BUSINESS TRANSPORTATION HOUSING AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT

JOINT COMMITTEES
JOINT COMMITTEE ON RULES

Mr. Peter Drekmeier
P.O. Box 371018
Montara, CA 94037

Dear Mr. Drekmeier:

I have received your letter of March 21, 1995. I've also read the letter of March 17, 1995 to which you refer.

I don't possess the inexhaustible time to debate or meet and discuss your pronounced views, although I will take time, as appropriate, to correct misinformation

Your tactics are transparent. You've abandoned the vaunted Marine Disposal Alternative almost literally overnight, after trying for more than 10 years to mislead the public into believing it was a worthwhile alignment. You shifted your target to another gossamer-like "solution", claiming that a two-lane tunnel is feasible. You know, that a different alignment results in a loss of federal funds and the requirement of a wholly new Environmental Impact Statement/ Environmental Impact Report. You know that the institution of the federally-required environmental process and the commencement of a new process for securing the necessary funds will consume several years, if not a decade. You also know that, notwithstanding the imminent commencement of reconstruction and the eventual reopening of the Devil's Slide portion of Highway 1, the road base inescapably narrows each time a slide occurs and that eventually the road base will not be susceptible to reconstruction or reopening

On the other hand, it is manifest that you're generally not desirous of a permanent alternative alignment, because of your misrepresentations that unjustifiable development at or near Montara Mountain will occur. I suggest you, "come as clean as a hound's tooth", to use President Eisenhower's immortal injunction to Vice President Nixon in 1952, about your intentions. Those objectives and misrepresentations about excessive development (or any development) are rather amusing, because it was the Sierra Club, dissatisfied with the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors version of a Local Coastal Plan (LCP), which spent time and effort to write its own local coastal plan, qualified it as an initiative for the November 1987 county-wide ballot and achieved passage of it. It did so upon the basis of representing to voters that it would prevent excessive development. If it doesn't, I strongly suggest you look at yourselves.

In short, if you pursue the tunnel, please be certain to advise all interested persons of the implications of doing so, please advise them also of the fact that a tunnel roadway usually costs more than a surface roadway and please concede to the public that you're willing to risk ultimately the permanent closure of Devil's Slide and the non-existence of any roadway between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay on the Coastside.

As I stated publicly, your tactics are contemptible and I do not intend to remain silent if you continue to dissemble.

Yours truly,
[signed]
QUENTIN L. KOPP

QLK:tt
Enclosure
cc: Hon. Ted Lempert

P.S. So that there's no excuse of your misrepresentations about the availability of funding for another alignment, I enclose a copy of a letter dated March 3, 1995 from the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration to Congressman Tom Lantos.

[handwritten]
I also enclose Dr. Bill Wattenburg's expressed and considered opinion.

[enclosures not yet scanned; hope to have that done soon -- Editor]