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Beverly Hills has come up with a new reason as to why we shouldn't expand the Purple Line through their dainty city: ISIS will murder their children. There was some concern this week over a possible terrorist threat after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi reportedly told journalists at the UN that Iraqi intelligence had learned of an ISIS plot to attack subways in Paris and the U.S. However, government officials later said that this was not an immediate threat, and that they didn't know what al-Abadi was talking about, CNN reports.
But in Beverly Hills, the terror alert is at red, and the only thing we can do to stop it is to thwart Metro's plans to build a tunnel beneath Beverly Hills High School to the Constellation station in Century City. A fear-mongering article in the Beverly Hills Courier alleges that the Purple Line running beneath Beverly Hills High is a direct invitation to terrorists to attack.
"Add terrorism to the list of woes future Beverly Hills High School students may have to deal with if the L.A. Metropolitan Transportation Authority doesn't shift course on plans to run two subway tunnels beneath the City's only high school."
Think of the children! The rich children!
Superintendent Gary Woods was especially concerned, but you have to skip to page 19 'Subway Threat' to find out why. There, you'll learn it's because, as Whitney Houston told us, the children are our future. And if someone were to attack those children "then in essence, they're attacking the core of our being, of our culture."
The article went on to fearmonger a little more, while acknowledging two very valid points: the construction on the Purple Line hasn't even started in Beverly Hills, and the threat of ISIS has not been confirmed. However, Board of Education President Noah Margo says that just because neither of these things has happened, it doesn't mean they won't. The Purple Line running beneath the school is set for 2026 and the ISIS attack is set for possibly never, but we're talking about a world with infinite possibilities here.
By expanding the Purple Line beneath the high school, Margo says "we may then be eligible to join an elite group of international cities with easily accessible targets that will result in larger catastrophes. In this case, our student population."
Margo goes on to say that, "In the mind of a terrorist, placing a subway directly under a high school is like pushing a baby stroller into rush hour traffic."
BHHS has already squandered $3.1 million in voter-approved bond money trying to the fight the Purple Line. In their arguments against the Purple Line, they've brought up terrorism before, along with methane gas pockets that might explode into giant fireballs and incinerate everyone. It was a good try, Beverly Hills, trying to exploit a global threat in which a brutal terrorist group is beheading people so that you could push forth your own NIMBY agenda, but you've fooled no one.
[h/t Curbed LA]
