Smell of politics

I smell politics in the city manager's autocratic decision to install a traffic signal at Mulholland Highway and Old Topanga without public input. The city's safety claims are totally unsupported by the sheriff's actual accident reports for that intersection.

So why install a $200,000 signal? Because parents from Viewpoint School, God bless them, are delayed at the intersection between two and five minutes during their morning drop-off and afternoon pickup.

Guess who else is sometimes inconvenienced: certain City Council members. Public Works director Robert Yalda can be seen in the video of the April 24 traffic commission session remarking that, "Actually we do have council members that drive this corridor that they continuously report to us the delays." Councilmen Barry Groveman and Jonathan Wolfson both live up the Mulholland corridor from there. Was Yalda referring to them, or whom?

This is the very gateway to Headwaters Corner and Wild Walnut Park, and, of course, the Santa Monica Mountains. More than 85 local residents have put their names on a petition against the signal. Phyllis Garvin Calabasas