‘View’ Ordinance Shortsighted

In election years, local governments are always likely to go nuts. The implications, legal and moral, in your Sept. 5 story “Right to View” are truly frightening.

If such an ordinance is passed, the courts are going to be clogged with what will amount to litigation having to do with economic impact on the wealthy, rather than justice and decency of behavior.

The “common good,” which local governments are supposed to serve, is going to take yet another back seat and the ability of individuals to solve their problems with common sense and charity will be, once again, dethroned in favor of Big Brother mandating.

Laguna Beach had traditionally been a place where sheer beauty of nature had attracted artists and those with the ability to see what God had so generously created. Landscaping should be a private affair. Concerns of how that man-made improvement affects your neighbor should be a matter of private, not public, solutions.

Elected officials could issue a proclamation affirming that universally accepted wisdom:

“Do unto others as you would wish to be done to you,” and leave the practice of that teaching to people of goodwill.

Human decency, rather than protection of real estate values, would then be encouraged and the common good would be well served.

MAIA WOJCIECHOWSKA RODMAN

Laguna Beach