MONTEREY, Calif.- The fight to keep Monterey Salinas Transit out of the former Fort Ord gets heated. A crowd overflowed Monday's MST board meeting to protest where it plans to build a new transit centerm, even demanding the CEO resign.
We've been telling you about the Whispering Oaks project controversy for months. Central Coast News was at the meeting where the opposition made a last ditch push to stop the project before the decision is decided on by voters.
"I drive past it everyday and I saw the first sign go up it must be 5 or 6 years ago now, and I was pretty surprised."
Fred Watson is an ecology teacher at Cal State Monterey Bay. He said the Whispering Oaks project is a hypocritical environmental lesson for his students.
"It's almost like saying well it's not working now so you should switch to a law school instead of an environmental school because people are ignoring your environmental information; we don't want to do that, we want to lead by example," said Watson.
Almost a hundred people showed up at the meeting to protest the new transportation center. Fred was one of them. He didn't go to represent CSUMB, but his students and his children. He's lived in the Fort Ord community for 13 years.
"'What is your ideal image 13 years from now?' 13 years from now, every bit of Fort Ord that is currently wild is still wild and even more of a national icon for recreation and open space preservation...And all the bits that are currently concrete and buildings, we redevelop."
Watson said where MST should be focusing are areas that were already developed by the former Fort Ord like at the Marina Dunes shopping center.
But Monterey Salinas Transit said it has the right to build on that part of Fort Ord because it's part of the re-use plan. If MST is forced to move locations it wouldn't have to start from scratch.
"This type of facility can be built in a multitude of locations you just have to find a location that has abour 25 acres of land contiguous in a rectangular shape and that's the issue," said assistant general manager Hunter Harvath.
That's exactly what Watson and others want done, "I don't know who owns what and what's planned for what...But there's got to be something like 5,000 acres of parking lots and concrete and old buildings that we want to get rid of and we want to use," said Watson.
In June, opponents of the project got enough signatures to put the project before Monterey County voters. It could still be pulled if MST or Monterey County Supervisors decide to take it off the ballot.
The Whispering Oaks project is on Tuesday's board of supervisors meeting. It starts at 9am at 168 West Alisal Street in Salinas.
