TEMECULA RESIDENT'S LETTER RE QUARRY

North County Times    Monday, August 22, 2011

FORUM: Thank you, Granite Construction

• By Mike Jurkosky 

We're the closest Temecula resident west of the Liberty Quarry industrial site. Our property has been our family's sanctuary since 1956. We'd like to thank Granite Construction. Maybe others feel the same?
We thank you for:

• Taking years of sacrifice to escape urban blight, only to have you drag it back onto our doorstep.

• The anguish bestowed on our family since 2005: for turning cherished country property adjoining a ecological reserve, into undesirable property nearest a monstrous rock quarry, with only an application.

• Your smaller footprint: like the new kid on the block promising to hit you in the stomach instead of the face, and expecting gratitude.

• The 75-year pit of insecurity to the Royal Oak valley's water table and to the pristine stream feeding local wells, that will later flow beside Granite's moonscape of ammonium nitrate and petroleum pollutants.

• Blasting our nirvana to impose yours. Old houses can be replaced, but not the tranquility, the pure water and air, the wildness of the land, or the hundreds of grand oaks.

• Your "friends" demonizing local residents as selfish elitists, dangerous NIMBYs, or radical environmentalists. When did "ordinary families wanting to move to cleaner, safer neighborhoods for their families" become a dirty word? When Granite arrived.

• Implying Granite is the savior of all the county's economic woes, yet jeopardizing already established bases of tax revenue and livelihoods.

• Your Caltrans contracts, which are fulfilled at night.

• Forcing the community to research your EIR (Environmentally Incompetent Report) to protect themselves ---- a report concocted for those needing an excuse.

• For the fond memories of the Old Temecula Valley.

Thanks for your humorous jokes:

• Liberty Quarry will make the area greener! ---- I guess the SMER's flora and fauna count will explode!
• There will be more jobs and fewer trucks on the road ---- funny things, those oxymoron's.
• Granite's trucks will head south, making the air cleaner. ---- Ha! Granite refusing northern contracts? Loaded trucks will reverse direction through the county.
• What's at the end of a Rainbow? ---- A major trucking hub making the area greener!
• How does Granite pay a mistaken $2,223 overcharge for fire cleanup? With a $400,000 check.
• How do you make the Royal Oak Valley residents disappear? Use an incorrect Riverside County Staff Report showing our area is vacant, ignore the San Diego side, and allude that there's nothing west of the site at public meetings, though at the same time attempting to get onto our property or into our drinking water. Suspicious behavior is not welcome on our property.

Granite informed us that noise at our rural home (which has been tested subsequently to be at 30 decibels) exceeds the county's threshold (45 decibels) and that's why Granite needs the "Noise Ordinance Exemption," not because Liberty Quarry would exceed the standard! Though Granite will raise the standard through rezoning (75 decibels) and a "Noise Ordinance Exemption" (allowing constant industrial noise), legalizing noise blight.
Silent noise blight. That's good schtick! Reminds me of the Jon Lovitz character on old "Saturday Night Live" episodes: "Yeah, that's the ticket!"
Thanks, "Good Neighbor."

Mike Jurkosky is a Temecula resident.