Diverting Attention From the Issues

A lawyer’s adage goes: “If the law is on your side, argue the law. If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If neither is on your side, attack your opponents.”

Already, it has become clear that proponents of the super-luxury hotel proposed by Michael McCarty for the public parkland parcel at 415 Pacific Coast Highway prefer option three. It’s still months before the election--and personal attacks are being launched weekly from the McCarty camp.

I find it disturbing that McCarty’s supporters and staff wish to reduce the level of debate to character assassination. This they have done in every forum--from council hearings to the press to public meetings to the city’s PEN network.

They have also seen fit to rewrite history.

Thus, Sharon Gilpin’s 17 years of community activism (from Save the Pier in the ‘70s to Save Our Beach in the ‘90s) is dismissed, and she is trashed as a “hired hack.”

Thus, Doug Badt’s 30 years of commitment to charitable, educational and community projects is dismissed, and he is trashed as a “greedy developer.”

Thus, Tom Hayden’s impassioned speech at City Council in favor of environmental health, fiscal prudence and managed growth is dismissed. And, because he sipped wine with his supper, he is trashed as being “drunk as a skunk.”

In my 17 years of Santa Monica residency, I have rarely seen such a coordinated display of viciousness as McCarty and friends have directed against their selected targets.

And the pity of it is that important issues are at stake: the appropriate use of state parkland; the intensifying commercialization of our public beaches; the balance between revenue generation and environmental viability; the negative impacts of runaway development on our city’s straining infrastructure; the tax bill we all pay as multiple demands on city services outstrip budgetary constraints; the effects of commercial growth on Santa Monica’s residential character.

It’s apparent that the McCarty camp prefers to blindside the public with name-calling, innuendo and slander. Anything to divert attention from the substantive issues we will vote on in November.

DR. GERALDINE MOYLE

Santa Monica