As if the Stop The Toll Road campaign could get any weirder, now the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council is charging that the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association is spreading untruths about the project and that “the lies being perpetrated by the opponents to this project are costing the region hundreds of jobs at a time when the economy is already in peril.”
R 241 opponents, specifically the Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club’s Friends of the Foothills, are using SIMA resources to repeatedly assert false claims that the toll road will cause the closure of the San Mateo campground and damage the surf break at Trestles,” said Trades Council Executive Secretary Richard Slawson. “Their assertions are nonsense. Even a noted researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography has studied the project and determined that it will have no impact on surfing or wave formation. . . . According to the LA/OC CBCTC, rather than helping the environment and protecting surfing locations, they are engaged in a smear campaign that manipulates and distorts the facts in an effort to stop a project that has been studied for more than 20 years, will bring much needed traffic relief to the region and provide hundreds of jobs for the local workforce.
The group is threatening a boycott of products by SIMA members Billabong, Hurley, Nixon, O’Neill, Quiksilver, Vans, and Volcom saying:
We value integrity in public debate and recognize differences of opinion. However, our members will not continue to support companies who knowingly sponsor groups who seek to lie or misinform the public.
We hate new roads no matter where they are going or what impact they have, but it is interesting to see how the other side is spinning it. For the entire letter follow the jump.
[Link: MarketWatch]
August 19, 2008
Surf Industry Manufacturers Association
8 Argonaut, Suite 170
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
Re: SIMA Sponsored Misinformation on SR 241 — Consumer Retail Purchases of Surf Apparel Eliminating Jobs and Harming Regional Economic Growth
Dear Surf Industry Manufacturers Association:
The Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council represents affiliated construction Unions whose membership exceeds 130,000 Craftsmen and Women in the Construction Industry.
On behalf of all affiliated Craft Unions/Councils of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Constructions Trades, we request that SIMA correct the public record and halt its sponsorship of groups such as Sierra Club’s Friends of the Foothills and the Surfrider Foundation, who are actively engaged in a misinformation campaign against the completion of State Route (SR) 241.
According to your web site, a SIMA fundraiser is currently scheduled for August 21st-22nd at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Bay to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for a variety of environmental causes. A significant portion of these proceeds will be used by two recipient organizations “exclusively for litigation and legal activities battling the expansion of the 241-toll road” and “dedicated to the fight to save Trestles.”
Money and support provided by SIMA members like Billabong, Hurley, Nixon, O’Neill, Quiksilver, VANS and VOLCOM is being utilized by activists to continually mislead the public about the SR 241 project and the impact on surfing resources at San Onofre State Beach and Trestles. We value integrity in public debate and recognize differences of opinion. However, our members will not continue to support companies who knowingly sponsor groups who seek to lie or misinform the public.
Profits from your member companies are being used in a misinformation campaign to eliminate our members’ jobs, harm our region’s economic growth and reduce coastal access for our working families.
The fundraiser you are holding this week to benefit anti-toll road activists on August 21st-22nd causes us great concern. It raises a serious question whether or not the hundreds of thousands of labor families in southern California should continue to enrich SIMA member companies with retail purchases of surf apparel that is in-turn being used to harm our future.
To protect the integrity of the public debate, SIMA should take immediate action to publicly address the ongoing misinformation about the road’s alleged impacts on the surfing resources of San Onofre State Beach and the Trestles surf break; and take immediate action to disqualify both of these organizations from receiving new grants in 2008 if they cannot pledge to tell the truth.
Please let us know ASAP if SIMA intends to continue to raise and provide funds to misinform the public about Trestles.
Sincerely,
Jim Adams,
Council Representative
SOURCE: The Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council
For The Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building
and Construction Trades Council
Richard Slawson, 213-483-4222
