As someone who has been part of the Cold Spring Bridge Barrier Project Development Team for the past two years and the Community Committee for two years before then, I take offense at the most recent misrepresentations put forth by Friends of the Bridge in a story published last week on Noozhawk.

Friends of the Bridge continues to attach a grossly inflated dollar amount to the project. What they don’t tell you is that the figure they’re using includes administrative costs (such as design, engineering, construction support, research and environmental) that are not included when speaking about other projects.

Typically, a dollar amount refers to construction capital only. By adding these other costs (that are incurred for every project) into the equation, Friends of the Bridge is falsely bloating the dollar amount. The actual construction cost remains about $1 million.

Let’s compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges, as Friends of the Bridge is doing by purposefully misrepresenting the project’s actual budget.

Opponents have said Caltrans didn’t perform its due diligence, but that’s not the case. I would like to provide just a few examples of this.

» There have been five public hearings regarding the barrier proposal. Three of them have been held since the project has been official.

» Caltrans formed the Aesthetic Design Advisory Committee that included individuals from the Historic Landmarks Commission, Santa Barbara County Planning and Public Works, independent Design and Landscape Architects, along with Caltrans representatives from each applicable department.

The Aesthetic Design Advisory Committee was involved in every aspect of the design, including the physical testing of the aesthetic impact of all design alternatives, the choice of materials and the look of the barrier.

Every possible alternative was investigated, including safety nets, video monitoring, additional patrols, phones, signage, mental health outreach efforts and community education. Many of the aspects of the so-called “human barrier” proposal already have been incorporated into the final design, including phones, signage, increased patrols, education and outreach. But those aspects alone are not enough to save lives, as has been proven by the Golden Gate and Coronado bridges. They have phones and signs, which have done nothing to end suicides from those locations.

Change is almost always difficult. This is a precedent-breaking project and one that will save lives. Members of Friends of the Bridge are not mental health experts — so their opinions about suicidal individuals hold no legitimacy. There have been numerous studies that support the fact that restriction of means, including suicide barriers, do save lives. You can read these studies by visiting www.glendon.org. Or just listen to those people who put their own lives at risk to save another.

There are hard costs involved in rescuing a suicidal individual or recovering the deceased (the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, ambulance on standby, search and rescue, the Santa Barbara Fire Department, the Santa Barbara Police Department, the California Highway Patrol, aviation support). But perhaps the greatest cost is not measured in dollars and cents — it’s measured in the psychological trauma and emotional heartache left with the living.

Please support building a suicide barrier on Cold Spring Canyon Bridge.

— Santa Barbara resident Joni Kelly is a member of the Cold Spring Bridge Barrier Project Development Team.