The High Drama of Tall Shrubbery

Last year, Santa Monica’s City Council decided to enforce a 60-year-old forgotten statute. Hedges over 40 some inches, it was found, were illegal. This was a surprise to all of us in Santa Monica, who see vast hedges everywhere.

A council meeting was called at which furious and tearful residents pleaded that the ordinance be discarded. The hedges, the residents testified, were traditional, beautiful, historical, healthful. They afforded privacy, they cleaned the air, they harmed no one. Why, oh why was the Council intent on their destruction?

This is a very good dramatic premise.

Now, at the meeting, the drama really kicks in. The Council, strapped for money, as are all organizations, had hired a consultant to comb through the city statutes and find those whose more stringent enforcement might generate revenue.

The Experts found the ancient hedge ordinance, and the Council sent out notices to the offenders: Cut down your hedges or be billed $25,000 for each day of non-compliance. A bit heavy-handed? Well, yes.

Tears and screams and pleas at the meeting. Now, to this point the Council was acting in a legitimate, understandable, if regrettably blunt, fashion. Its duty was to administer the city, the city was going broke, it endeavored to raise revenue.

But at the meeting the drama ticked over into Act Two. The Council’s Wise Experts testified that the hedge ordinance existed for safety reasons -- and were that not enough, that it also existed to afford pedestrians an unimpeded view of their neighbor’s property.

These reasons, though inventive, were specious; and, more important, dramatically, they were needless. The Council only need have said: “We’re enforcing the ordinance because we need the money -- if you worthies can find a better way to raise money for our city, you do it.”

Had the Council responded truthfully, the discussion could have been carried out without rancor, perhaps along these lines:

Tens of thousands of cubic yards of plant waste would be created by enforcement. Who is to pay for its cartage and disposal?

Lawsuits by individuals, consortiums and environmental groups are going to play havoc with the Santa Monica treasury.

Thus:

Raising money = good idea. Raising money this way is a loser. Let us, Council and Citizens, put our heads together and raise some money by other means.

(This model is familiar to all; we’ve seen it in the PTA.) But council members, for reasons best known to themselves, chose the more elaborate way and put forward false premises: safety and the right to public viewing.

Oh no, responded the afflicted; safety ordinances exist elsewhere and any citizen requesting relief from offending structures may cite them. As to the “right to public viewing,” it is interesting hogwash. There is no right to public viewing of private premises -- the very idea is un-American.

As Act Two progresses, the Council is in a difficult position of its own devising. Having uttered magic phrases, the members, like you and I, have come to believe them. Now, they also have their position to protect. How can the Council, with a loser-by-the-tail, retreat in dignity? They don’t want to enforce the hedge ordinance (such enforcement and resultant litigation would cost the city a mint, cost many council members their jobs, and, in the inevitable publicity, indict the whole lot of us as figures of fun), and most citizens don’t want to enforce the hedge ordinance. How To Move On?

Act Three.

Here, an inspired person would come up with a Compromise Solution. The Council would not have to admit its factitious behavior, the city would get to keep its beautiful hedges, and we could go back to the real problems of raising money. A grandfather clause is always a good idea, which will occur to all. The jolly experts who kicked over the hive in the first place will probably suggest some incomprehensible “formula,” causing more expense.

In the Fantasy Drama, however, (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” etc.), the Little Child might come forward, into the melee of elected and electors at each others’ throats, and suggest, “Why don’t we just rip out the page that has the bad law on it?”

[Note: The council will discuss the hedge issue again on Tuesday.]