EFFINGER: Truth kills Merriam objections

Never let it be said opponents of the proposed Merriam Mountains project ever felt the need to incorporate "truth" into the "facts" they use to frighten area residents into opposition. If held to the same standard of documentation and scrutiny the project's developers have been, the entire circus opponents have created would have never materialized.

The opposition's continued use of the term "out-of-town developer" in published material funded by deep-pocket owners of The Golden Door, the out-of-town Blackstone Group (home office: New York City), is only one minor example of the silly attempts to engender fear and rage among locals.

Golden Door surrogates have repeatedly claimed road-widening at Deer Springs Road is driven by the development of this project, rather than admitting the road had been slated to be widened under the county's Circulation Element and that The Golden Door's founder, Deborah Szekely, acknowledged those plans when acquiring the property.

Traffic will continue to get worse along Deer Springs whether the Merriam project is built or not. But it will most assuredly be considerably worse if the millions the developers would spend to widen the road and bridge at I-15 are not available because the project is denied.

The developers have committed to infrastructure improvements that benefit a wide swath of inland North County, including road and intersection improvements in San Marcos, Vista and unincorporated areas. These improvements would be decades away if county government is relied upon to fund them on their own.

Claims of potential fire-safety hazards collapse under critical analysis. A doomsday scenario of wildfires decimating the project in a matter of minutes take conditions of the site in its undeveloped state and impose the results on it as if they would remain the same when developed. Fire-safe planting, fire sprinklers in the homes, noncombustible construction materials and other techniques to slow and keep fire from spreading are nonsensically ignored when evaluating fire danger. Also ignored are Merriam's plans to build a new state-of-the-art fire station and provide funding to the Deer Springs Fire Protection District well in excess of $1 million.

One opponent, writing in this paper, recently implied that the reason there was no school in current plans was educators knew something sinister about the safety of the project and were disinclined to build there as a result. Absurd.

The only reason there is no school in current plans is because the project lies within multiple school district jurisdictions that are working to resolve the situation.

The truth is Merriam Mountains has been one of the most intensely vetted projects to be proposed in North County in many years. Our region deserves the infrastructure improvements and jobs it will bring. And that's a fact.

KIRK EFFINGER writes from San Marcos.


