Attacks on Kuperberg are politcally motivated

As a member of the Agoura Hills Planning Commission, I attended every planning commission public hearing and watched on TV every city council public hearing on the Snyder project (Oak Creek). It is clear to me that some of the recent letters in this space are just political negative attack ads disguised as letters as there is little semblance to the truth in them, and their authors have never attended a single hearing or meeting to give their input on the project.

Unfortunately, this land area was not zoned for open space; it was privately held and the zoning on that land allowed it to be developed in a number of ways—just because it was vacant did not mean it was "open space." This is a common misconception. The city doesn’t own much of the open land in Agoura Hills and doesn’t have the right to tell developers that "nothing" can ever be built on their commercially zoned property.

Based on the traffic studies, there clearly will be less traffic with this apartment/restaurant project than any of the previous development proposals, one of which included a Wal-Mart.

According to our school district, there was an estimate of less than 200 additional students to be added among the three schools. After receiving almost $1 million to compensate for those kids, the school district approved the plan. Not one school official ever sent a letter or testified against the project. That money was designed to pay for more textbooks, teachers or classrooms, to offset the new school kids.

Environmentally, this was the first project that agreed with our direction to save the two hills and almost every healthy oak tree. They agreed to properly protect Medea Creek. They responded to our conditions and those of the council.

The environmental attacks against Mayor Pro Tem Dan Kuperberg are obviously wrong—the presidents of each local environmental organization, Save Oven Space/Santa Monica Mountains, Cornell Preservation Organization and the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation endorse Dan’s reelection to the city council.

I join with Mary Wiesbrock and the others to urge you to reelect Dan Kuperberg, the most consistent slow-growth and pro-environmental member of our council.

Harry Schwarz

Planning Commissioner

Agoura Hills