A Footbridge Too Far?
The Public Requests a Footbridge to the UCSB North Campus Open Space
At its last meeting, the California Coastal Commission spent a large part of a day considering the case of Dr. Warren Lent. Dr. Lent has a house on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Adjacent to the house there is a public access to the beach, which Dr. Lent has kept barred with a locked gate. A lobster fisherman told the commission that, because of this, he has to walk a mile or so along the beach to reach the best location for lobster fishing, which he claimed is close to Dr. Lent’s house. The commissioners then debated among themselves for a considerable time what punishment to impose on Dr. Lent, eventually settling on a $4.2 million dollar fine.
Bear with me.
They then went on to consider the UCSB NCOS (North Campus Open Space) project. I had asked the commission, on behalf of local residents, to require the university to build a footbridge as a condition for approval of the project. This footbridge would allow local residents to continue to have direct access to the open space, as they have enjoyed for the past 50 years; 165 of them signed a petition in support.
