Hospital is using scare tactics against the traffic initiative

I remember back in 1978 when politicians told us how the sky was going to fall if Proposition 13 passed. Voters saw through their arguments then, and I hope voters today will reject Los Robles Hospital's scare tactics regarding the Thousand Oaks traffic initiative.

The fact is the hospital's earthquake retrofitting and expansion is below the initiative's 100,000-square-foot trigger because they have vested rights. Moreover, if they don't worsen traffic congestion to below a Level C, they can expand more.

Further, I don't believe that a majority of voters would deny the hospital's upgrading. I, for one, support both the hospital and the traffic initiative.

It's truly sad that some elected officials think that the voters can't be trusted with the right to vote on large projects that cause unacceptable levels of traffic and that we can't tell the difference between good projects and bad developments.

Last, all large projects require millions of dollars in architectural and planning fees before the City Council approves them. The same "crapshoot" that hospital spokesperson Kris Carraway-Bowman claims developers will face if the traffic initiative passes is only a sure thing if a backroom deal has been made between the developer and the City Council. I truly hope this isn't an admission of how she operated when she was on the Westlake Village City Council.

The traffic initiative will give us the right to vote. Don't let politicians scare you into giving that up. Julie Barker Thousand Oaks