Our thanks to Kevin Rice for mentioning the Sierra Club four times in a three-paragraph letter (“Carrizo heritage site debate is a trip-wire,” May 7). He wonders why the Board of Supervisors’ refusal last year even to allow the Carrizo Plain National Monument to be considered for nomination as a World Heritage Site “is now a hot topic in the supervisor races,” and proceeds to snarl himself in a thick tangle of conspiracy theories.

It’s pretty simple. Some of the World Heritage Sites in this hemisphere are the Galapagos Islands, the Historic Center of Mexico City, Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island, Everglades National Park, the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Yosemite and Yellowstone—all of which must be, according to Mr. Rice, under “U.N. scrutiny and international enviro-leftist pressures” as a result of their World Heritage Site status. More fools they, the nations and states that compete to receive this prestigious designation and funding from the World Heritage Fund!

Why is this a hot topic again? Perhaps because the vote against it was so emblematic of a certain mindset, and because Supervisors Jerry Lenthall and Harry Ovitt, in choosing to listen to and vote in accordance with hogwash and terminate the possibility of our county receiving this honor, were accountable for their vote, and June 3 is the first opportunity to do some accounting.