From the Monterey County Herald
Serving Monterey County and the Salinas Valley

February 27, 2005

L E T T E R S

Editor:

Thank you for your recent news coverage regarding the efforts of the Pebble Beach Co. to recruit support from Coastal Commission members for their plans to chop down 20,000 Monterey Pine trees and destroy unique endangered, world-famous forest habitat that is home to numerous rare plants and animals in pursuit of more golf.

The fact that members of the Coastal Commission, who will be called upon to "evaluate" the PBC plan, are hanging out with and accepting favors from celebrity PBC owner Clint Eastwood should send off alarm bells for anyone hoping for an independent review process.And the hypocrisy doesn't end with PBC co-owner telling the Coastal Commission, "I am not a developer." It turns out that just as their plan to decimate the last intact Monterey Pine forest is being unfurled, Clint Eastwood is quoted in the new book, "Gods and Monsters" (by Peter Biskind, Nation Books, 2005), saying he once stopped his daughter from stepping on a cockroach. Eastwood says, "I don't like killing. I never saw the sport in removing a life from the planet."

Now we've heard it all. The man who couldn't kill a cockroach merely wants to liquidate the finest coastal Monterey Pine forests left in existence, and all the plants,trees, animals and wetlands living there. For golf. May the Coastal Commission save us from Clint Eastwood's compassion.

Mark Massera
Director, Sierra Club Coastal Programs