I found your article regarding the State Route 24 connectors very interesting. Particularly because you quoted Troy White, the director of capital improvement projects for the city, as saying that Ellsworth Road was 10,000 cars over capacity.
Less than a year ago, during a town council meeting, a town engineer stated that Ellsworth Road was at one-third capacity. Everyone sitting there knew that this was a blatant lie but the council had him make such a statement so they could approve the Taylor Morrison housing project. The project was to consist of 452 houses located on the busiest throughfare to the 202 freeway.
It was not the only con to be made that night though. Via Del Jardin had been on town maps for many years as a street to be developed between Hawes and Ellsworth. It would have hit Ellsworth almost directly in front of the fire and police stations. The development pitted neighborhood against neighborhood.
Montelena did not want the road to be developed due to increased traffic. The Pecans wanted it developed because if it wasn't, the majority of traffic coming out of Taylor Morrison would exit right in front of their egress onto Chandler Heights.
I spoke with one of our fire department's top people before the meeting. He told me if he was asked to speak, which he thought was likely, he would advise to build the throughway because not doing so might cause deaths due to increased emergency personnel response times. The town council did not request any input from emergency services before voting.
It was obvious to a lot of us who attended the meeting that the minds of all council but one (Jake Hoffman) were already made up and that greed of additional tax money to spend would be the determining factor in the decision that day. That was the day that I lost all respect for our town council.
