Nice people aren’t always the best leaders

Cindy Penney

I enjoyed reading the Sheran James letter praising the members of the

Design Review Board (“Design Review members work hard,” Coastline

Pilot, Aug. 27).

It was a brave, yet significantly lonely voice extolling the

collective personal attributes of this much-respected and highly

revered administrative body. I found, however, the thrust of the

argument to be somewhat faulty. I am aware of no one who has alleged

the members of design review were paragons of virtue, selflessly

sacrificing themselves on the altar of civic duty, clean living and

kind to their mothers.

These traits, which most will agree provide good candidates for

sainthood, do not necessarily make good candidates for an unelected

municipal board invested with the power to determine the property

rights of residents appearing before them. One may be decent, honest

and kind yet still make arbitrary, subjective and nonanalytical

decisions. This is probably why Jimmy Carter was a one-term

president.

No matter how one wishes to canonize our local icons, we live in a

civil society based on the equal application of laws and

consideration for community values. In this particular community the

values of the property and the environment in which that property

exists are precious concerns and rightly so.

We have a justifiable expectation that when we are required to

state our case before the city bureaucracy that we will receive a

fair, unbiased and objective assessment of the issues in play and

sound reasoning to support the decisions that result. Residents of

this city attending these hearings in good faith and with issues of

concern felt not to be previously nor adequately addressed, ought, at

a minimum, receive an educated response, not a specious and off-point

harangue accusing them of opposing public safety such as was given to

the first item of the agenda on Aug. 26.

Vague generalizations and over-simplification of competing

contentions serve no one and have no place in a participatory

democracy. Much of the antipathy directed toward this board is

probably provoked by he ham-handed attitude with which they apply

some of their questionable judgments. We all live in the same small

an singularly beautiful lifeboat. There are better ways to protect it

than simply beating off a rabbit with a paddle.

* CINDY PENNEY is a Laguna Beach resident.