If Measure M fails ...

By Howard Jones

LETTERS TO THE CONTRA COSTA TIMES

If Measure M fails ...

The Hercules City Council, if re-elected, will vote to approve Franklin Canyon development. The plunder and pillage of Franklin Canyon will start and continue until 2010, at least.

More than 3,000 old-growth trees will be cut down, plus many more smaller trees. Two-million-year-old hillsides and ridge tops will be flattened and valleys filled. The area's wildlife will be devastated.

Some 5.5 million cubic yards of earth, enough to fill 550,000 dump trucks, which if lined up circle a quarter of the globe, will be moved. The dust will be horrendous.

Construction traffic will clog highways and streets for five or six years. (Build-out is not planned until 2010.) The noise and pollution will be terrible.

The area's watersheds and creeks will be severely compromised and may be ruined for centuries.

Once built, the Franklin Canyon development alone will generate an extra 7,000 car trips a day. This is in addition to the many thousands of trips generated by the other hundreds of approved housing units and new schools that are still to be built in the next few years. The San Pablo Avenue/ Sycamore Avenue area is already clogged.

Is this what Hercules wants?

Howard Jones

Hercules