Stop the Building, Preserve Coastline

There are proposals currently under consideration for the building of two 500-room hotels on the coastline of Rancho Palos Verdes.

I don’t know how or when it began, but it seems to me that there’s a crazy kind of race going on, to crowd ourselves out of existence, or at least, out of peaceful existence. There’s this frantic effort to make sure no piece of ground is vacant. Wherever there’s a vacant lot, there’s a rush to build something on it, something that will bring money and a whole lot of people, and more cars and smoke and noise.

I just don’t get it--it would seem logical that we’d all be trying desperately to hold on to what little bit of nature is left--and especially our seashore. But I get the feeling that I’m in the overwhelming minority on this, and that I’m losing the fight--losing to the “Big Three”--greed, ignorance and apathy.

When all the land along the coast has been built on, will these money-mad developers come up with a way to build giant hotels and shopping malls on the ocean itself? Don’t they wonder about these things when they’re sitting in a sea of stop-and-go traffic on Hawthorne Boulevard, breathing exhaust fumes and going nowhere? Don’t any of them have grandchildren, and don’t they want to preserve some of this earth and ocean and air for them? Am I all alone in this? Why should I have to persuade my City Council to keep what we’ve got left the way it is?

Is there something I’m missing here? Are there those among us who like crowds, and smog, and noise, and traffic, and concrete buildings everywhere there’s room to build one? Maybe these are the people who drive diesel cars and foul up my air, because they think they’re going to save $26 a year, and the hell with me?

Look--those of us who are lucky enough to live in one of the few remaining areas with a little natural beauty should be doing everything we can to ensure that it stays this way--we owe it to our grandchildren.

The money we leave them won’t mean much if they can’t get to the ocean or even see it, let alone swim in it.

Enough already with this craziness--with the building, building, building. No hotels!

DONALD B. BROWN

Rancho Palos Verdes

PS: If anybody agrees with me, get in touch with Save Our Coastline, Box 3221, Palos Verdes 90274.